I'm keeping a list of destinations and locations that go beyond our expectations in regards to wheelchair accessibility. I also have a list of places that have fallen short of our expectations making our experiences on a family outing go from enjoyable to frustrating.
I'd like to start with a few places in Cincinnati that do a great job.
Of course the Zoo, Cincinnati Museum Center, Freedom Center, Coney Island, and Kings Island do a great job even when you don't call them in advance. They are prepared. Stadium Parking is great if you can find the wheelchair parking that isn't filled. Paul Brown has parking right in front arrive early or call in advance. The Great American Ballpark has a different "accessible" entrance that faces the river. You'll see everyone going into the front door but if you have a wheelchair, you'll be directed around to go the other entrance. It takes a while so if you're running late, add another 15 minutes to get to your seats.
Cintas Center, (XU) is a complete disaster. Basically, you have to drop the person off at a special "handicap" entrance and go park your car because there is a moat of levels and stairs that separate the sea of parking and the facility. If the event is on the other side, good luck.
Taft Museum's only designated wheelchair parking is on slope and there is no room for a lift. To visit the Art Museum, you have to use the back entrance. Good luck finding a parking spot near the back entrance!
At Music Hall, park in front only on Elm Street. Don't use the garages or parking anywhere on Central Parkway or near WCET. Navigation from there is a nightmare.
Good luck finding decent parking downtown Cincinnati because Fountain Square Parking is a disaster and very dangerous. The wheelchair curbs and elevators are not anywhere near the wheelchair parking. If you have children with you, it doubly dangerous. There is a blind spot corner in direct traffic to access the elevators. So if you're in a wheelchair, you're expected to go in the direct path of incoming cars to get to the elevators.
If it's raining, you can't use the Kentucky Indoor Parking lot at the Visitors and Convention Bureau because it's too low for big vans transporting a wheelchair. You'll have to park outside in a front parking lot that also doesn't have wheelchair curbs that take you directly to the building. You have to go a block and use the ramp there while everyone else can cross directly.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Autism: Specialized Schools vs. Mainstream Schools?
Mainstreaming into community through classroom doors works for some, but not for others. When a disability label is too big to put on jar, maybe schools need to rethink the "mainstream packaging" and be open to other options for children with special needs.
Parents of Disabled Students
Push for Separate Classes
By ROBERT TOMSHO
November 27, 2007; Page A1
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. -- Last fall, groups who favor placing disabled students in regular classrooms faced opposition from an unlikely quarter: parents like Norette Travis, whose daughter Valerie has autism.
Valerie had already tried the mainstreaming approach that the disability-advocacy groups were supporting. After attending a preschool program for special-needs students, she was assigned to a regular kindergarten class. But there, her mother says, she disrupted class, ran through the hallways and lashed out at others -- at one point giving a teacher a black eye.
"She did not learn anything that year," Ms. Travis recalls. "She regressed."
As policy makers push to include more special-education students into general classrooms, factions are increasingly divided. Advocates for the disabled say special-education students benefit both academically and socially by being taught alongside typical students. Legislators often side with them, arguing that mainstreaming is productive for students and cost-effective for taxpayers.
'Fully Included'
In 2005, more than half of all special-education students were considered mainstreamed, or "fully included," nationally. These students spent 80% or more of the school day in regular classrooms, up from about a third in 1990, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
"The burden is on school districts and states to give strong justification for why a child or group of children cannot be integrated," says Thomas Hehir, an education professor at Harvard and former director of special education at the U.S. Department of Education.
That point of view frustrates many parents. Some have struggled to get services from their local school districts; others have seen their disabled children falter in integrated settings.
Mary Kaplowitz, a special-education teacher in Kingston, Pa., was a bigger supporter of mainstreaming before she had her son, Zachary, who has autism and is mildly retarded. She says his preschool classmates rarely played with him and he came home from summer camp asking why the nondisabled children laughed at him. On a visit, she saw them drawing away from her son.
"They shunned him and it broke my heart," says Ms. Kaplowitz. Earlier this year, she and other parents fought successfully to preserve separate special-education classes in Kingston like the one Zachary, now 9 years old, attends at a local elementary school.
Such parental pushback has prompted local school districts across the country to delay or downsize mainstreaming initiatives.
Last year, parents of disabled kids in Walworth County, Wis., clashed with an advocacy group over the creation of a new special-education school. As part of the battle, Disability Rights Wisconsin sued the county in Milwaukee federal court to try to block the school. The new school is currently under construction and the lawsuit is under appeal.
And earlier this year, parents in Maryland's Montgomery County asked the state to continue a special-education program their school district was scheduled to discontinue. After initial protests, the district agreed to phase out the program -- letting enrolled kids continue -- rather than close it outright.
