1. Presented by: Anne-Eliese Raya Special Education Teacher at JHHS
Food with Friends
Presented by:
Anne-Eliese Raya
Special Education Teacher at JHHS

2. Objective of “Food with Friends”
The purpose of this project is to integrate students with a social disability, as well as new students to our high school, with students from Student Leadership & Ready, Set, Teach
The students from Student Leadership & Ready, Set, Teach would serve as student mentors

3. What to know about students with a social disability, commonly known as Autism Spectrum Disorders
1. Social Difficulties
Initiating and reciprocating
2. Language Difficulties
*Semantic and/or Pragmatic
3. Repetitive Behaviors/desire for sameness and repetition

4. Social Blindness: Problems with the Social Sense
Trouble knowing what to do and say in social situations
* Starting conversations
*Asking to play a game
* Off the topic
Trouble with body language
*Little eye contact
3. Hard to make friends
4. Trouble with sports (this is not the case with all students who are Autistic)

5. Strengths & Talents
Students are intelligent even though new work may upset them
They are great artist
Excellent memory for facts
Good at video games
Caring

6. “Meet & Greet”
Within the first two weeks of school we’d have a “Get to know you” activity during 3B
Getting to Know Someone New Activity (Student mentors will be paired with the student & lead by the student mentors.)
3 minutes to find out what you have in common.
NAME What’s your name? Mine is ____.
SCHOOL Where did you attend middle school? What grade are you in? What are your favorite subjects?
NEIGHBORHOOD Where do you live? What’s it like there?
INTERESTS What do you do for fun? What games do you like? What TV shows do you watch? What kind of music do you like?
FAMILY Do you have a big family? Do you have brothers and sisters? Do you have any pets?

7. How it works?
For new incoming students, the registrar from JHHS would the sponsor of Student Leadership & Ready, Set, Teach
Student Leadership sponsor would assign a student mentor to the incoming student
Student mentor will walk the new student to each of their classes to help them adjust to their class schedule for one week
For a student with a social disability, such as Autism, the registrar or Special Education ARD Chair would myself and I would then collaborate with the Student Leadership teacher on having one of her students go meet the student at their class and eat lunch with these students for six weeks

8. Student Leadership & RST Role
Students from Student Leadership & RST will sign up on a first come first serve basis for which student they’d like to take and eat lunch with every day for six weeks
This will take place during 3B
This will serve as a community service project for those students enrolled in Student Leadership & RST

9. Works Cited
Jed Baker, Ph.D of Social Skills Training Project