June 7th, 2013
An
open letter to anyone involved with or interested in Special Education & Autism
in our educational system:
(Or
anyone who is just willing to listen):
If we Autism parents are to believe what we’re
being sold: I mean “told” these days by
the educators in our country; our very unique children are in great hands with
people who supposedly understand how children with ASD comprehend the world
differently; they understand that these children think and learn outside the
box, and they understand that there are varying degrees of Autism with each
child exhibiting different levels of characteristics and behaviors because each
child is affected in different ways, AND
YET; we continue to label them either A: High or B: Low Functioning, boxing them into an uncreative
and very limited path when it comes to their education and consequently their
futures.
Anyone who has had any real experience with
Autism knows that ASD kids can be high functioning in some areas while being
low functioning in others. If we can
understand that there is a spectrum in the first place then how do we not
address or recognize all of the grey area in between those two labels?
One of the main deficits children living with
Autism need help with is learning how to navigate our world socially. This area
is huge and encompasses issues with social skills, social behavior, social
thinking, and situational social awareness!
We tend to take for granted that the social aspect of our school days is
a natural occurring experience for most kids, but for children living with ASD,
it’s the opposite, they need help, regardless
of level of functionality, WE have
to help CREATE those experiences for
them!
I’m truly grateful for all that the families
before us have sacrificed and done but there’s a huge group of kids falling through the cracks that have learning potential, the
ability to go on to work jobs, live simple lives and be contributing members of
society; well, that is if we stop being lazy and stop whining about budgets, roll
up our sleeves and make a little effort to work to educate them in the manner
that they need, addressing and not ignoring the deficits that they have.
Why
can’t our schools and teachers be EMPOWERED
to run more fluid/flexible schedules/classrooms/programs based on the ACTUAL
NEEDS of the children they are charged with helping?
Why
can’t we encourage our educators to
be more understanding and accepting when they encounter a child that receives
outside private and home therapy? That
is something you would think that a system that is so strapped for resources
would want to take advantage of and build on!
The majority of children on the Autism Spectrum learn academically
better and easier with a one-to-one teaching method or in very low student to
teacher ratios but they still need access to multiple typical peers for
socialization. Creating a plan between
home and school only helps foster the success of the child and allowing it to
be flexible would relieve a lot of stress for the parents, the school districts
and most importantly the children.
You can’t create a set curriculum for Autism
because all our kids have such different needs.
It does not make sense to have so few options and as for the special
people who are willing and want to teach Autism classes; they should be supported
and if their students are thriving, growing, learning and coming home happy, then
dang it; THOSE CLASSES AND THOSE TEACHERS should
serve as models for others in the district instead of being so few and far
between. Some of you may or may not know
that thanks to social media and some brave people there is a growing movement
to place Cameras in Special Needs Classrooms.
This movement is stemming from real situations that are far more common
than people realize or would care to admit.
The use of cameras in special needs classrooms
would be a great learning tool to provide feedback to the districts on what is
working and what isn’t in our Special needs classrooms. Great teachers would be acknowledged more and
not so great teachers could get help in the areas they’re struggling with. Cameras would also help give our most
vulnerable children a voice if unfortunate situations are occurring in their
classroom. Cameras would also help
alleviate parents’ worst fears and help good teachers from being falsely
accused of any wrongdoing. There’s
nothing that my child should ever be doing at school other than going potty
that should require privacy from cameras and if he is, that means someone isn’t
doing their job!
I am scared and sad, disappointed and worried by
the SEVERE GAP in available programs for my son. In our state, the highest functioning
children can mainstream with an aid (if parents really push for it) otherwise
the option is to go into a Self Contained
Autism class or a General Special Ed class for the majority of their day.
THE
WHOLE REASON we want our son to attend school at
all is to get help with his ability to navigate SOCIALLY. Academics can be learned at home if necessary
but you can’t create a social setting like school at home. How does a non verbal child learn to be
social you ask? Well it’s not just about
them learning to make eye contact with just adults and say hi when an adult
speaks to them, it is also about learning appropriate behavior in different
settings; learning when to be quiet, how to play around with other peers, how
to take turns, how to transition, how to read other people’s emotions and to be
considerate of them even if they don’t quite understand them and how to understand
other peoples intentions, how to indicate to someone if they need help.
I would never want to help my son to the
detriment of another child’s education and I most certainly don’t want him
disrupting a typical classroom but it’s impossible for him to learn appropriate
social behaviors if he doesn’t have real
social experiences starting NOW,
not when he’s 18!
Don’t believe the outdated ideas about
Autism! My child craves people, loves attention
and interaction. He is funny, and
affectionate, an opportunist and tenacious, he doesn’t fit what the textbook
tells you he’s supposed to be. He’s
already surpassed most of what the “experts” in our state told us he would
never do and this entire country needs to wake up because he is not alone! There
are so many children just like him that fall smack in the middle of
everything, and not just children with Autism lots of different special needs
children with amazing personalities, potential and affection in abundance…
falling through the cracks.
