The Autism News | English


As a teacher Cheryl “Cheri” Stewart has been working with children with special needs for 22 years.

The children have moderate to severe intellectual disabilities, such as severe autism.

Stewart, 57, said she was motivated to work in this area of education because she had a brother with disabilities who was mainstreamed and put in classrooms with other students. In those days, that was the norm and Stewart said his mental conditioned worsened.

Stewart graduated from college in 1975 and sought a teaching job because that’s where the jobs were but also, “I was excited to do it,” she said. She wanted “to try to make a difference where no one made a difference in my brother’s life,” she added.

Unable to find a teaching job Stewart worked in insurance until her children were older.

Stewart works for San Bernardino County Schools and taught for 17 years in Lake Arrowhead, where she lives. She taught a special needs preschool class and Stewart said that at the start of a school year most of the children were non-verbal. They did not speak.

“When you don’t have language your behaviors are out the window,” Stewart said. Some, she said, would literally bounce off the walls.

She worked with the children to get them to say words like mom and dad and food and by the end of the year, “They were almost all talking,” Stewart said. This is why early intervention is so important, she added.

The Press-Enterprise

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