The month of April has the wonderful distinction of being Autism Awareness Month, and today, April 2^nd, is World Autism Day. Autism is a neurological disorder that disrupts a person’s learning and socialization. While it affects over 1.5 million people in the U.S., it’s considered a ‘spectrum’ disorder because the characteristics vary from person to person.

Children with autism tend to have stronger visual-spatial skills and weaker verbal abilities so many of the teaching strategies that work well for visual learners, also work well with autistic students. Over the years we’ve had many students with autism in our Young Rembrandts’ classrooms and we’ve seen them thrive because our drawing classes are a highly visual activity with limited verbal instruction. Learning to draw is also a form of controlled communication, which provides students the opportunity to share themselves with others.

Young Rembrandts and BetteFetter.com are honored to work with and celebrate April as Autism Awareness Month and we look forward to sharing more visual teaching strategies for autistic students.

Here are more of my blog posts about children and Autism:

Learning Styles: Temple Grandin and Autism

Teaching Math without Words: A Visual Approach to Learning Math through Software

Being Visual for Autistic Students

Bette Fetter Founder and CEO of Young Rembrandts and Author of Being Visual [email protected] Follow Bette on Twitter