 
NORTH ADAMS — A veteran special education teacher has penned a book she hopes will help teachers and students better understand children diagnosed with autism and autism spectrum disorders.
Sullivan Elementary School third-grade teacher Anna Saldo-Burke, who has worked with special education students inside and outside of the regular classroom for 27 years, said the book, “Green Mittens Covered Her Ears: A Look at Autism,” is based on her lifelong friendship with autistic Williamstown artist Jessica Park. Now in her 50s, Park is nationally known for her brightly-colored architectural renderings.
“At the beginning of each school year, I read a book about tolerance and not taking people at face value to my class to set the tone for the year,” Saldo-Burke said Wednesday during an interview at Sullivan. “But I’ve never had a book about this subject. Autism is on the rise, and children are having more and more exposure to children with the diagnosis.”
Autism is a developmental disability affecting verbal and non-verbal communication and social interaction, that varies in intensity with each individual.
“What is different about autism is that it’s not visibly evident as other disabilities, such as needing to use a wheelchair. These children look ‘normal,’ so their abnormal behaviors and coping strategies are more evident,” she said. “We as a society must look beyond the obvious.
There are a whole realm of reasons behind the things these children do. Many of them will rock — not just for the sake of repetition, but because they need the motion to help calm them down.”
Many children with the diagnosis of autism or autism spectrum disorder often have sensory sensitivity issues, she said.
“Sometimes the child might look like they’re ignoring you, but in fact they’re not even hearing you,” Saldo-Burke said. “Other times they need stimulation to keep them focused. It’s very individualized. As a teacher, my goal is for all of my students to succeed. Sometimes that requires a teacher to look beyond the obvious and find that a disability can translate into success in another area.”
Saldo-Burke and her twin sister, Diane, first met Park as children. Over the years, they would interact with her at school — sharing classroom space in an art room and eventually becoming tutors and summer companions.
“When Jessica’s parents went to the shore for the summer, we would go with them as companions,” she said.
With the belief that Park’s disability wasn’t an excuse, the sisters pushed her to let go of some of her rituals, including covering her ears with her hands, rocking in doorways, avoiding saying her own name and compulsively sifting through “plastics” that she kept in a kitchen pot.
“People with disabilities have to adjust — they still have to do certain things that we have to do, but we have to help them,” she said. “Jessica had a positive reward system for doing certain things. We just added a negative point system for behaviors that needed to change. We were young and quite naive at the time. We didn’t know what we were doing was going to help Jessica in the way it did. We didn’t know what we were doing was desensitizing her — we had no sense of failure. It just made sense to us.”
Since then, Saldo-Burke has developed vocational and life skills programs for children with Downs syndrome and autism within the North Adams Public Schools, eventually taking an elementary school teaching position after laws changed and special education students were returned to the regular classrooms.
“I wrote this book for youth, but believe it has a wide appeal,” she said. “I think it will help many adults, including teaching students, who have very limited exposure to these types of students. I think its also very helpful for families who have just received a diagnosis.”
“Green Mittens Covered Her Ears: A Look At Autism” is available at Papyri Books in North Adams, Water Street Books in Williamstown, the Bookloft in Great Barrington, Book House in Albany, N.Y., and online at Amazon.com.
For more information, visit www.lookatautism.com.
To reach Jennifer Huberdeau,
e-mail jhuberdeau@thetranscript.com.
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