Friday Knights with Autistic Children

Many students around the campus are special education majors. They like to help kids who have special needs and they try to help those kids show their talents in the classroom and achieve their goals in the best possible way. This past Friday, there was opportunity for all of the students, and not only the special education majors, to work with autistic kids. Autism is a neuro developmental disorder characterized by impaired social interaction, verbal and non-verbal communication, and restricted and repetitive behavior. Rania Alalet who is a graduate student here at Saint Rose and studies special education for her masters is one of the students who participates in this program. “I had always had a passion to help kids who have special needs. My uncle has mild autism and I really love him. He was my inspiration to continue my education in special education. This program helps me to be in touch with autistic kids more often and get more experience for my future job”. Rania Alalet said this in response to why she decided to join Friday knights program.
On the other hand, not only special education majors participate in this program, many science majors like to have an experience working with autistic kids. Mardia Williams who is a biochemistry major and teaches dance to autistic kids said. “I always like to dance in my free time to get away from the stress of my major. I like to share my talent in dancing with those kids. Many of them showed enthusiasm and that makes me very happy”. Another person who I decided to interview is Kliment Ziko, who is also biochemistry major. “I decided to do Friday Knights because I love to teach. The first day I was very surprised by how smart the kids were. Many of them are geniuses and understood math at high school level when they are 8 or 9. These kids are the future innovators of society and I’m proud to be able to inspire them to learn”.
In general I think this Friday Knights program is a very good opportunity for volunteering. I hope you gained insight of the experience by reading this blog post.