Of course I am partial and self-serving, that's my training. :grin: Seriously, he has every right to be upset. I know the emotions. I deal with them a lot. I just thought he could have done it a little bit different for the real benefit of his son, based on my limited experience in this type situation, which I have seen and helped in the past.
Not defending the teachers in the video. But ... just saying try teaching moderate-servere autistic group for one day, especially if not well prepared for that, youself. You gonna lose it. I guranttee. These kids don't communicate and have servere behavior problems. You will quickly run out of sorts in dealing with them even if you want to do your best but not very experienced. I tend to look at the bigger picture, there is whole lot more to be blamed here.
Good for you, you do not get to pick what is or is not sacred. Carl did not say anytning inappopriate.
That's a pretty personal question to ask joking or not. Knowing that you can't communicate with someone to find out what they need from you, try sacrificing your life for not knowing if you are doing everything you can to help them while hanging on to the hope that you are. This awful condition varies from individual to individual and so would the effects of any advances. You get up every day knowing your kid and you are in for a fight and you do the best you can. It's far to complex a condition for a cure for everyone pop up 1 day. Again....in my case...kid doesn't talk, flaps hands, has temper tantrums, slaps self repeatedly, attacks people who try to block him from hitting, put head through sheet rock. No misdiagnose there.... By the time you get to moderate status, you are passed being misdiagnosed. The point is... I just did and quite frankly some of the **** you are writing made me feel like I had too. I live a similar life to this guy and I can tell you I understand him a little better than you would. I wouldn't have gone down the same road he did and if he were my friend, I would have asked him to do something more effective than he did. Maybe he couldn't afford a lawyer. If he's doing this to be an advocate for individuals with Autism or his own son, well....God Bless him.
I am sorry for my insensitive remarks. I am trully are. But as stupid and corny it may sound, don't let the hope dim, you have to. They are starting to find some genetic explanations and that's promising. You are the only ones your kid can count on and you have to positive. I will quote Robert Lifton's line in his book The Nazi Doctor " This is world is not this world". I was actually very turned off and angry at what he did with the video knowing that he probably could have done it much differently and effectively. That's all. I also wish more legal professionals could provide affordable services to parents in need in your case. To be honest, I sometime feel the whole thing is a con starting from therapy, advocacy to public schools. I feel they don't really care about the kids but rather treat it as their business for living. Of course, can't blame them for that, but ... Again my appologies.
I accept your apology and extend my own to you. I'm not giving up hope. We just have to keep grounded in reality to be best equipped to care for our son. Send me a PM and I will let you in on some of the positive things I'm doing these days.
when i used to substitute, I worked with some really under-qualified special ed teachers. they treated the kids the same as these teachers did. it was at spring woods and northbrook high school. simple solution is dont let just anyone who gets teacher certified become a teacher. treat teaching as an important professional career. (i.e. pay teachers more). If a teacher can make near 6 figures then better qualified ppl would become teachers instead of a lot of the trash i worked with in the past.
Agree. I think the bigger problem is the resource and level to support Autistic kids. Every state and every school district has different eargness in terms of funding. What I really want to say and I am sure people will flame me for saying it is that these kids used to be sent to instuitions for good and today whoever get assigned to teach these kids gets a really really tough job. Teachers, at current level, don't get much for teaching autistic kids at all. There is no excuse in treating kids as those teachers did, but if the resource issue is not resolved there are going to be issues.
And that still absolutely does not give them a reason to act the way they did. A good teacher would know how to restrain themselves and find other ways to diffuse stressful situations. I feel like I'm gonna lose it plenty of times, hell every teacher does, but we don't cross that line. If you aren't certified to handle situations like that, you have no business being there (and the school shouldn't put you in that situation either). Agree there is a bigger picture here, but that doesn't excuse the teachers and aides. And if the father isn't getting answers the conventional way (which seemed to be the case), then good for him for uncovering the truth.
It's real, and the severe, non-verbal stuff is a flat out nightmare; but like some allergies and a lot of other stuff I don't think third world kids get, it'd probably be preventable if we could understand early development a little better.
No it doesn't excuse them, but on the other hand, lot of them treat autistic kids in speical ed class like that, sorry for the news. I was angry at that in the begining, then I started asking myself what is really going on. Think about this, most parents with autistic kids are emotionally drained just to deal with their own kids. Now you group 6, 8 sometimes 10 of those kids in a class, assign a primary teacher 3 teacher aids trying to teach them. Sounds good on paper, almost 1 to 2 teacher/student ratio, right? Mind you, those kids don't talk, don't understand, and most of them have senory problems, like can't handel light, noise etc. You got a few of them talk themselves constantly, other few all of sudden threw tantrum because of their sensory problem, most of them have hygene issues because of their sensory ( I am so so sorry for saying that) and you put an inexperienced teacher (as said, the more prepared ones are in private sector for higher pay) to teach them? I am sorry, to me, the state, the school district is more to blame.