Where are the classes for them, the classes that
foster that light and joy and spirit?
Where is the class for my son?
Let me guess you’re thinking, “Isn’t this what
inclusion is for?” Let’s be honest;
Inclusion is a word that is erroneously thrown around by the school district to
mislead unsuspecting, overwhelmed, exhausted parents into thinking their child
is genuinely interacting with their typical peers.
INCLUSION is NOT THE SAME as
SOCIAL INTERACTION! More often than not, inclusion is reduced
to RECESS (where our kids tend to isolate themselves), LUNCH (kids are seated at their own segregated table) maybe a music class
or some library time. For parents that
push to have mandatory classroom time in their child’s IEP it’s just luck of
the draw, there are some teachers, bless their hearts that will try to
“include” your child but plenty of them aren’t going to slow their class down for
the special child and I can’t blame them;
they have goals they have to meet for all of those other kids in their class
and they often lack enough training on how use positive behavior supports to
deal with behavioral issues.
I blame
the districts for not providing Continuing Education classes on how to use and
implement positive behavior supports for teachers who don’t have any experience
with special needs or Autism. I blame
the universities for not providing the proper training in the first place. (I
have a dear friend who is almost done getting his degree in special education
and he still hasn’t had any classes on how to actually TEACH the children, it’s
all been about how to write IEP’s!)
To borrow a phrase from Judge Judy: “Don’t pee
on my leg and tell me it’s raining!”
Meaning, don’t sell me on “Inclusion” when it’s not really fostering
interaction, it’s insulting to me as a parent and I’m sorry but this mom is not
drinking that kool-aid!
I understand that school districts just don’t
have the funding or resources for much these days. Our system is a mess and doesn’t even rank in
the top 10 for reading, science and math when up against other countries. 70% of American 8th graders cannot
even read at a proficient level so really what harm could a couple of reversed
mainstream options in our schools at least K- 6 possibly do? We have nothing to lose but everything to
gain!
Why can’t we run dual classrooms with both a
typical teacher and an Autism teacher in just one or two school in each
district? My son is getting ready to
leave THE ONLY integrated class in our ENTIRE school district. It’s frustrating that they would have a class
like that if that model isn’t going to continue past Kindergarten?
The class my son is leaving is half Autism and
half typical and it’s been AMAZING and just as BENEFICIAL for the typical
kids. The typical children who were a
little nervous around him in the beginning no longer look at him any
differently than anyone else; they understand how to get his attention and
encourage him to follow them and participate.
They help him and boy do they have his back out on the playground, he
LOVES his classmates and now sadly he is being forced to leave this amazing
environment because it doesn’t exist anywhere else.
Not only is our son no longer afraid to be
around other kids, he’s right in the mix playing alongside of them, he doesn’t
always know what to do but he’s trying!!
He’s even started to ask the girls (Autism or not he’s no dummy, he
likes the ladies) in his class for help instead of just fussing and waiting for
an adult to come find out what’s wrong. Taking
him from this type of environment where he is truly thriving and now shoving
him into a self contained class with limited peer access is detrimental and I
worry what it’s going to do to him emotionally.
The kids who need the most stability and
consistency in their schedules and environment get bounced around like ping
pong balls. Our district keeps changing
where the Autism classes are. How are
our kids ever supposed to reach out and make any connections if they’re constantly
being uprooted like an inconvenient after thought?
We live in the age of social media, the age of
TMI an age where typical kids can go to school on line and never even have to
see a teacher, an age where more and more families are OPTING to home school! If a person can’t navigate our society
socially after coming out of our school system then honestly what are we doing?
What’s even the point of them going at all?
But then again maybe I am asking too much… been to a mall lately? It seems as if the typical kids being
released into society are severely lacking any social skills themselves so
maybe we’re just all doomed.
I believe with all my heart that the greatest
thing school districts across this country could do for all ASD children is to EXPOSE and EDUCATE the TYPICAL CHILDREN
too about Autism and maybe even other disabilities too right from the very
beginning in Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, 3rd grade
and so on. It’s so easy and it wouldn't really cost anything.
I always find it funny when people say things
like, “Your son is going to have to toughen up and learn how to cope and fit
into the real world”. (Those are the people I run away from as fast as I can
because that statement alone tells me that those people know nothing about
Autism or Sensory Processing Disorders.)
Think it through… YOU have the capacity to understand that my son is a different capacitated person with
physical and neurological challenges and varying comprehension skills but HE’s the one that needs to cope and fit
in? Why stop there; why don’t we just
start telling people who are in wheel chairs to suck it up and figure out how
to get up the stairs because we can’t be inconvenienced to put in a ramp? It’s like trying to force a square peg into a
round hole repeatedly!
