New Exceptional Children Teacher Assistant, I’m looking for any and all tips you can give me!

I recently started my job as an Exceptional Children Teacher Assistant in a public middle school in my area.

We just finished the first full week back with all of the kiddos, and I took a lot of this time during the week to go over IEPs and put names to faces for my kids. We currently are looking at around 58 IEPs between myself and two EC Teachers so it’s gonna be a lot of work for sure. Especially since we have a lot of Co-Teaching and learning labs that we have to find time for. But I digress on that.

At the moment I have a few kids that I feel pretty confident with but I feel super nervous and worried during the periods where I assist in the classroom because I feel like I’m going to be a hindrance (probably just an internal struggle of mine I need to work on ik).

I don’t really have any recent experience working this kids so I feel a bit blind walking into it as well. I have my bachelors in psychology with a concentration on developmental and behavioral psychology so I can pretty comfortably understand those aspects. And I have a fair bit of experience with behavioral intervention as well so I’m good at picking up when a kiddo might be falling behind or is falling behind.

Another part I feel I might need some help on is appearing more like a staff member. I am 24 years old and easily the youngest in the building (apart from the kids ofc) and I dress in business casual per dress code. However, I do wear red tinted lens because florescent lighting and blue light gives me horrible migraines, but I feel as if this aspect make me look a little scary sometimes.

Idk if this is stuff that anyone has tips on but I thought I’d ask. I just want to do my best and help the students as best I can because I do really want to help them grow. I just feel a bit blind walking into this whole thing.

Thank you in advance for any advice! All of it is helpful!