The debate has grown contentious in New Jersey, a state with a strong tradition of separate education for the disabled. Only about 41% of the state's 230,000 special-education students are deemed fully included, compared with 54% nationwide. About 9% of the state's disabled students -- triple the national average -- attend separate schools.
New Jersey passed some of the nation's first special-education laws. In the 1950s, it began requiring public schools to pay for special-ed services that they didn't offer. State law also gave counties and groups of school districts broad powers to build stand-alone schools for the disabled. Today, there are 80 publicly funded separate schools for the disabled in New Jersey and about 175 private ones. They receive tuition from public districts for handling special-ed students.
But in 2004, the state, which had faced federal pressure to mainstream, placed a year-long moratorium on the opening of new special-education schools. Since then, it has stiffened the approval process for private facilities and bolstered funding for local districts to broaden in-house programs.
In a budget-strapped state where voters have been demanding tax relief, cost has been a factor. On average, New Jersey spends about $16,100 a year on each special-education student, including those who are mainstreamed. The average annual tuition at the various, separate public schools for the disabled range from $28,500 to $42,000; at private schools, it's $44,000.
Overall, tuition and transportation costs for out-of-district placements accounted for 39% of the $3.3 billion a year that the state spends on special education. "That's a huge cost driver for our education budget," says state Sen. John Adler, who last year co-chaired hearings on school funding reform.
Many parents, including state Sen. Stephen Sweeney, bristle at moves that could foreclose their options. His daughter, Lauren, who has Down syndrome, attends a regular middle school. But Mr. Sweeney says her nondisabled classmates never visit or ask her to hang out. Next year, he's moving Lauren to a separate high school operated by the publicly funded Gloucester County Special Services School District. The system's special-education facilities also include a new $14 million school for children with autism and multiple disabilities.
'The Choice of Parents'
"Just to put my child in a building to make people feel better because it's inclusion is outrageous," says Mr. Sweeney. "As long as I am in the legislature, they are not going to take away the choice of parents with children with disabilities."
The school funding hearings, held in various towns and cities last fall, were emotional. Ruth Lowenkron, a special-education attorney, testified that beyond being the right thing to do, mainstreaming would save money. "Repeat after me," she told the legislators, "inclusion is cheaper than segregation."
But the panel also heard often from parents who argued for continued access to separate schools.
They included Adela Maria Bolet, of Teaneck, N.J., whose suit-clad son, Michael, sat beside his mother while she testified. The 17-year-old, who has Down syndrome, now attends a private high school on the state's tab. In earlier years, Ms. Bolet fought to get Michael into regular public schools only to find that he sometimes became depressed and had little positive interaction with nondisabled peers.
Until high school, he had few friends, says Ms. Bolet. Her voice still quivers when she talks about what happened when the family rented a pool in town and invited classmates from Michael's neighborhood elementary school to a swimming party for his 13th birthday. "Nobody came," she says.
Concurrent with the funding hearings, another debate was boiling at New Jersey's publicly funded Middlesex Regional Education Services Commission. It had already supported and built a network of six special-education schools, and planned to open two more, including a 24-classroom facility. The commission, controlled by a consortium of school districts, had built its other schools using bonds guaranteed by Middlesex County's governing board. Its school projects had never faced significant opposition.
This time was different, as the proposed schools became a target for mainstreaming advocates. Critics like William England, a school board member in South River, N.J., wrote to local papers. To endorse the sort of segregated special-education schools that most of the country is busy abandoning would be "a waste of county resources," he said in a letter to the Home News Tribune, East Brunswick, N.J.
Mark Finkelstein, the Middlesex commission's superintendent, scoffs at such criticism. He estimates his schools save local districts $10 million a year over the cost of placement in privately owned facilities. "It's easy to say that all kids should be in mainstream schools but let's talk reality," he says.
On a recent morning at the Bright Beginnings Learning Center -- one of the Middlesex schools -- a hallway painted mint-green was lined with children's wheelchairs and walkers. In one classroom, a teacher and four aides were working with seven disabled students, most strapped into devices designed to help them stand or sit.
Mary Lou Walker, an aide, crouched beside the desk of Teresa Condora, a petite 7-year-old who suffers from cerebral palsy and is largely nonverbal. "All right T, come on," Ms. Walker said, gently urging the girl to press a big red plastic button attached to a buzzer. Responding with a soft moan, Teresa pushed against the button as though it were impossibly heavy.
Factions Face Off
Last September, pro- and anti-mainstreaming factions faced off at a meeting where the fate of the proposed new Middlesex schools was to be decided.
