"Autistic Kids In Danger?" Article | Autism PDD
I was at my older dd's ENT the other day, & sitting on a seat was a page
open to an article about Autism: "Autistic Kids In Danger?" It's on page
105 of he Autust 27, t2007 issue of People magazine (of all places!). It's
a STARTLING article, something all of us here need to read. It is the story
of 2 young boys who died at residential facilities. It is heartbreaking to
read, I feel horrible for these families. This statistic really SHOOK me:
In the past six months alone, at least four autistic children have dieed
under the supervision of aides..."
I've started researching this, after seeing something in the news a month
ago about a state school here in Texas. Once you start looking into
this...it is horrifying. You'd think we (the public, all of us) would have
learned from our mistakes in the generations before us. I can't believe
children are still being abused & killed under the supposed care of aides
& other people who are supposed to be caring/helping them. I'm not
sure what the solution is, but I URGE every parent here to research this &
realize that yes, TODAY in the year 2007, this is happening.
A link I posted previously, check out:
The Family Alliance
and:
CAICA
positions are very badly paid which means that you have a lot of staff with
little knowledge and skills as well as high turn-over. The whole thing is
bad no matter what way you look at it.
The people article itself was really badly written, usually they do a better
job. For example they wrote that the family placed their kid in the facility
because he wa not toilet trained (?!) - obviously the reporter was
completly missing the whole picture of the challenges the family faced. If
I was the family and heartbroken over my kid's death I'd be beyond
furious with the article.Ooops...re-posting this in the main forum. Not sure how I got in into this
one. Yeah, I couldn't believe the toilet training bit. I am GLAD though that a
publication like People is doing anything on this topic. It's not exactly stuff
that makes the 6 o'clock news, and a topic not too many want to discuss.
So, I do applaud them for putting in there. Any bit of education & awareness
on this that the general public gets is GOOD.
I had applied for a job years ago at a state school here in TX (under MAJOR
investigation now). I remember after a brief interview (no background check
etc.), they offered me a job. It was for or so an hour. I toured the
facility, and just got a bad vibe. That, combined w/ what the job required, I
felt was not fit (I was then offered more than an hour at a daycare!). I read that article. And it just broke my heart. No matter how bad Skylar could ever get, I would NEVER put him in one of those places. SO SAD!
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