FACEIT club holds bake sale for Autism Awareness Day
STORY BY KATE WOODS
Sheridan College’s FACEIT club held a bake sale on Wednesday for Autism Awareness Day to raise campus awareness about autism.
FACEIT stands for Friends Accepting Challenges and Endeavoring to Improve Themselves.
“The club is to help students in the autism spectrum,” said Janice Galloway, a learning strategist with the Accessible Learning Centre, which supports the club.
“We help them build social and communication skills.”
Galloway says they also discuss the difficulties that students with autism face in school. The most common problems are understanding instructions from teachers and controlling their anxiety and stress levels in the classroom.
Teachers are asked to try to be clear in their instructions to help the students understand better.
“They also feel isolated in the classroom. They have a hard time making friends,” said Galloway.
Sheridan offers accommodations for students with autism and other learning disabilities, including extended time on tests and assignments, taking tests in a separate room and use of a computer for note taking and test writing.
Autism is a developmental disability and early signs occur in the first two years of life.
According to autismcanada.org, some of the signs a child is developing autism are: Begins to develop language then loses it or doesn’t acquire language at all, no interest in playing with other children, limited imaginative play, failure to bond, appears deaf, and responds unevenly or not at all to sounds.
A difficulty people with autism face after finishing school is finding a job.
Galloway says it can be because they could get upset and overreact about something at work, or be unable to deal with customers, because they communicate differently.
“We take the students on outings to public places to try and help them develop these social skills,” said Galloway.
Mickey Mounes, a second-year student in Sheridan’s General Arts and Science University profile who is also a member of FACEIT, says the club has helped him and other club members improve their social and education skills.
“The club has helped bring students with autism together to improve themselves,” he said.
