As a teacher, it is inevitable to encounter several students in your classroom. The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism discusses how a child with autism sees the world. This text is an enlightening experience for educators and family/friends that allows for further understanding of the behaviors of a student with autism. In our course we talked a lot about the differences in how educators teach children and the multitude of students we will teach. We also discussed the fact that, as educators, we cannot simply teach all children the same way, but must tailor our teaching to each individual student. Naoki Higashida reiterates this point in his novel. My initial interest in this book came from a student I had with autism this past school year who experienced a lot of what Higashida talks about in his book and I wanted to gain a better understanding of students like him in the future. As a teacher, it is critical that I take the time to gain knowledge on how to best educate each child. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Naoki Higashida is an extraordinary thirteen-year-old boy who talks about his strengths and weaknesses as a child living with autism. It gives the reader his perspective on his thought process, daily life, and gives the reader an explanation as to why he behaves differently than others. Higashida addresses common behaviors that people often wonder about when encountering a person with autism. It allows others to know his perception of the world and how his actions often cause problems between a person with autism and a person without this disability. For example, Higashida explains the reasons why a person with autism may not make eye contact with other people during a conversation and how this is not disrespectful to him but is sometimes perceived this way. This text is written in the form of an interview, in which Naoki provides thoughtful answers to questions that people without disabilities often want answered. Throughout the book, the author describes everyday life through stories and anecdotal experiences. Higashida is well aware of how he functions differently than others, which led me to wonder if other people with autism have his metacognition. As I read this book, I thought about how much autism varies and wondered whether the answers given by a different student with autism would vary much or not at all. By reading this novel, I was able to gain more insight into how to better help students like Naoki succeed in my classroom. It is clear to Naoki that he is not like his peers and is not developing at the same rate as his classmates. . According to the Woolfolk text (2019), a child of Naoki's age should be in the identity/role confusion stage of psychosocial development developed by Erik Erikson. At this stage it is important for the child to maintain and develop relationships with peers. Children at this age are developing abstract thinking and understanding the perspectives of others. While many of Naoki's colleagues are entering this stage of development, Naoki has not yet reached that point. It's probably in the industry versus inferiority phase. Naoki is still learning to trust adults, act autonomously in situations, and initiate his own actions (Higashida 2017). The challenge in Naoki's current stage of psychosocial development is to work on developing more complex relationships with his ownpeers, as well as risking bankruptcy. For a child with autism, it is important that his or her educator or parent helps him or her develop these skills to help him or her move to the next stage of psychosocial development. There are several ways to support this development in children like Naoki; encourage the student to make and act on choices, provide support for students who seem discouraged, and give students a chance to show their independence from teacher support. Another important topic of the book is that Naoki often talks about feeling alone and not having the sense that other people really have a sense of who he truly is beyond his disability, many of his peers avoid him due to his autism . The interviewer then asks Naoki why people with autism often exclude themselves from playing with others. Naoki states that he doesn't like being alone, but that he feels like his actions cause problems for others and get on their nerves, so that's why he separates himself from others (Higashida, 2017). As Woolfolk (2019) mentions in her text, student-teacher relationships have a great effect on student success. With a student like Naoki, it is vital to his education to build a strong relationship with him so that he feels understood and validated. As Naoki's teacher, I would spend time getting to know him on a personal level outside of his academic progress and learning needs, which I believe would help him feel more comfortable in the school environment with others. I would also encourage conversations between Naoki and his peers, so they can find things in common and ultimately create a relationship. This would help Naoki feel more comfortable at school and less lonely, as he mentioned. In addition to being able to build relationships with other students, a childhood Naoki would also benefit from social-emotional learning instruction. By incorporating these lessons, Naoki would be able to learn more about social-emotional skills to better understand and relate to his peers. In his text, Naoki points out that conversations are sometimes difficult with others due to his various tendencies. Some of these include: lack of eye contact, speaking loudly and strangely, minimal facial expressions, and taking too long to respond (Higashida 2017). Woolfolk delves into this topic in her book and states that a child with autism should have early and intensive interventions in communicating with others and in social relationships. She also shares that if this doesn't happen, the child's various mannerisms and lack of social skills with others will continue to increase over time. A Naoki teacher might introduce lessons on eye contact and responding appropriately to a person during a conversation. It would also be helpful for a child with autism to attend morning meetings to find common ground between themselves and other classmates to stimulate conversation. Woolfolk (2019) informs us that as teachers, we must have high expectations for all of our students. Not just the gifted students or the teacher the students like, but every student in our classroom must be held to a high standard. While reading Naoki's book I was reminded of this. Often, as educators, we see a child with a disability and want to make things easier for them in some way or we may lower our expectations because of this disability to help them be more successful in our classroom. However, when we do not continue to have these high expectations, our students will underperform. Students will adopt this lower expectation for themselves as well. While it is important to adhere to and implement all aspects of the IEP.