mainstreaming?I don't think you're a bad teacher. I understand you get the kids you get and put in alot of effort, commitment and care into your kids. My issue is with the standpoint that segregated classes are more beneficial for kids than being among the regular community. I think you'd be a great teacher in an environment that provided more opportunities but the parameters aren't in your control. My point about envelope stuffing is that these kids have already lost opportunity by being taken out of mainstream opportunities in grade 1, 2,3... and are being denied opportunity for anything else by 12 years old. Along the same line, I don't understand why they are being taught not to throw markers in grade 6. To me, they should have had this opportunity long long ago. But, many kids are automatically streamed into segregated classes "for their own good" as they enter school. "Lifeskills" and grocery store trips etc. are outdated teaching based on the institutionalization of ppl and reintegrating them into the community because those opportunities were denied to them. Ppl in institutions were not provided access to grocery stores, laundry and cooking, planning their own lives, or public transportation in their daily lives. The reason for teaching "lifeskills" was because ppl were devoid of natural opportunities. Why would a child in a regular home need to go to school to go to the grocery store when they've been going since they were born? If my older daughter waited for some integration by grade 6, she'd have severe issues in behavior as well as meeting the expectations of a regular class. I don't think segregated classes help kids learn how to perform in the real world - I think they're taken out of the game and then it's used against them when they they can't prove they can perform. Real classrooms go to the library, eat lunch, and do all the things that real people are expected to do. Real parents teach their real kids real everyday functional things even if they work to pay bills. I do have another daughter who has learned PECs and toilet trained in regular ed. She was far from an angel - closer to tasmanian devil when she started regular school 3 years ago. She's learned the rules of the classroom, strategies and consequences from participation and with tools and supports. She is nonverbal and uses ASL and a speech device and her peers in her class learn ASL. The kids in the neighborhood know her and go on her bus. The EA, FM system, classroom visuals, clear positive instruction, and teacher behavior training all assist the typical students in her class as well. There is an assumption that nonverbal kids are LF that is too prevalent. The same assumption was made at one time of children with blindness and deafness. Tools, supports and opportunities in the real world make a real world of difference. It's every child's right and shouldn't be so easily taken away.
Thank you for your post. As a special ed teacher I appreciate you speaking up for us. As a mother to a child with PDD-NOS, I enjoy this forum a lot, but I often feel that parents view us sped teachers as the enemy. I teach mild/moderate so I have varying degrees of abilities in my class. I work so hard to help my students, and I love each of them. I differentiate all my lessons and homework so that all levels of learners can be successful. I have several students with Specific Learning Disability make amazing growth in my class. I have a second grader that has already made a years worth of growth in reading in less than 90 school days. I discovered one of my non-verbal autistic students can read something his previous teachers did not know. My students do not color all day. I use the general education curriculum and modify and adapt it for my students. I do not understand why some parents feel that we do not take our jobs seriously and/or do not always have our students' best interest at heart. I don't view special ed. teachers as the enemy or think they're uncaring or uncommitted btw... my special ed teachers are great! Many kids with ASD aren't given the opportunity to be in regular classrooms so knowing where they'd really be the most successful is assumed to be segregation since it's the political norm of many SD's. Do kids not learn how to do life skills at home like how to answer the phone, sort items? Why are they stuffing envelopes in grade 6? If special ed is "helping" kids with autism be independent how is that by 11-12 yo they are functioning at a 18mth to 5 yo level after being in it 7-9yrs? It seems there's a low risk of losing anything by providing opportunities to be part of their natural community. At best you're looking at achieving 8 yrs functioning at 18 yo and "if they're lucky" sheltered work. But, the reality is, the older the kids get in special ed the lower the expectations get. If a child can't be "successful" in grade 1,2,3,4, 5, or 6 classroom how can they really be expected to ever "succesful" in the real world. It's inverted in regular ed. the expectations start small and work up so therefore the child is always given the opportunity to try - it's not just about peers. I'm glad the expectation of my grade 6 ASD child isn't stuffing envelopes -- she's got alot years of growth and development ahead. She is provided alot of opportunites, tools and support. Even if she functions at 6yrs in reading, or 13 yrs in gym, or 7yrs in math she's still 11 yrs old and is given the same opportunities as other 11 yr olds. She learns from a wide variety of ppl alot of unexpected things. In a major study over 14 school systems in the United States Brinker & Thorpe (1986) found that the degree of integration was a significant predictor of educational progress, regardless of the functional level of the student. This meant that students who were included full time did better than those who were