At the microphone that evening, Paula Lieb, president of the New Jersey Coalition for Inclusive Education, cited multiple examples of severely disabled children who had been successfully mainstreamed. She said that "the vast majority of children can be included in the public schools."
But the parents of children already attending the commission's schools had also been organizing, urging each other to come to the hearing and bring their disabled children.
Sandy Epstein's family had moved to New Jersey from Oregon a decade earlier to take advantage of specialized schools for students like her son, Brandon, who has autism. For the hearing, the 48-year-old homemaker dressed her teenager in a bright red polo shirt and sat near the front. "I wanted him to stand out," she says. "I wanted these politicians to see what we are talking about."
Ms. Travis, a 41-year-old bookkeeper from Milltown, N.J., says that while waiting to speak that night, she grew angry with the criticisms of the inclusion advocates. She thought they had no idea what her daughter Valerie, now 11, needed.
The Travises had spent eight months on a waiting list to get Valerie into the Academy Learning Center, one of the Middlesex schools located in Monroe Township, N.J.
During that time, she says, the progress Valerie had made learning to speak all but disappeared. Along with reports of her outbursts at school, Ms. Travis says the family had to cope with frequent meltdowns at home. Valerie slept fitfully, ripped up her homework and beat up her little brother to the point that he once needed stitches.
"It was the worst eight months of our lives," Ms. Travis told the county officials, adding that families like hers needed schools like the Academy, where Valerie is now learning geography and double-digit subtraction.
Mr. Finkelstein believes parents' testimony helped convince county officials to unanimously back the bonds needed for the new construction, which is under way.
"If inclusion worked for all of our residents," the superintendent says, "they wouldn't be fighting so hard for these new schools."
Their efforts are far from over. In June, a coalition of disability-rights groups sued the New Jersey education department in U.S. District Court in Newark. Taking a page from the racial desegregation battles of the 1960s, it alleges the department isn't moving fast enough to integrate disabled students and asks the federal court to take over the process.
Parents of Disabled Students
Push for Separate Classes
By ROBERT TOMSHO
November 27, 2007; Page A1
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. -- Last fall, groups who favor placing disabled students in regular classrooms faced opposition from an unlikely quarter: parents like Norette Travis, whose daughter Valerie has autism.
Valerie had already tried the mainstreaming approach that the disability-advocacy groups were supporting. After attending a preschool program for special-needs students, she was assigned to a regular kindergarten class. But there, her mother says, she disrupted class, ran through the hallways and lashed out at others -- at one point giving a teacher a black eye.
"She did not learn anything that year," Ms. Travis recalls. "She regressed."
As policy makers push to include more special-education students into general classrooms, factions are increasingly divided. Advocates for the disabled say special-education students benefit both academically and socially by being taught alongside typical students. Legislators often side with them, arguing that mainstreaming is productive for students and cost-effective for taxpayers.
'Fully Included'
In 2005, more than half of all special-education students were considered mainstreamed, or "fully included," nationally. These students spent 80% or more of the school day in regular classrooms, up from about a third in 1990, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
"The burden is on school districts and states to give strong justification for why a child or group of children cannot be integrated," says Thomas Hehir, an education professor at Harvard and former director of special education at the U.S. Department of Education.
That point of view frustrates many parents. Some have struggled to get services from their local school districts; others have seen their disabled children falter in integrated settings.
Mary Kaplowitz, a special-education teacher in Kingston, Pa., was a bigger supporter of mainstreaming before she had her son, Zachary, who has autism and is mildly retarded. She says his preschool classmates rarely played with him and he came home from summer camp asking why the nondisabled children laughed at him. On a visit, she saw them drawing away from her son.
"They shunned him and it broke my heart," says Ms. Kaplowitz. Earlier this year, she and other parents fought successfully to preserve separate special-education classes in Kingston like the one Zachary, now 9 years old, attends at a local elementary school.
Such parental pushback has prompted local school districts across the country to delay or downsize mainstreaming initiatives.
Last year, parents of disabled kids in Walworth County, Wis., clashed with an advocacy group over the creation of a new special-education school. As part of the battle, Disability Rights Wisconsin sued the county in Milwaukee federal court to try to block the school. The new school is currently under construction and the lawsuit is under appeal.
And earlier this year, parents in Maryland's Montgomery County asked the state to continue a special-education program their school district was scheduled to discontinue. After initial protests, the district agreed to phase out the program -- letting enrolled kids continue -- rather than close it outright.
The debate has grown contentious in New Jersey, a state with a strong tradition of separate education for the disabled. Only about 41% of the state's 230,000 special-education students are deemed fully included, compared with 54% nationwide. About 9% of the state's disabled students -- triple the national average -- attend separate schools.
