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
Shocking. In the Norwegian newspapers a year or so ago there was a story about an autistic young man who had a severe regression (back to nonverbal and wearing diapers) while living in a group home.
His parents had gone away for a couple weeks, thinking their son was in good care. As it turned out, problems had been building up for months but they never knew about it because of poor communication with the staff.
Obviously we have to trust those that care for our children, either in school or in a residential setting, but we must also be vigilant and fight if necessary to get staff to communicate with us regularly about how our children are doing.
Thanks for the links.