included 50% of the time, who again did better than those included for say, 20% of the time. Moreover, this effect occurred even with the most severely impaired students. It does not indicate that they kept up with the rest of the class, but that they did better the more they were included. "The majority of research to date shows both educational and social advantages for integrated settings over segregated alternatives” (Sobsey & Dreimanis, 1993). A massive study over the whole of the Dutch Education system started with the presumption that pupils in special education would do better because of the specialist care and individual attention (Karsten, Peetsma, & Roeleveld, 2001). The data set was the longitudinal data from 40,000 students in primary schools, 35,000 who were in regular education and 5,000 segregated. They concluded that: “there is little evidence to support the idea that at-risk pupils make less progress, in either their academic or psychosocial development, in regular schools compared with pupils in special schools” (p193). In discussing their results more directly, they concluded that students in segregated education do less well than those who were included, and the longer they were segregated the larger the gap with their included peers. A major Norwegian study looked at the impact of segregation and inclusion on vocational skills (Markussen, 2004). The curriculum of Special Education is often composed of ‘life skills’, which are arguably designed to improve the likelihood of student gaining employment post school. The study analysed the data for 777 students in special education and found that those in segregated education achieved a lower level of success than students in mainstream classes. The argument of skill level and segregation if it were accurate would be the same as claiming it's better for my child to sit another table to eat instead of with us higher functioning eaters. It would be better for her to communicate with ppl like her instead of the higher functioning ppl in our family. Or to live apart from their siblings so they could learn better or not hold them back. Once she could prove she could do it with miminal support then we could include her in our regular events and activities. The reality is she learns by doing and we adapt because she's part of our community. If anything these kids get further and further away from independence and mainstream society because regular opportunities are taken away. There's no reason why they can't learn relevant things in regular environments with tools and supports. Segregated education inorder to justify it's violation of civil rights and removal of ppl from mainstream society would need to prove its not just superior to inclusion but vastly superior to inclusion. It has not been able to prove efficacy in 70 years. Empirical data points that's it's less effective. It's also far more expensive, and removes ppl from their natural environment. My students (whom I care deeply about) are about to arrive, so I can't fully respond. We must be talking about two different kinds of kids here. My kids ARE included for PE and ART. And you know what? They have to design a totally separate curriculum for them because they are cognitively unable to understand the regular 6th grade art class, where they draw 3-d figures and take notes about famous artists. My kids are learning to paint in the lines and not throw the markers. I can't say what's been done with my students before they came to me, but I can say that they would flounder in regular ed, even with supports. Actually, they do flounder in their regular ed electives classes. The kids are finally starting to be nice to them, but they have a "class within a class" because the art teacher has to come up with something separate for them. I would love to see someone like you come teach my class and tell me why my kids are on an 18 month old level. Perhaps it's because the child who is at that level moved here from Kenya last year and has never been in school before. She is non-verbal and started the school year in diapers. I toilet trained her and she is now on Phase IV of PECS, after only four months of school. She's 11. These two things could not have been achieved in a regular education classroom. Plus, she would have been a huge disruption to the other kids, she flails her body around and makes vocalizations. She was barely able to follow basic receptive instructions. We have worked our BUTTS off to get this kid to where she is. She's communicating with us now, and her mother has told us many times that we've done more with her in four months than has been achieved in eleven years. I am NOT in any way saying that regular ed is NOT appropriate for ANY child with autism, I am just giving my opinion from a teaching standpoint, for the kids that I work with. I don't know what they would get out of a 6th grade math class, to be honest. Yes, an ABA trained 1:1 aide could sit in there and do discrete trials with them in the corner... but where does that get you? It's not even possible to modify this work because the kids are so low. Again, this is their first year with me because I am the middle school teacher. I KNOW that there are teachers out there who don't care as much as I do. I love what I do and I am slightly offended that you would think that we'd be working on envelope stuffing if they didn't need it. I don't give my kids busy work, I give them developmentally appropriate tasks to prepare them for the real world. I incorporate weekly community trips into our curriculum, where we count money, ask for things in the store, follow a grocery list, etc. I even got library cards for all of them, so that we can walk to the library and choose books. They are able to get their cards out of their wallets and borrow their books at the public library with