New Jersey passed some of the nation's first special-education laws. In the 1950s, it began requiring public schools to pay for special-ed services that they didn't offer. State law also gave counties and groups of school districts broad powers to build stand-alone schools for the disabled. Today, there are 80 publicly funded separate schools for the disabled in New Jersey and about 175 private ones. They receive tuition from public districts for handling special-ed students.
But in 2004, the state, which had faced federal pressure to mainstream, placed a year-long moratorium on the opening of new special-education schools. Since then, it has stiffened the approval process for private facilities and bolstered funding for local districts to broaden in-house programs.
In a budget-strapped state where voters have been demanding tax relief, cost has been a factor. On average, New Jersey spends about $16,100 a year on each special-education student, including those who are mainstreamed. The average annual tuition at the various, separate public schools for the disabled range from $28,500 to $42,000; at private schools, it's $44,000.
Overall, tuition and transportation costs for out-of-district placements accounted for 39% of the $3.3 billion a year that the state spends on special education. "That's a huge cost driver for our education budget," says state Sen. John Adler, who last year co-chaired hearings on school funding reform.
Many parents, including state Sen. Stephen Sweeney, bristle at moves that could foreclose their options. His daughter, Lauren, who has Down syndrome, attends a regular middle school. But Mr. Sweeney says her nondisabled classmates never visit or ask her to hang out. Next year, he's moving Lauren to a separate high school operated by the publicly funded Gloucester County Special Services School District. The system's special-education facilities also include a new $14 million school for children with autism and multiple disabilities.
'The Choice of Parents'
"Just to put my child in a building to make people feel better because it's inclusion is outrageous," says Mr. Sweeney. "As long as I am in the legislature, they are not going to take away the choice of parents with children with disabilities."
The school funding hearings, held in various towns and cities last fall, were emotional. Ruth Lowenkron, a special-education attorney, testified that beyond being the right thing to do, mainstreaming would save money. "Repeat after me," she told the legislators, "inclusion is cheaper than segregation."
But the panel also heard often from parents who argued for continued access to separate schools.
They included Adela Maria Bolet, of Teaneck, N.J., whose suit-clad son, Michael, sat beside his mother while she testified. The 17-year-old, who has Down syndrome, now attends a private high school on the state's tab. In earlier years, Ms. Bolet fought to get Michael into regular public schools only to find that he sometimes became depressed and had little positive interaction with nondisabled peers.
Until high school, he had few friends, says Ms. Bolet. Her voice still quivers when she talks about what happened when the family rented a pool in town and invited classmates from Michael's neighborhood elementary school to a swimming party for his 13th birthday. "Nobody came," she says.
Concurrent with the funding hearings, another debate was boiling at New Jersey's publicly funded Middlesex Regional Education Services Commission. It had already supported and built a network of six special-education schools, and planned to open two more, including a 24-classroom facility. The commission, controlled by a consortium of school districts, had built its other schools using bonds guaranteed by Middlesex County's governing board. Its school projects had never faced significant opposition.
This time was different, as the proposed schools became a target for mainstreaming advocates. Critics like William England, a school board member in South River, N.J., wrote to local papers. To endorse the sort of segregated special-education schools that most of the country is busy abandoning would be "a waste of county resources," he said in a letter to the Home News Tribune, East Brunswick, N.J.
Mark Finkelstein, the Middlesex commission's superintendent, scoffs at such criticism. He estimates his schools save local districts $10 million a year over the cost of placement in privately owned facilities. "It's easy to say that all kids should be in mainstream schools but let's talk reality," he says.
On a recent morning at the Bright Beginnings Learning Center -- one of the Middlesex schools -- a hallway painted mint-green was lined with children's wheelchairs and walkers. In one classroom, a teacher and four aides were working with seven disabled students, most strapped into devices designed to help them stand or sit.
Mary Lou Walker, an aide, crouched beside the desk of Teresa Condora, a petite 7-year-old who suffers from cerebral palsy and is largely nonverbal. "All right T, come on," Ms. Walker said, gently urging the girl to press a big red plastic button attached to a buzzer. Responding with a soft moan, Teresa pushed against the button as though it were impossibly heavy.
Factions Face Off
Last September, pro- and anti-mainstreaming factions faced off at a meeting where the fate of the proposed new Middlesex schools was to be decided.
At the microphone that evening, Paula Lieb, president of the New Jersey Coalition for Inclusive Education, cited multiple examples of severely disabled children who had been successfully mainstreamed. She said that "the vast majority of children can be included in the public schools."
But the parents of children already attending the commission's schools had also been organizing, urging each other to come to the hearing and bring their disabled children.