This. I think people have to understand the amount of patience, experience it takes to teach a class of 8-9 autistic children. It really can be very frustrating for a normally trained teacher. The kids live in their own little world, by rules in their own head and doesn't really care or aren't aware about his surroundings. I volunteered autistic/special needs children at YMCA and my former high school for 2-3 years. Being with multiple of these special needs children can be very tiring mentally and physically because our way and their way of expressing feelings are totally different. IMO not a lot of people can handle working full time with 7-8 severely autistic kids, it takes a toll on your body and mind. I'm in no way defending the teachers, I think their behavior is completely unprofessional and sick. But I think the school board is to blame here for not putting the right people with the kids.
Of course the teachers deserve blame. They are doing a terrible job. Of course the school system should be blamed because they are creating the environment and hiring (and maintaining the employment of) teachers who apparently don't know how to do their job. Unfortunately, there are probably plenty more situations like this one where underqualified teachers abuse their special ed kids. In the state hospitals they can be even worse and just over medicate with things like lithium. The father can react however he wants - this is his child and wrongs have been committed. If he really has been dealing with these kinds of issues for 6 months + I am sure he is physically, emotionally, and mentally drained. To chastise him now seems stupid. I also applaud the tape recorder. He needed to know what was going on. In high school some classmates and I recorded our math teacher on multiple of her daily diatribes of abuse about how stupid we all were, how smart she was, how all the girls in class were ugly and she was so fine when she was young. None of the girls could hold a candle to her. We would play them for our parents and they took it to the principal. He, of course, told her about it and did nothing else. So later we got her on tape in another rant where she finished with "and I hope you are recording this!" and started naming names. Ah, public schools. Anyway, enough of my derail. Finally, YallMean you need to know more about autism and education before you go off with all of your crazy, poorly written posts of accusations and declarations.
Yallmean, I've read some stupid comments on this board over the yrs, and normally I just keep my mouth shut and don't say anything. That said, this topic hits home with me as I have a five yr old daughter who's autistic. You say you have "close family members with autism" and that part of your profession deals with autistic kids as well. For your family members that have autism all I can is my thoughts and prayers go out to them and that the good Lord gives the parents of these children the strength to take it one day at a time and that these kids are showered with the love and compassion they deserve. Knowing people with autism (whether it's a family member or a child of a friend or neighbor, etc) is NOT (let me repeat myself) NOT the same thing as your own child having autism and dealing with it 24/7 365 days a yr. You say this dad should be more "engaging" with his child? That he (or any parent of an autistic child) should know what's going on in the class? Yallmean, you are clueless my friend!!!!! This dad could have gone to the class numerous times to watch what's going on, or spoken to the teachers about numerous topics (as you claim he should be doing), but do you really think these heartless teachers are going to tell him what they're doing to his kid when he isn't around to watch? You have a problem with this dad recording these teachers without them knowing? If you had ANY idea what this dad was going thru and had some compassion for his situation, you'd realize that he was trying to find out why his autistic son was lashing out when this wasn't normal for him. Even a young kid mentioned to him that his son cries a lot in class. So obviously this wasn't a one time thing with these teachers. His son couldn't tell him what was going on, and if you had ANY FREAKIN idea how frustrating that is for a parent trying to protect their child from harm you'd realize that you'll do what you HAVE to do to try and find out what the problem is. "It's no excuse for him to say my kid cannot communicate"? Seriously? If this is how your mind works and this is where your compassion is my friend I would hate to think that someone like you is out there as a so-called advocate in the world of autism. Go get in another profession as this isn't about a job (which it is to you). Parents with autistic kids is a way of life and you either get this or you don't and you OBVIOUSLY don't get this nor how could you as you're NOT a parent of an autistic child. Thus you have NO right not to give this dad the benefit of the doubt when he's doing what he needed to do to try and find out what was going on with his son Akian. "Teachers are human too"? Yes most are but given what's on that tape these teachers have NO idea how to treat another human being. What human laughs at making a 10 yr old autistic boy cry? Instead of having compassion for the teachers how about having some freakin COMPASSION for the young boy who's defenseless and can't stand up for himself?????????? If a teacher can't treat each of their students (especially autistic kids) with dignity and respect and compassion at the VERY minimum, than get the hell out of the class and let someone else teach the class. Sorry Yallmean, you're compassion meter is WAY off when you state that you "feel for these teachers who have to deal with this". It also amazes me that you again have a problem with this dad taping the teachers. "Those words were said without them aware they were being taped". Pull your head out of the sand Yallmean!!!! I mean what do you think these teachers would say or do if they knew they were being watched? That's the whole point of this!!!!!!!! They knew this young autistic child, nor any of his classmates, would be able to go tell on them, and they took advantage of the situation, and by doing what they did and said what they said, their TRUE colors showed what kind of human beings they are. And they call themselves "teachers"? If this would have happened with my daughter, I can tell you not only would I sue the district, but it would have taken an army to restrain me from what I would do to those heartless-no compassion--coward--gutless--so called teachers.
Shark, first, sorry to hear about your daughter. This sort of stuff happens in special ed class more often than it should, sadly. These "teachers" operate in the shadow of IDEA/IEP and other state laws on top of a pretty tough assignment. They are very stressed. Again, behind that closed door 6,7 hours a day bad stuff and inappopriate things are said and done to kids more often that they should be, just go check out your daughter's class randomly without telling them and see for yourself. That said, in no way I am defending those teachers.
