A day in the life of… 

When I was a little girl, this was often one of the topics given to write an essay on.

 I don’t recollect what or whom I would choose to imagine my day to be as – I’m guessing probably something glamorous or someone powerful. 

But now as I look at my day at work everyday, I wish many others would want to live my day as a Behavior Analyst in an early intervention and education setting. 

Somedays, my mornings begin with an online observation of my 10 year old learner who is such a perfectionist, she will erase and redo her work patiently, focus on her worksheets despite all the chaos of a typical classroom and all this with an amazing sense of humor.

While working on her tasks, she might enquire to her Learning Support teacher “are you trying to trick me with this question?” or cheekily comment  “I’ll sure try staying within the lines”.

 Every session she has something witty to say to me – sometimes it’s “Ms Rekha, are you with the army? – why is your surname Warrier?” One day, she accidently tripped the phone through which I was observing and said “Sorry Ms Rekha! you fell down” I went along and said “Ouch!” and she giggled and asked “Did you hurt your knee Ms Rekha?”               I replied “No, I fell flat on my nose!” and she giggled some more and said “Sorry Ms Rekha! I’ll draw a bandaid for you!” and that just warmed my heart!

The general notion that is often believed, is that people on the Autism Spectrum do not understand emotions, know how to express feelings, or even feel emotions. 

I have on the contrary experienced so much love and affection from so many of my learners. And not only me, there are so many like me working in this field, whose hearts are touched and lives enriched by their learners. 

This particular learner, at the end of the academic year, was the only one in her class from among around 30 other students, who went up to her class teacher and told her that she will miss her! 

I hope many little boys and girls would dream of having a day in the life of being an inclusive class teacher, special educator, Learning support assistant, behavior therapist or any of the endless roles in the field, that may not look glamorous or powerful, but are in fact so impactful to make a difference in the lives of the students they work with and at the same time, gratified by all the love received from the students and their families.

I can now dream of nothing but a day in the life of…. Rekha Warrier!:)