Sandy Epstein's family had moved to New Jersey from Oregon a decade earlier to take advantage of specialized schools for students like her son, Brandon, who has autism. For the hearing, the 48-year-old homemaker dressed her teenager in a bright red polo shirt and sat near the front. "I wanted him to stand out," she says. "I wanted these politicians to see what we are talking about."
Ms. Travis, a 41-year-old bookkeeper from Milltown, N.J., says that while waiting to speak that night, she grew angry with the criticisms of the inclusion advocates. She thought they had no idea what her daughter Valerie, now 11, needed.
The Travises had spent eight months on a waiting list to get Valerie into the Academy Learning Center, one of the Middlesex schools located in Monroe Township, N.J.
During that time, she says, the progress Valerie had made learning to speak all but disappeared. Along with reports of her outbursts at school, Ms. Travis says the family had to cope with frequent meltdowns at home. Valerie slept fitfully, ripped up her homework and beat up her little brother to the point that he once needed stitches.
"It was the worst eight months of our lives," Ms. Travis told the county officials, adding that families like hers needed schools like the Academy, where Valerie is now learning geography and double-digit subtraction.
Mr. Finkelstein believes parents' testimony helped convince county officials to unanimously back the bonds needed for the new construction, which is under way.
"If inclusion worked for all of our residents," the superintendent says, "they wouldn't be fighting so hard for these new schools."
Their efforts are far from over. In June, a coalition of disability-rights groups sued the New Jersey education department in U.S. District Court in Newark. Taking a page from the racial desegregation battles of the 1960s, it alleges the department isn't moving fast enough to integrate disabled students and asks the federal court to take over the process.
COFFEE BREAK FOR ARTISTIC MOMS
Did I say "artistic?"
Oh ... I'm sorry, I meant AUTISTIC.
For all of us Midwestern folk who are not waiting around for the world to end in ten years, click on my title "Coffee Break for Artistic Moms" for a special read ...
Oh ... I'm sorry, I meant AUTISTIC.
For all of us Midwestern folk who are not waiting around for the world to end in ten years, click on my title "Coffee Break for Artistic Moms" for a special read ...
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Inclusion Delusion Exclusion
My 12 year old went to Starbucks yesterday for a field trip. It was an opportunity arranged by a very creative special education teacher who seeks out multisensory opportunities within the community for her students who follow a very different pattern of physical and emotional development.
Her student's lips and tongues felt the steam of warm milk and their nose absorbed the aroma of vanilla, chocolate, and hazelnut. Their ears were filled with soft music while their eyes gazed upon blurrs of energy created by the sounds and motions unlike their usual environment. Their fingertips touched foamy cream and nutbread.
It is no ordinary school my daughter attends. It is one of the remaining therapy centers supported by voters through the property taxes they elect to pay and the local school districts who can afford to pay. It is a school designed to offer individualized education opportunities for children like my daughter based on their their emerging abilities. It is one of the remaining MR/dd therapy centers throughout Ohio serving children like my daughter who cannot benefit from being in a cognition-driven school environment.
The federal and state government would like to see these therapy centers close forever because instead of seeing opportunity for our children with severe disabilities, they see a pile of money that could be used elsewhere. So they spin the a delusion through legislation and paperwork that district schools can somehow re-create these same opportunities within their own districts. Districts with crowded schools and crippled finances. Districts that cannot pass tax levies to support opportunities for typical developing youth. Schools designed for and driven by cognition, proficiency, and product.
Our US government has gone as far as mandating and enforcing all Ohio school districts to mainstream all the children within their district boundaries without offering additional funding or facilitities or staffing to re-create the environments and related learning opportunties. Mainsteaming driven by economics, not education and certainly not according to the individual child's ability.
The US government has taken a law, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act established in 1975, and turned it around to be used against the individual. A law that we created to protect the individual rights of a child is now being used by the government giving this child no alternative except for what is offered through their district schools. A law that once protected the individual has become a law protecting the federal government from guarenteeing what rightfully belongs to the child.
The federal and state government has gone as far as creating a system weighted down by paperwork designed to "include" children like my daughter in their district's classroom but in reality exclude our children from the money that was inititially used to support alternative educational opportunities so they can have the same leverage as their biological peers. The paperwork they created signs away the right of the individual to the right of the school district so instead of our kids flying through a window of independence by their own design, they are expected to gain their independence forced through a one size fits all window.
Even more paperwork was created so our children can be removed from the classroom when they become a distraction or when the activity or subject matter goes beyond their ability or skill level instead of providing supplemental tools or adaptive equipment so the children can fully partipate same as their peers. It also excludes our children from learning in an environment designed to meet their individual developing abilities.