minimal assistance. It sounds like your daughter is much higher functioning than the students that I work with. Those are very interesting studies and I do plan to read about them and see if they have information like IQ levels, what the students worked on in regular ed versus what they worked on in special ed, etc. Yes, there are special ed teachers who don't work hard and just let their kids color all day. But, there are regular ed teachers who do the same! If Special Ed teachers use data based decisions and research based practices to guide their instruction, their kids SHOULD be making light years of progress in special ed. I've also worked in a special ed school. The school that I worked in, I did not have a good experience at all. I felt like the experience filled the expectations of what you wrote in your post, about not challenging the students, etc. I work hard on a daily basis to push my students to their very limits. We have many students with autism in our school who ARE included because that IS the best placement for them. I think it's totally okay for everyone to have their own opinion about the topic. However, for my kiddos, I know what's best with them and I am thankful that their parents agree. (And for the envelope stuffing comment, I am very glad for you that you don't want your daughter stuffing envelopes in sixth grade. For some kids, their parents wish they could perform simple skills like that). My parents all have 2-3 jobs just to pay the bills. No, they can't work on answering the phone at home because they don't have one. They're grateful that our program is including an entire period devoted to preparing them for work after high school. I've spent nearly $1,000 of my own money to purchase vocational skills for them to work on.) But like I mentioned, I think that you'd be a very wonderful teacher and would love for you to have a day in my shoes. I think after seeing how much progress my kids have made in my class, you'd see why the specialized environment works for them. The kids are here. As a teacher, I think it's important to look at where the child can be the most independent, successful, and confident. If a child is unable to near grade level (not exactly on but near) - I don't think it's fair to assume that they would rather "be with their peers." I've had many kids that are happy and confident in my self-contained setting. They feel good about the work they complete, they're learning things on their level (as I expose them to grade level topics as well), and they're able to be independent because my room is set up to improve independence (visual cues, schedules, labels, boundaries, etc.) A regular ed teacher has usually 25-30 kids that they have to manage and watch out for. They simply cannot be expected to work on all of the special/exceptional/individualized goals that a child who is significantly below grade level needs to be working on. Kids that are in my class get a wonderful (small) teacher to student ratio (I have two aides and 5 kids). They also get a curriculum that is functional for them. I am not sure where your son is on the spectrum, but my kids receive instruction in vocational skills, social skills, and independence skills. This includes community trips, practicing their lunch number in the lunch room, opening their lockers, performing vocational tasks such as answering the telephone, stuffing envelopes, sorting items, alphabetizing, assembling packages, etc. These are all skills that could not be accomplished in the regular education classroom, without complete distraction to the other students and complete segregation for the ASD kiddos. From what I've read, you've had some bad experiences with the school district. I would like to remind you that there are definitely teachers out there who care and have the kids best interests in mind. It totally depends on where your child is with his academic/functional/independence skills. Specials classes are always the first for kids to be included in because it gives the kids a chance to be successful. It's very easy to "imitate" (a skill that is taught at a young age) in PE (doing jumping jacks like everyone else, throwing the ball, running on the court, etc.) It is also easy to look over at your friend and see what he is doing in art class. It's a little more challenging in Language Arts and Math. This is probably why they're making sure he's successful in the other classes first. As long as they are challenging him and he is making progress in his self-contained classroom, I surely wouldn't push the inclusion time, unless he is able to do what the other kids are doing with minimal support. I always explained to my parents that I could look into inclusion time, but it meant time away from my classroom and instruction time lost. However, my kids are significantly below grade level (I teach 5/6 grade and the kids range in level from 18 months to 5 years, approximately). Sure, it's great for them to have exposure to their peers, but I'd much rather have as much time as possible so that I can teach them to count money, tell time, social skills, conversation skills, etc. There aren't enough minutes in the day to teach my kiddos what I want them to know! Good luck to you as you seek to find the best/appropriate placement for your son. Just remember - progress, confidence, independence. That's what I always look for in a placement. [QUOTE=concernedpa.]This thread is very close to my heart. It is the situation I am struggling with right now. First let me say I have respect for most Sp Ed Teachers. As I see and have experienced it: The original premise of the education of our children is flawed. A special Ed class allows the bar to be lowered too low for children who otherwise would have the capacity to do a lot better. [/QUOTE]This is pretty much as I have experienced it across my