My name is Emma, I’m 10 years, in 5th grade, and my mom is an Autism Specialist and her business is Developing Minds.
In 4th grade I was in an inclusion class with 3 children with special needs. Seeing my mother’s work gave me the idea to observe how different the atmosphere was in my fourth grade class than in all of my previous classes. As I observed I realized that the children without special needs interacted with the children with special needs a lot more than I had seen them interact out of school or when they stayed in Special Education classes. Then I realized those three kids benefited the other children just by being in the classroom, and I think it benefited the three of them too by being around other children and making friends that they would get to interact with every school-day and build relationships.
What I wasn’t expecting is how much those children benefited me. They did this by almost always having a positive mindset even with their challenges and that taught me and my classmates to do the same. I think that the other children learned something that I had also learned over and over again and I’m still learning. Although they are different, they see and feel everything that we do, they just do it differently. I feel like I have heard and seen this quote about a million times “A Person’s a Person no matter how small” but I would like to make a change“A Person’s a Person no matter how they look, how they act, or how individually different they are”.