A speech/language and autism specialist is back in the Cook Islands after six years since her last visit in 2019, conducting sessions with school teachers and teacher aides from five different schools, and parents.

During her 10 days visit, Hannah Perry will be managing two separate sessions. The first session will focus on identifying what is relevant for the child that teachers are working with and get a really clear understanding of how the teachers capitalise on their strengths to enhance learning. 

The main focus will be working on communication, social interaction, flexibility and senses.

Perry started her first session with two schools on Monday, Apii Te Uki Ou and Apii Nikao.

It included a discussion on the general knowledge of autism, where she shared her understanding with teachers. Following this, she discussed educating teachers on how to help children with autism learn new skills.

Yesterday, Perry conducted the first session with Nukutere College, Apii Avarua and Apii Takitumu.

Speaking to Cook Islands News, Perry shared the main focus of yesterday’s session with Nukutere College.

“We know that while there might be some features that are common across kids with autism, every child is unique and individual, and so it’s by focusing on their strengths, their unique characteristics, and their interests that we can actually help to best teach them.”

The second group of teachers/teacher aides sharing how their students with autism communicate. TEITIMOANA TAIRI/25050614

During her session, Perry had teachers participate in a few activities to improve their knowledge of educating students with autism.

The teachers worked on how their students communicate, then shared their findings with the rest of the group and Perry.

Shemaiah Boaza, a teacher from Nukutere College, shared that her student tends to listen to other people’s conversations and share them, which often leads to gossip.

According to Petio George, her student loves to share what they have done during break or over the weekends with the rest of the class, whereas for Judy Teingoa, her student doesn’t talk a lot, which is common amongst people with autism.

Sidney Fimone works with some non-verbal students, and he has observed that they make progress by using short sentences. For example, Fimone notes that his students communicate more effectively with one another through sign language or hand gestures

“If we work with those and progress to teach them more new signs and words, they learn to be more interactive and learn to communicate better,” Fimone said.

According to Perry, children with autism have very few words to say or they don’t speak at all, however, in most cases they are actually communicating intentionally to try and send a message.

“Sometimes it’s about changing what we do to ensure that communication is successful, that we’re picking up the message that they’re expressing in a variety of different ways.”