two kids, two schools. I try to distinguish between the teachers, some of whom are good, from the management who (in my experience) are all showing varying degrees of evil by "just following orders". concernedpa, you voice some very concerns regarding autism only classes. My special ed class is cross categorical I have students with Learning Disabilities, ADHD, and Speech and Language Impairment along with Autism. For the most part my LD kids have good social skills and are excellent models for my students with ASD. I can tell you kids with autism don't just learn social skills from being around NT peers. It needs to be taught through direct instruction. My dd is in general ed and always has been. She has awful social skills. She will not even say "Hi" to a peer. Her peers say hi to her and she just stares at them. For four years she has had an IEP goal of interacting socially with peers and she still cannot do it. Believe me general ed is not a magic cure for their problems. My dd struggles academically and could really benefit from small group instruction and 1:1 instruction. Instead she is in a class of 31 students, and she struggles to maintain her C's and D's. Her school district would never consider a self-contained class for her because she is not a behavior problem. So the system will fail her too. Even with a special ed teacher for a mom, my dd will struggle and quite possibly not graduate with a diploma, but she'll do it general ed. My kids both go to the local school, but the school has pressured us to send our eldest to a special school. Neither place is really equipped to give him a high-quality, individualized education. The local school offers a rich curriculum, rich language environment, and contact with peers, but lacks experience with autism and learning disorders. The special school has experience with autism and cognitive disabilities, but planned on placing my son in a group of kids who still play with wooden trains and have story time with pre-school books. He's 11 years old and too high-functioning for that. I think that when parents complain about special education, it's because they have negative experiences with teachers and/or administrators that fail to see their child as an individual, with unique strengths and weaknesses and unique goals. The one size fits all approach is too common, both in the mainstream and in special education. We need more teachers like the ones on this forum, who see our kids as individuals with unique potential, and who go the extra mile. But we also need more administrators who give teachers what they need to provide our children with a high-quality, individualized education in the least restrictive environment. School districts need to start seeing these children's education as an investment rather than as an annoying expense. Kids with autism tend to get too little, too late, especially if the parents don't know how to work the system. This thread is very close to my heart. It is the situation I am struggling with right now. First let me say I have respect for most Sp Ed Teachers. As I see and have experienced it: The original premise of the education of our children is flawed. Their limitations is overemphasized. Not much credit given to their strengths, they are held to the lowest common denominator. They are kept away from regular community. They are kept in a pool of other kids with different behavioral issues all the time so a child who comes into the class with one or two behavioral/social issues finds 4 or 5 more to adopt. They have no exposure to what typical peer behavior is. Typical children learn a lot from peers. Children with autism learn from peers as well, society fails them by providing them only with peers who have same level or worse social and or behavoral challenges. They do not have the opportunity to be around kids who can model appropriate social skills, show them how to be friendly and concerned about others, more appropriate models of what we are trying to teach them. A special Ed class allows the bar to be lowered too low for children who otherwise would have the capacity to do a lot better. My child's time is being wasted over repetitions of things he's mastered years ago Not much attempt is made to get the kids age appropriate. They are made to sit down in the hallway while other kids pass. Cutting stuff my child can cut for him. I am fighting to get my son out of his sped class because of all the facts I have stated. I do not see the system expecting much of him. He spends too much time in school for me to leave him in that environment. The segregation makes it much easier for other students to treat them as less than. If I live in the area of town with the best public school, why does my child with autism have to go to a lower ranked school? Why can't my child with disability go to the same school as my neigbor's child? Concernedpa. I see so many of us are having the same experience. My heart bleeds as I take my ds to school in the morning worried that I am putting him in an environment that is not moving him forward. I often contemplate leaving this area but I am not sure where things are much better. I also worry about what the disruption of the family will do to ds and siblngs. DH cannot move any time soon. I intend to keep expressing my concerns to the forces that be. I am hoping they start looking at the kids in a different light from norms that were established when the "experts" told parents their kids with autism couldn't learn much. Concernedpa. As far as academics go, it isn't necessary black or white. My daughter is mainstreamed in a fourth grade class. She has math goals on her IEP, so she leaves for the resource room to do her math. Spelling, reading and other academics are done in the mainstream classroom. So, I think it depends on your son's academic needs and