I have spent six weeks as an intern at EIP Autism Sdn. Bhd. My interest in helping children has been the biggest motivator to choose this organization. I take this internship as an opportunity to learn more about development psychology, to obtain real life experiences and to apply knowledge that I have learnt.
During the internship, I was given various responsibilities, such as assisting the therapists, teaching the children, doing research on their education syllabus, writing worksheets and some housekeeping tasks. Every therapist has distinctive styles in treating the children. Given the opportunity to assist them in different therapies allows me to learn the assessment and intervention method they use.
The most satisfying moments in the internship are the experiences with the children and things that I learnt from them. I could not apply a lot of what I have learnt in Psychology during the internship because I did not have sufficient knowledge on autistic children upon serving as an intern. But the therapists generously shared their knowlegde and experiences with me. They also suggested me to read the abundance of books in the center. Slowly, I realize that the children have diffent levels of functionality, some better than others. Apart from that, although they are impaired in certain functions, they have individual savant skills that actually surprise us all. This center also uses a lot of behavior modification, mainly the “carrots and stick” approach. Interestingly enough, each children has something that they truly like and fear about. For example, one of the child likes Thomas the Train but is afraid of Bob the Builder, famous cartoon characters among the children. The teachers and therapists hardly have to use the cane punishment.
I have learned a lot from a particular child during this internship. He is very fragile and is afraid of another boy that screams all the time. He will cry whenever the other child hurts himself or throws tantrums. We all thought that he is afraid of the boy, but one day, I asked him if he is afraid of the other child and prompt him to think of why that boy hurts himself. He just kept quiet but he hardly cries after that whenever the other child is having a tantrum. I was truly impressed, when one day, he finally speaks for the other child, like he knows what the other child is thinking about but unable to express himself. I was truly touched by his empathy towards the other child…
This internship is a valuable experience for me and I am grateful that I have gained some precious memories from the internship.
During the internship, I was given various responsibilities, such as assisting the therapists, teaching the children, doing research on their education syllabus, writing worksheets and some housekeeping tasks. Every therapist has distinctive styles in treating the children. Given the opportunity to assist them in different therapies allows me to learn the assessment and intervention method they use.
The most satisfying moments in the internship are the experiences with the children and things that I learnt from them. I could not apply a lot of what I have learnt in Psychology during the internship because I did not have sufficient knowledge on autistic children upon serving as an intern. But the therapists generously shared their knowlegde and experiences with me. They also suggested me to read the abundance of books in the center. Slowly, I realize that the children have diffent levels of functionality, some better than others. Apart from that, although they are impaired in certain functions, they have individual savant skills that actually surprise us all. This center also uses a lot of behavior modification, mainly the “carrots and stick” approach. Interestingly enough, each children has something that they truly like and fear about. For example, one of the child likes Thomas the Train but is afraid of Bob the Builder, famous cartoon characters among the children. The teachers and therapists hardly have to use the cane punishment.
I have learned a lot from a particular child during this internship. He is very fragile and is afraid of another boy that screams all the time. He will cry whenever the other child hurts himself or throws tantrums. We all thought that he is afraid of the boy, but one day, I asked him if he is afraid of the other child and prompt him to think of why that boy hurts himself. He just kept quiet but he hardly cries after that whenever the other child is having a tantrum. I was truly impressed, when one day, he finally speaks for the other child, like he knows what the other child is thinking about but unable to express himself. I was truly touched by his empathy towards the other child…
This internship is a valuable experience for me and I am grateful that I have gained some precious memories from the internship.
