Education Dilemmas and Empowerment
These words of Jill Sauter, who home-schools her 14-year-old autistic son, Derek, struck a familiar chord in me. Sauter is speaking about the public school district and the special education services it offers:
“They [the school district and its personnel] don’t have enough time. They don’t have enough resources to give a kid resources to get him talking…”.
She decided to take Derek, 14, out of school because she said he needs attention he simply cannot get in the classroom. Derek had trouble speaking and reading. But thanks to the time he and his mom spent doing mouth drills, with Sauter rewarding him with positive reinforcement, she said his skills have greatly improved. He is now an eighth-grader and only goes to High Desert Middle School for physical education class.
If the school district were to integrate Derek into a regular education classroom, his mother said, he would fall too far behind.
“They’re doing book reports, he’s trying to read,” Sauter said. “He’s learning how to put letters together to make a word.”
But if he were grouped with other students with disabilities, he risks falling even further behind, Sauter said.
“If he was in a room with 10 other kids that had autism, he’s not going to succeed in that situation,” she said. “He needs to be with peers that can talk and ask questions.”
Sauter is quoted in Autism on the rise: Local schools, families struggle to keep up, which appears in the May 20th Bulletin (Bend, Oregon). The dilemma she describes—-of how placing her son in a mainstream classroom brings too many challenges, while placement in a special education class is not challenging enough—is one that I have heard many parents express. One wants a child to have the benefits of being with non-autistic, “typical” students and in a “regular” classroom setting; one wants one’s child to be in an educational setting that provides adequate support and staff who understand how to help a child with communication and sensory needs, and who can need extra assistance in dealing with social situations.
At this time, my husband Jim and I are not having to face this particular dilemma, as Charlie currently needs to be in a self-contained classroom for his entire school day, so he can focus on his academics first and foremost. Charlie always watches other kids carefully, but “typical” kids—who can move quickly from one activity to another, can talk without having to choose each word and enunciate each syllable—act at a rate rather fast for Charlie. We have been thinking that, further down the road, Charlie might be able to participate in subjects such as some athletics (maybe) or music (maybe) under structured circumstances. I welcome the time I can have that dilemma.
Realizing that Charlie learns best in a self-contained classroom has happened over time; over the past five years. I cannot agree more with the words of another mother quoted in the Bulletin article. Says Terri O’Connor, whose autistic son Colin is 6 years old:
“I think there needs to be more in this community that’s specifically geared toward helping the parents……….It’s such a 24/7, 365 disability that impacts the family. If you empower the family to help teach the child, that’s less that the school has to do.”
And doing so can only empower the child to do more, for her or his own self.
5 opinions for Education Dilemmas and Empowerment
Julie
May 21, 2007 at 8:17 am
I am faced with the problem of mainstreaming for MAth since this is the one subject that they feel with the assistance of an aid ahe can do at grade level. The district has a strong push to mainstream as much as possible. I have mixed feelings about this I have had to ask them if it is best for Rebekah or if it looks better for the district. She does not learn well in a large setting with more than a few children and has a some (a lot) of stress when in those situations. We are going to try it next year for Math and see how it goes, we were a ssured that at the first sign of anything negative we could stop it immediately. I am finding that it is difficult balance between giving her the experiences to grow and show us what all she can do and keeping her happy and the stress level down.
I wuold love to see more family support so that the parents can be educated on how to better advocate for their child rather than being thrown into an advisarial role with the district when their is a problem. I sit on our CSE commitee as a parent rep That way I have a relationship with everyone in the district so if their is a problem I can call them and they already know who I am.
Kristina Chew, PhD
May 21, 2007 at 10:48 am
WIll Rebekah have an aide if she is mainstreamed? One of the reasons that Charlie’s past mainstreaming experiences did not turn out well was due to his being mainstreamed in music, art, and library, where the students were not in the usual classroom or with the teacher—and so were prone to have a few “behaviors” themselves. And, the aides who went with Charlie had no training about how to help him in those situations.
I’d like much to know how she does next year. I used to be on the committee—I was going to be a co-director—of the special ed parents group in our old town. I learned a lot, for sure; I’ve been much less active in our current town, but that can change.
Julie
May 21, 2007 at 11:28 am
She will have an aide. I have been told that she will need that just to stay on task. Right now she does have some specials that are mainstreamed. I use that term loosely because I believe that she is going to specials and then a lot of the time leaving with the aide to take a walk because it is too overwhelming. The problem that we have is that she is high functioning and although we feel fortunate that she can speak a lot of the “professionals” who do not know her believe that she should be mainstreamed because it appears that she could do well. I was also told that the aide that goes with her will be someone from her self contained classroom who knows her. I am excited for her and pray it goes well but like everything else with her I tend to get a knot in my stomache thinking about all of the vaiables and past experiences that did not go well.
mumkeepingsane
May 21, 2007 at 11:30 am
Sometimes I wonder if there will be a time when we have to pull Patrick out of school. Right now he’s in kindergarten so he’s only half days and the other half is taken by myself to teach him things I feel he might not pick up otherwise.
When he’s in school full days it will be much more difficult for me to participate in his education. We have no idea if he’ll be able to “keep up” academically or not.
phil3
May 21, 2007 at 12:53 pm
My child is 16 and has PDD-NOS, high-functioning. When she was 12, I enrolled her at Kumon. She was tested and started Kumon way below her grade level in reading and math. She is now getting A’s mainstreamed, which makes me cry (out of joy and surprise). Kumon is really great for autistic kids because it’s very repetitive, black-and-white, structured. There are many Kumons throughout the country.
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