hello everyone out there! if you have a child with autism, there is no doubt that you probably received some sort of therapy services from your state. here in tennessee we have the tennessee early intervention services. it was wonderful and i have nothing but overwhelming gratitude for their help. however, in our state services end at the age of three. so what is the next step?

the majority of the therapist that worked with sir dantes have suggested that the next step is to enroll him into the public school system. here he would have access to services, such as speech therapy, that, by law, are provided for free by the state. logically it seems like the right thing to do. i went to the public schools and so did most of my friends. i have no bad memories of school, although i did not realize the lack of education i really received until i went to college. overall, school was fun. i had a lot of friends and participated in so many activities. but, i was not a special needs child.

Follow up:

i am writing to let everyone out there know that there is no way in hell i would turn over my son to the public school system. why? the answer is abuse.

when our sweet little maxie was born, we (her mommy and daddy) decided that we would home-school her. but, it wasn't because we were afraid anything bad would happen to her. we just want the best education possible for her and believe we can do a better job. curriculum in the public schools is not what is used to be, and it wasn't that great when i was little. today, teachers seem to teach for the test taking so they can ensure more government funds for the school. subjects are rushed and, therefore, not covered in length. teachers are restricted to what knowledge that can introduce in the classroom, and there is not enough individualized teaching taking place. anyway, the reasons are numerous but physical abuse or death were not high on our list of why she should not go.

do me a favor? type "autistic children and school abuse" into your google search bar and see how many hits you get.

now, my husband has been researching this for quite some time. because of sir dantes' inability to speak he would not be able to tell us if someone was being mean to him. we all know that children can be quite cruel at times and we did not want someone bullying our son and us not know about it. but, over time the amount of articles he found detailing the abuses of children with disabilities from the teachers became overwhelming; sexual abuse, tasing, beatings, duck-taped, arrest, sat upon and smothered! why? why would the teachers that we are entrusting our children do such horrible things? it is because they are not educated about these children.

when i was in college, my first minor was secondary education. although i have completed 15 of the 18 credit hours required for this minor, i changed my mind and decided that this was not the road for me. regardless, during my studies i was only required to take one class regarding special needs children: "survey of the exceptional child". this one class, which was only for 16 weeks, covered everything from the severely physically deformed child to the child whose intelligence level exceeded the normal level and how to integrate them into the regular classroom. one class! now since my graduation, the college i attended has added a class to teach want-to-be teachers that deals with only autistic children, but it is an elective.

so take a new teacher and place her in the classroom in a school that does not receive enough funding and does give her about 35 students on average. one, or two, of those children are on the spectrum and have an i.e.p. however, how much real world experience has this teacher had? more than likely not much. so the autistic child experiences a sensory overload....take the teacher who has been teaching for twenty years and put that teacher in the same situation. they are tired...they have no help...they are overwhelmed. frustrations boil over and the next thing you know...

what go me started on this little trad. an article i read on johnathon turley's legal site. i have posted it for you to read if you would like. this poor autistic child is being charged with a felony over a stick drawing!

services seem abundant when your child is young, however things get really rough for them as they become pre-teens and individualized services become really limited and teachers are not prepared. i have posted a few of the links i came across when i did my google search. read them if you'd like or do your own search. if you currently have a child with a special need attending a public school, be very watchful. if not, perhaps this post will give you food for thought.

http://jonathanturley.org/2010/05/14/autistic-child-charged-with-terrorism-over-school-drawing/

http://www.theautismnews.com/2009/05/19/abuse-in-schools-widespread-report-finds/

http://www.wapt.com/news/19395517/detail.html

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/January/10-crt-089.html

http://www.caica.org/CAICA_children_forced_into_cell-like_school_seclusion_rooms%2012-17-08.htm

in the least, i think that we should all work towards making sure that our countries colleges broaden the education of teachers in the world of autism. make it required education!