Dumbed Down Education is Not the Answer for Autistic Children
Autism mother Choo Kah Ying, whose autistic son Sebastien is 10 years old, has this to say about a tendency to “dumb down” education for autistic children:
“The approach is always from a conventional standpoint: ‘Ok, the kid cannot do this, so let’s make it easier.’ They’re missing the point because as long as they continue to dumb down the curriculum, the work just gets more boring for the kid, which will put the kid off even more.”
Choo, who lives in Singapore, has started World of Autism, whose Learning to Learn center “include learning programmes that encompass elements such as academic, speech, motor and behavioural skills, that are customised to the functional level of the autistic child,” as reported in today’s ChannelNewsAsia.com.
Low expectations and low standards results in nothing but diminishing gains for Charlie and kids like him—-but presuming competence can go a long way.
7 opinions for Dumbed Down Education is Not the Answer for Autistic Children
Rose
Jul 25, 2006 at 3:51 pm
Luckily, I was able to come across this wonderful paper in my searches. It reiterates your point.
http://www.csun.edu/cod/conf/1998/proceedings/csun98_072.htm
I hope I never dumb things down for the kids. I don’t know them, but I know they have had terrible teachers in the past. The aides (Godsends) ended up making up the program themselves. Because of them, the kids are on their way to reading for the first time in their lives, if this stubborn old fool has anything to do about it!
Kristina Chew, PhD
Jul 25, 2006 at 5:29 pm
Thanks, Rose—-one of our best SLP’s was trained in using DynaVoxes and other augmentative devices and always reminded us, they’re not substitutes for talking for Charlie—they’re ways to give him more ways to get his point across.
neil
Jul 25, 2006 at 10:00 pm
Ah, the big question, to mainstream or not. Our daughter attends mainstream two days a week and an autistic school the rest. Whilst the curriculum in her autistic school is excellent, she is definitely behind at mainstream, even with the help of an aide.
In a curious aside, I heard the principal of the autistic school complaining (very nicely) that aides made the work at her school a little harder, because the students come to depend on them for direction and when they come back to the autistic school they wait for directions, even though formerly they did not.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Jul 26, 2006 at 6:03 am
That is interesting—what kind of training do the aides have? Perhaps they are too accustomed to thinking the students need more direction than they actually might?
Ashley Morgan
Jul 26, 2006 at 6:39 am
I agree - keeping the bar high is always better than having it too low. Keeping those expectations positive maximizes their learning potential.
I saw an article in the Wall Street Journal, of all places, on this topic, that says pretty much the same thing. It was about some research that was done where teachers were not informed of an LD while others teachers were, and the outcome of these children later in life. I’ll have to find it again and post it.
Jannalou
Jul 26, 2006 at 8:32 am
I would argue that it helps, to an extent, to keep the bar high.
But at some point, you’re going to hit a wall.
I certainly did. I can’t help but wonder how much more successful I would have been in my post-secondary schooling if we’d known I had ADHD and taken steps to provide me with the accommodations that would have helped me better attend and learn in my classes.
Of course, accommodations like what I’m thinking of are different from “dumbing down” the curriculum. I didn’t need a different curriculum, I needed alternative testing methods and teaching methods that capitalised on my primary mode of learning.
Ashley Morgan
Jul 26, 2006 at 8:54 am
As Brett Miller discusses, if only ALL children and adults had IEPs. I would have done so much better in college as well (my auditory processing sucks)
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