A San Benito High School club pairs general education students
with those who have a developmental disorder that makes social
interaction a struggle, such as those with an autism spectrum
disorder. The students enjoy lunch together, exchange phone numbers
and set up activities outside of school.
Circle of Friends – the Path to Inclusion is a social club with a goal.
The San Benito High School club pairs general education students with those who have a developmental disorder that makes social interaction a struggle, such as those with an autism spectrum disorder. The students enjoy lunch together, exchange phone numbers and set up activities outside of school.
Kyrsten Campbell, a senior, signed up for the pilot program last May.
“I had a hard time trying to meet new friends,” Campbell said, during a lunch meeting of the club this week. “I didn’t realize how nice the people would be. It helped build up my confidence.”
Campbell has high-functioning autism.
Through the program, Campbell is paired up with Veronica Johnson, also a senior, and two of Johnson’s friends. The group eats lunch together a couple times a week and exchanged phone numbers to keep in touch.
“A couple of them took me out for ice cream,” Campbell said.
Johnson, too, remembers the trip to the ice cream parlor, adding that it was nice to spend time with Campbell off campus.
Her jokes are really funny,” said Johnson, who is president of the club this year.
Casandra Guerrero, a speech and language specialist at San Benito High School, launched the club last year in May with the pilot program.
“I’d been going to a lot of training in autism and teaching social skills,” she said.
One of the recent findings in the National Standards Project, a report that identifies established practices that are shown to work with autism, was that students needed to take what they practice in therapy settings outside the classroom.
“They have to be able to use them and need to practice in a natural environment,” Guerrero said. “Practicing in a therapy setting isn’t sufficient to transfer it to a real-life setting.”
The Circle of Friends program was started by Barbara Palilis, who uses a technique of pairing up two to three general education students per student with a disability. There are 35 chapters in California and two in Oregon.
In the pilot program, Guerrero recruited eight students with special needs and 30 general education students. For this year, she wanted to expand.
“I had about 30 students with special needs that I wanted to build circles around,” she said. “The general education students sign up with friends so there are two to three per group. They have a support group if they don’t know what to say in a situation.”
Guerrero recruited more than 100 general education students for this year by going to leadership classes, doing presentations in other classes and through word of mouth from other teachers.
“At first, I didn’t get the response I wanted,” she said. “I did the Club Day and had students stand up in class … I had a big group meeting and didn’t get the turnout.”
Look for the full story in the Pinnacle on Friday.
