Autism School Hopes Someday to Open Its Doors to Non-Autistic Students
Palm Beach Academy for Learning is a new school for elementary-age autistic children in Lake Worth, Florida. The school was started by parents and will open with 21 students, with one teacher and two assistants per classroom, as reported in today’s Palm Beach Post. The school’s teaching methodology follows the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). “Reverse inclusion”—-in which the school would be open to non-autistic too—is a goal.
Not only does that promote a greater understanding of autism, “it also helps our children learn from other students how to interact and how to play,” [Principal Joann] Huprich said.
Best wishes to the Palm Beach Academy for Learning, and to its students and staff, in a new school year.
9 opinions for Autism School Hopes Someday to Open Its Doors to Non-Autistic Students
Ballastexistenz
Sep 6, 2006 at 7:25 am
I really can’t stand that idea that autistic people learn to interact better from watching non-autistic people than from watching autistic people. Like it’s bad to learn things from each other, better to learn things from the “non-defective” people. Wouldn’t want autistic people exchanging useful stimming or anything (which happens).
Kristina Chew, PhD
Sep 6, 2006 at 11:22 am
Charlie has picked up on stims from other children in his class—I think we parents do forget that this (1) shows the extent to which he is thoroughly aware of his environment and (2) can be a means learning something helpful.
Ballastexistenz
Sep 6, 2006 at 6:33 pm
In school I picked up not only autistic mannerisms, but the mannerisms of a girl with CP. The world did not fall in on my head and relegate me to the Really Bad Kind Of People, whatever that might be.
Jemaleddin
Sep 7, 2006 at 12:02 pm
My son has been moved from an autism class to an ECI class to a plain old kindergarten, but we never thought of what was going on in terms of his “autisticness”, but rather the educational opportunities available to him in each environment.
Jared will be (I think) the only autistic in his new class, but I think he’s also the only one who can read the school pledge with words like “responsibility” and “elementary.” I certainly don’t want to isolate him from other autistics, but I’m more concerened with his education than his socialization at this point…
Jannalou
Sep 7, 2006 at 1:10 pm
Jemaleddin,
Given the tendency of SPED programs to “teach” autistic children stuff that is either not really the domain of the school system (like life skills, cooking, and job skills - for kids in elementary school) or horrifically below their intelligence level, I think you’re probably doing the right thing.
Jemaleddin
Sep 7, 2006 at 2:18 pm
That’s a good point - I guess the point I didn’t get around to making (since I was leaving work) is that I wonder if I should be getting Jared into some kind of program where he could interact with other kids (or adults) that have to deal with the same things he does.
When I was a teenager, my parents went to great lengths to find me mentors that I could talk to since I was so different (read weird) from my classmates. I think that at some point Jared could benefit from the same thing. Age 6 is probably a little early, especially since Jared doesn’t exactly know that he’s autistic yet (that’s gonna be an odd conversation), but he’s gradually becoming more interested in other people, and it would be nice for him to meet and learn from people like the ones that I’ve been learning so much about the autistic experience from like Kassiane or Amanda.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Sep 7, 2006 at 4:55 pm
Perhaps one way would be through shared interests or activities—where the focus would be on the activity rather than on the interactions, at first.
n
Sep 8, 2006 at 7:49 pm
i’ve been accused of becoming more autistic just from hanging out with other auties online.
i leave the implications of that up to you (^_^)
Kristina Chew, PhD
Sep 8, 2006 at 8:06 pm
Question is, what about us NT’s?
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