also how well he can function in the class. ________________________ mom to 10 year old boy/girl twins (Asperger's/PDD-NOS) I was told that want to try to see if he does well FIRST in a fine arts classes and IF appropriate they will start mainstreaming for academics. What I think they mean by appropriate is he close to working on grade level with other children his same age...can they do that? My eldest son has mostly been mainstreamed for fine arts, partly because he has learning disabilities that make other subjects too difficult for him. But I think that teachers think fine arts are easier to mainstream/accommodate. This isn't necessarily true, since for some kids sensory issues make it HARDER to participate in fine arts. I think schools also feel that it's not big deal if the child is disruptive in these subjects -- "who cares, it's just fine arts, not something REALLY important like reading-writing and arithmetic." A lot of schools seem to think that mainstreaming is the same thing as allowing a child to be physically present, rather than giving the child the opportunity to learn and succeed in the environment. But in your son's case it seems like a good start. I do not intend for this to be offensive, but if your son is far below grade level why do you want him mainstreamed for academics? I teach a self contained special ed class. My students that come to me after being in general ed make such huge progress because they get 1:1 and small group instruction for everything. Kids that had floundered in general ed make amazing progress in my class. I am hesitant to mainstream even my kiddos that are working on grade-level for a subject because there is a huge difference between getting instruction in a group of 4 where the teacher can stop for a student that doesn't understand and being in a classroom of 25-30 where the teacher cannot slow down instruction and repeat for one or two struggling students. You say he has a 1:1 aide, but in my experience most of these people are very far from a teacher. They have little to no formal education, they know nothing about teaching a child, they just don't have a criminal record and are willing to work very limited hours for relatively good pay. I have had some excellent aides, but the majority are just average if that.If you want mainstreaming for the social aspect I think PE and art are good choices. Even my highest kids I mainstream for PE and music, because I don't want to jeopardize their academic progress. I was told that want to try to see if he does well FIRST in a fine arts classes and IF appropriate they will start mainstreaming for academics. The expectations and interactions in a mainstream class are different than a segregated class. So, it's good to start slow and work up for the regualr staff because regular educators often have misperceptions and biases; it also helps them maintain a more positive view of the child. The only thing I take exception too in your sentence is "if he does well" how he does is directly transactional on what supports, expectations, attitudes, and tools he's given. How well he does in art doesn't have relevance on how he'd do in reading class. What I think they mean by appropriate is he close to working on grade level with other children his same age...can they do that? It doesn't matter what grade level he's at in a subject he can still be in a regular class. There are typical kids who work and perform at varying levels. Also that's what his IEP is for. "Appropriate" is a tricky word because it's subjective and convenient and makes a claim from his supposed best interest which may not be true. For example, if the teacher had behavior training it could be appropriate.
My son has just started to be mainstreamed. They have started mainstreaming him in PE, computer lab, Art and music. Nothing academic yet and he does have a aide with him at all times while in a mainstream class. Is this pretty standard that they mainstream fine arts first. We have been told he has been doing very well so far Glad to hear that your program is working well. In that case I definitely would take the "If its not broke don't fix it" approach. [QUOTE=Dad2Luke&Alan] Most likely the aide is reinforcing bad behavior by ignoring the good and punishing the bad. too funny!! replace aide with teacher, when are they going to get it? That is how they started with my son. I think it helps because art, PE etc. are generally things kids like to do so it is like a reward rather than "here, go sit still in this chair".I'm not sure they mean if he's doing grade level work, but probably more of whether he can be in the class without sensory overload etc. But, we can debate all day about what they mean. The best way to know is to ask. Don't feel like you're being pesky: if you don't know what they mean, ask. They would much rather have a million questions than a parent who's not interested in their child's schooling. My gosh, concernedpa has taken the words right out of my mouth. And I may paraphrase some of the 1st post they wrote in this thread later on today when I attend my son's IEP meeting. After a missed diagnosis of emotional disturbance (we told them 2 1/2 years ago it was autism, but they insisted it was ED) they have now decided that he is autistic now instead of emotionally distrubed, and want to place him out of district (45+min drive one way) for autism support classes. It is very frustrating, as he has an average or slightly better IQ, and is almost at grade level across the board. I have always kind of backed off and gone along with "what the professionals feel is best" but not anymore. Mama Bear is about to protect her cub, and for once do what she thinks is best.
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we have waited for this for sooo long! some xmas presents don't come wrapped under the tree!