IT’S
SO SIMPLE: If Schools
can’t co-learn in an integrated classroom with two teachers then how bout we
create an “adoption” program where typical homerooms take turns adopting/sponsoring
the Autism or special needs classes for one month at a time during the year. During their month they help the class with a
couple of projects like a big brothers & sisters program, maybe eat lunch
with them a few times, help play a couple of games with them at recess and then we educate them about the Autism and or other special needs peers through
short presentations and real honest discussions about Autism specifically
geared toward each grade level. WE TEACH THEM what Autism is with easy visual
analogies like thinking of the Autism brain as a bridge that sometimes washes
out and can’t connect to the other side.
WE
CREATE a complimentary exercise that gets them
thinking about how hard it is to communicate when you can’t talk. Imagine how scary that must be to need to
tell someone that you’re hurt or sick and you are screaming at them in your
head but you can’t get the words out of your mouth?
We
explain what an Auditory Processing Delay is, what Self Stimulatory
Behavior is.
Have them participate
in a simple yet effective exercise to help them understand Sensory Processing
Disorder for EXAMPLE: Listening to a CD of everyday sounds that
WE are able to FILTER to the
background of our minds, but ASD kids sometimes can’t. Sounds such as a car alarm, people talking,
baby crying, dog barking, wind or rain, lawn mower, water dripping, fan
humming, loud muffler, birds chirping at the SAME time at the SAME loud volume
level – ALL THE WHILE BEING ASKED in a normal voice to complete a simple
task using their opposite hand with their good hand behind their back while the
lights are being flicked on and off.
It’s a great example of how it’s not that our kids aren’t listening
rather it’s that their brain isn’t FILTERING!
It helps show how frustrating and scary sometimes it can be for our kids
and also how hard they have to work to do the simplest of things.
Compassion and tolerance can be LEARNED BEHAVIORS! I’ve seen it first hand in our son’s
integrated Kindergarten class. Those
typical children will carry this experience with them always! Now think about if it was commonplace in our elementary
schools; the number of bullying incidents by the time those kids reach middle
school and high school would drop dramatically because there’s nothing to fear as they would have
grown up with our kids and would be far less likely to single them out in a
negative way and far more likely to stand up for them when situations do arise.
Think about the quality type of people we could actually release into
the world as adults. Maybe those kids
who were exposed to and educated about Autism will let their tolerance and
compassion carry over to people with other disabilities, people from other
ethnicity's, other financial brackets. That
one simple move… to demystify Autism
and other disabilities and expose and educate typical children from a young age
could have a game changing effect on the world!
If you don’t think children that young are
capable of understanding, you are dead wrong! I've heard 5, and 6 year olds tell other kids to be nice to my son
because he has Autism and it’s hard for him to speak and it makes him upset
sometimes, um can you say AMAZING!?! They demonstrate a level of comprehension
and compassion that most of the adults we've met can’t be bothered to muster.
I also believe that when bullying instances
occur in our schools against children with Special needs that the bully should
have to spend his/her detention time with the Special class working with them
as well as someone taking a moment to maybe ask them what’s wrong and why
they’re lashing out. Detention and
suspension punishments for bullies don’t really work in fact it often increases
their behavior but giving them an appropriate outlet to express their anger and
then EDUCATING them about the kid
they were terrorizing … now that could work, don’t you think? For example
recently we learned that our son after sitting through another classes play for
an hour apparently had enough and got up and was making loud noises and some
older kids started making fun of him… There’s not a doubt in my mind that it
was probably funny to watch but MAYBE, JUST MAYBE If those boys knew anything
about why it was so hard for my son to sit that long quietly and what an accomplishment
it was that he made it as long as he did; maybe they would have made a nicer
choice in that moment.
Yes there will always be little jerks in the
world male and female that no matter what you do they are just jerks but so
much of that usually comes from a fear of the unknown, a lack of experience or
education and sadly a reaction or recreation to their own home experiences. It’s simply behavior and if I’ve learned anything
by being an Autism mom it’s that behavior can be learned/unlearned and
modified!
If school districts would stop trying to gloss
over everything with special needs parents, spend less time focusing on how
much funding they can get for having the children in their district, how much
money they can get Medicaid to reimburse them for and get more realistic about
what they can and cannot actually do for our children, stop fighting inclusion and
make an attempt at educating the typical kids around them; I know we could save money and time and maybe a little
slice of humanity and we would absolutely set a whole lot more of our kids up
to have a positive and beneficial educational experience.
This is not our Grandparents or even our parents
Autism anymore. We know too much about Autism
now and about what these kids are capable of that they should no longer be
hidden in a resource room for most of their day, isolated at a lunch table,
left to fend for themselves in a bathroom or on a playground. Children with Autism are here and increasing in
number even with the new diagnosis guidelines.
Maybe it’s time for educators in the US to get over their fears, the
dreaded budget and open their minds to all of the new information out there, embrace them and start doing right by them by thinking OUTSIDE the box for them.
What’s
that saying…? “If you teach a man to fish….?”
Kindest regards,
The
Amazing Z’s Momma
Movements I support:
Keeping all Students Safe Act
Camera's in Special Needs Classrooms
Stop Restraint and Seclusion