It also excludes some schools from providing nothing more for our children than a special ed teacher or specialist who travel from school to school to look in on our children for about 15 minutes a week or half hour twice a month in room with children with varying physical, cognition, and emotional disabilities and disorders. And the money that was once earmarked for our children's alternative opportunties goes into another pocket of the government.
In Ohio, it was the old "bait and switch" used on Ohio voters. A politician claiming he or she can save the voter 8 billion dollars here and there. A politician whose soap box supporting "values" stands in the middle of a dumping ground filled with "government waste. " The "government waste" money once earmarked for the therapy schools is earmarked for something else in government.
It's a scam made possible by eight years of political corruption that started at the federal level by creating the inclusion exclusion delusion.
Her student's lips and tongues felt the steam of warm milk and their nose absorbed the aroma of vanilla, chocolate, and hazelnut. Their ears were filled with soft music while their eyes gazed upon blurrs of energy created by the sounds and motions unlike their usual environment. Their fingertips touched foamy cream and nutbread.
It is no ordinary school my daughter attends. It is one of the remaining therapy centers supported by voters through the property taxes they elect to pay and the local school districts who can afford to pay. It is a school designed to offer individualized education opportunities for children like my daughter based on their their emerging abilities. It is one of the remaining MR/dd therapy centers throughout Ohio serving children like my daughter who cannot benefit from being in a cognition-driven school environment.
The federal and state government would like to see these therapy centers close forever because instead of seeing opportunity for our children with severe disabilities, they see a pile of money that could be used elsewhere. So they spin the a delusion through legislation and paperwork that district schools can somehow re-create these same opportunities within their own districts. Districts with crowded schools and crippled finances. Districts that cannot pass tax levies to support opportunities for typical developing youth. Schools designed for and driven by cognition, proficiency, and product.
Our US government has gone as far as mandating and enforcing all Ohio school districts to mainstream all the children within their district boundaries without offering additional funding or facilitities or staffing to re-create the environments and related learning opportunties. Mainsteaming driven by economics, not education and certainly not according to the individual child's ability.
The US government has taken a law, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act established in 1975, and turned it around to be used against the individual. A law that we created to protect the individual rights of a child is now being used by the government giving this child no alternative except for what is offered through their district schools. A law that once protected the individual has become a law protecting the federal government from guarenteeing what rightfully belongs to the child.
The federal and state government has gone as far as creating a system weighted down by paperwork designed to "include" children like my daughter in their district's classroom but in reality exclude our children from the money that was inititially used to support alternative educational opportunities so they can have the same leverage as their biological peers. The paperwork they created signs away the right of the individual to the right of the school district so instead of our kids flying through a window of independence by their own design, they are expected to gain their independence forced through a one size fits all window.
Even more paperwork was created so our children can be removed from the classroom when they become a distraction or when the activity or subject matter goes beyond their ability or skill level instead of providing supplemental tools or adaptive equipment so the children can fully partipate same as their peers. It also excludes our children from learning in an environment designed to meet their individual developing abilities.
It also excludes some schools from providing nothing more for our children than a special ed teacher or specialist who travel from school to school to look in on our children for about 15 minutes a week or half hour twice a month in room with children with varying physical, cognition, and emotional disabilities and disorders. And the money that was once earmarked for our children's alternative opportunties goes into another pocket of the government.
In Ohio, it was the old "bait and switch" used on Ohio voters. A politician claiming he or she can save the voter 8 billion dollars here and there. A politician whose soap box supporting "values" stands in the middle of a dumping ground filled with "government waste. " The "government waste" money once earmarked for the therapy schools is earmarked for something else in government.
It's a scam made possible by eight years of political corruption that started at the federal level by creating the inclusion exclusion delusion.
Children's Disabilities Information
Another resource for new parents. Just click on the title above or go here:
http://www.childrensdisabilities.info/articles.html
http://www.childrensdisabilities.info/articles.html
Autism and Fad Treatments
By Jeff Grabmeier
Ohio State University
August 20, 2007
Copyright © 2007 Ohio State University
This article is used with permission from:
The Ohio State University Research News
Ineffective or even dangerous fad treatments for autism, always a problem, seem to be growing more pervasive, according to researchers who studied the problem.
“Developmental disabilities like autism are a magnet for all kinds of unsupported or disproved therapies, and it has gotten worse as more children have been diagnosed with autism,” said James Mulick, professor of pediatrics and psychology at Ohio State University .”
“There's no cure for autism, and many parents are willing to believe anything if they come to think it could help their child.”
"Outrageous Developmental Disabilities Treatments"
Mulick chaired a symposium on “Outrageous Developmental Disabilities Treatments” Aug. 20 in San Francisco at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association. The symposium included presentations by several of Mulick's students at Ohio State who participated in a graduate seminar on fad treatments in autism.
