During the month of April, students at Kyrene de la Mariposa Elementary School in Tempe are celebrating Autism Awareness Month. This week’s focus for Autism Awareness is students having a lunch buddy. Often, autistic people have a difficult time making friends and approaching others for play or conversation, although this doesn’t mean that they don’t want to play or talk to others. Having a lunch buddy can help support the socialization skills they need to make friends, not only at lunch, but during recess as well.
The advocacy organization Autism Speaks offers the following post about the value of having a lunch buddy system at school:
https://www.autismspeaks.org/blog/2014/11/18/how-lunch-buddies-helped-my-son-and-his-classmates
During the month of April, Mariposa also plans to “Light it Up Blue.” Light it Up Blue is a nationwide awareness campaign launched by Autism Speaks to promote greater awareness and understanding of those with autism. For more information visit the Autism Speaks website.
Mariposa plans to support the Light it Up Blue campaign by encouraging their school community to:
- wear blue
- put blue lights outside your home
- turn your profile picture blue on Facebook and share this article
- ask your co-workers to wear blue every Friday and share these articles with them
Submitted by Kyrene School District and Kyrene de la Mariposa Elementary