“We're not saying that all of these treatments don't work or that they are all dangerous,” Kettering said. “But the research hasn't been done to suggest that most of them are effective or even safe.” Many of the treatments may have just enough basis in scientific fact to attract attention, even if the treatment itself is unproven.
Tracy Kettering, a doctoral student in special education at Ohio State , said a Google search for the phrase “autism treatment” yields more than 2.2 million matches.
“You get hundreds of different types of therapies that come up, and many have quotes from parents that claim a particular therapy ‘cured' their child,” Kettering said.
“It's no wonder that parents want to believe. But very few of these treatments have any evidence to support them.”
The number and range of fad treatments has seemed to grow in recent years as more children have been diagnosed with autism, said Mulick, who is also editor of a book on fad treatments called Controversial Therapies for Developmental Disabilities: Fad, Fashion, and Science in Professional Practice.
Mulick said when he began treating autism in the 1970s about 3 children in 10,000 were said to have autism. Now, reports are 1 in 166 children have the condition. The number of cases has mushroomed because of better diagnoses, and a changing definition of autism that includes a broader range of disorders.
Some of the newer, more popular fad treatments for autism involve special diets or nutritional supplements. Megadoses of Vitamins C and B6 are popular, as well as supplements with fatty acids like omega-3s.
A casein and/or gluten-free diet, which involves eliminating dairy and wheat products, has also gained favor with some parents.
While many of these treatments have never been adequately studied, that doesn't mean they aren't promoted.
“One of the characteristics of fad treatments is that they are discussed in the media and on the internet, where many parents can be exposed to them,” said Anne Snow, an Ohio State psychology graduate student.
And while some fads are simply ineffective, others can even be dangerous, Mulick said. Chelation therapy, which involves taking medicines to remove the heavy metal mercury from the body, has reportedly led to the death of at least one autistic boy receiving that treatment. Chelation therapy was also touted years ago as a new treatment against some forms of cancer but was eventually shown to have no helpful effect.
Many parents try multiple approaches, hoping at least one will help. Kettering said one survey she found suggests that the average parent of a child with autism has tried seven different therapies.
“We're not saying that all of these treatments don't work or that they are all dangerous,” Kettering said. “But the research hasn't been done to suggest that most of them are effective or even safe.”
More Scientific Evidence Needed to Support Most Claims
Many of the treatments may have just enough basis in scientific fact to attract attention, even if the treatment itself is unproven.
For instance, most scientists believe that many cases of autism are caused by genetic mutations, and some mutations can be caused by various chemicals that we encounter in our everyday lives, Mulick said.
But still, there is no evidence that any particular chemical causes mutations that lead to autism, as some have claimed.
“There's a shred of truth in the rationale presented for some fad treatments, and that is enough for some people to go with,” he said.
Another reason that fad treatments persist has to do with the natural course of autism, Mulick said.
Autism, like many conditions, has cycles in which symptoms get worse and then get better. Parents tend to search for treatments when symptoms are getting worse, and when their children get better – as they do in the normal course of disease – parents credit the new therapy.
“It's natural to have this bias that the therapy you're trying has had some positive effect,” he said. “People want to believe.”
Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention Can Have Positive Effects
While other treatments are still being investigated, right now the only therapy that has been shown to have a long-term positive affect on autism is called Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention, Mulick said.
EIBI is a highly structured approach to learning, in which children with autism are taught first to imitate their teachers. But this treatment is very time-consuming and labor intensive. It involves one-on-one behavioral treatment with the child for up to 40 hours a week for several years.
“It's expensive and difficult for many parents to use,” Mulick said. “That's got to be one reason other treatments look attractive to them.”
Mulick said other treatments and therapies are being studied. However, it takes years to test treatments for autism because of the nature of the disease and problems with proving effectiveness.
“Autism studies are a long, time-consuming, and expensive process,” Mulick said. “And some of the fad treatments being used today would never be approved for testing – they are just too dangerous.”
In addition to Mulick, Kettering and Snow, other presenters at the symposium included Ohio State graduate students Cristan Farmer, Megan Norris, Andrea Witwer and Jill Hollway.
Copyright © 2007 Ohio State University
http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/fadaut.htm
Ohio State University
August 20, 2007
Copyright © 2007 Ohio State University
This article is used with permission from:
The Ohio State University Research News
Ineffective or even dangerous fad treatments for autism, always a problem, seem to be growing more pervasive, according to researchers who studied the problem.
“Developmental disabilities like autism are a magnet for all kinds of unsupported or disproved therapies, and it has gotten worse as more children have been diagnosed with autism,” said James Mulick, professor of pediatrics and psychology at Ohio State University .”
“There's no cure for autism, and many parents are willing to believe anything if they come to think it could help their child.”
"Outrageous Developmental Disabilities Treatments"
Mulick chaired a symposium on “Outrageous Developmental Disabilities Treatments” Aug. 20 in San Francisco at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association. The symposium included presentations by several of Mulick's students at Ohio State who participated in a graduate seminar on fad treatments in autism.
“We're not saying that all of these treatments don't work or that they are all dangerous,” Kettering said. “But the research hasn't been done to suggest that most of them are effective or even safe.” Many of the treatments may have just enough basis in scientific fact to attract attention, even if the treatment itself is unproven.
Tracy Kettering, a doctoral student in special education at Ohio State , said a Google search for the phrase “autism treatment” yields more than 2.2 million matches.
“You get hundreds of different types of therapies that come up, and many have quotes from parents that claim a particular therapy ‘cured' their child,” Kettering said.
“It's no wonder that parents want to believe. But very few of these treatments have any evidence to support them.”
The number and range of fad treatments has seemed to grow in recent years as more children have been diagnosed with autism, said Mulick, who is also editor of a book on fad treatments called Controversial Therapies for Developmental Disabilities: Fad, Fashion, and Science in Professional Practice.
Mulick said when he began treating autism in the 1970s about 3 children in 10,000 were said to have autism. Now, reports are 1 in 166 children have the condition. The number of cases has mushroomed because of better diagnoses, and a changing definition of autism that includes a broader range of disorders.
Some of the newer, more popular fad treatments for autism involve special diets or nutritional supplements. Megadoses of Vitamins C and B6 are popular, as well as supplements with fatty acids like omega-3s.
A casein and/or gluten-free diet, which involves eliminating dairy and wheat products, has also gained favor with some parents.
While many of these treatments have never been adequately studied, that doesn't mean they aren't promoted.
“One of the characteristics of fad treatments is that they are discussed in the media and on the internet, where many parents can be exposed to them,” said Anne Snow, an Ohio State psychology graduate student.
And while some fads are simply ineffective, others can even be dangerous, Mulick said. Chelation therapy, which involves taking medicines to remove the heavy metal mercury from the body, has reportedly led to the death of at least one autistic boy receiving that treatment. Chelation therapy was also touted years ago as a new treatment against some forms of cancer but was eventually shown to have no helpful effect.
Many parents try multiple approaches, hoping at least one will help. Kettering said one survey she found suggests that the average parent of a child with autism has tried seven different therapies.
“We're not saying that all of these treatments don't work or that they are all dangerous,” Kettering said. “But the research hasn't been done to suggest that most of them are effective or even safe.”
More Scientific Evidence Needed to Support Most Claims
Many of the treatments may have just enough basis in scientific fact to attract attention, even if the treatment itself is unproven.
For instance, most scientists believe that many cases of autism are caused by genetic mutations, and some mutations can be caused by various chemicals that we encounter in our everyday lives, Mulick said.
But still, there is no evidence that any particular chemical causes mutations that lead to autism, as some have claimed.
“There's a shred of truth in the rationale presented for some fad treatments, and that is enough for some people to go with,” he said.
Another reason that fad treatments persist has to do with the natural course of autism, Mulick said.
Autism, like many conditions, has cycles in which symptoms get worse and then get better. Parents tend to search for treatments when symptoms are getting worse, and when their children get better – as they do in the normal course of disease – parents credit the new therapy.
“It's natural to have this bias that the therapy you're trying has had some positive effect,” he said. “People want to believe.”
Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention Can Have Positive Effects
While other treatments are still being investigated, right now the only therapy that has been shown to have a long-term positive affect on autism is called Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention, Mulick said.
EIBI is a highly structured approach to learning, in which children with autism are taught first to imitate their teachers. But this treatment is very time-consuming and labor intensive. It involves one-on-one behavioral treatment with the child for up to 40 hours a week for several years.
“It's expensive and difficult for many parents to use,” Mulick said. “That's got to be one reason other treatments look attractive to them.”
Mulick said other treatments and therapies are being studied. However, it takes years to test treatments for autism because of the nature of the disease and problems with proving effectiveness.
“Autism studies are a long, time-consuming, and expensive process,” Mulick said. “And some of the fad treatments being used today would never be approved for testing – they are just too dangerous.”
In addition to Mulick, Kettering and Snow, other presenters at the symposium included Ohio State graduate students Cristan Farmer, Megan Norris, Andrea Witwer and Jill Hollway.
Copyright © 2007 Ohio State University
http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/fadaut.htm
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