Autism And Education

This is making me sick! I have taught preschool for over 16 years and we always encourage discovery, early learning and early intervention. We should be supportive of educating children in their early years (which there is no gov. funding for). However, most of those children are the ones who will excel in school only to be held back for the children who are still trying to understand simple concepts. When my sons entered school, they were doing math and reading. They went from hands on learing and discovery to sitting at a desk being lectured for hours on in and not being allowed to have a recess or being punished by having a "silent" lunch. There are many things wrong with the education system of America. We as a nation have become the "all inclusive" one. While that works on some levels, it does not and should not work on all levels.
Allowing those students who are able to excel opens up a world of possiblities. My 5th grade son has been in the gifted program for 2 years now and my 2nd grader was just tested and he will be in the program starting next year. While they excel in most areas, they do have to work hard in others. I do not agree with having my children act as a aide to other students.
Yes, we do need funding for special needs children as well as for gifted children. Our country needs to do a serious budget overhaul. We spend millions of dollars for rediculous programs while extremely underfunding programs that would advance our future. For years other countries have learned from us, now sadily, we are being laughed at and having to learn from them. What went wrong? Pudinazation of America perhaps? Why let one group excel if the other's can't? Let's keep everyone at the same level and not let the creative ones show their abilities? And for those who think that we as parents should find alternative educational sources for our creative children; great, I'll take donations. We pay taxes for the school that my children attend. We work while the government eats up our paycheck and leaves us with very little to live on while I help to educate the next generation. Most parents don't have that option.

Balance is important. Both the disabled and gifted should be taught. For a long time now the gifted have been ignored and the disabled have been catered to. It is not suprising that USA struggles in so many areas where gifted leaders and inovators are needed.

Stephanie Lindsley artiqulates this issue very well. I appreciate her writing this. I agree that we sould not teach to the slowest in the class while boring those intellectually gifted students. "No child left behind" has turned in to setting the bar so low that it hurts our best and brightest.

Sitting in a classroom reading a book while other students are taught is NOT an 'appropriate' education. Every child should be able to learn something in school every day, or at least every week. This is not happening for so many of our gifted children. What's so incredibly wrong is that it would take far less money to give a gifted child an 'appropriate' education than an autistic child. Just 1% of the money for NCLB would go a very long way towards training classroom teachers how to differentiate for gifted students (who comprise 5-10% of our students). Today's classroom teachers are very good at differentiating for other special needs populations, but 60% of teachers have had no training in the special needs of gifted learners (and many of the other 40% have had only a few hours). Training all classroom teachers, or at least one at each grade level for each school, how to differentiate appropriately for gifted learners would go a long way towards giving these children an appropriate education.
http://www.nagc.org/index.aspx?id=569

If you haven't read about it yet, there was recently a 12-year old autisitc boy tasered in school because of his behavior. It can be found on http://detentionslip.org . Insanity.

Our gifted children are indeed the future leaders of tomorrow. They are among the most overlooked students and comprise an important group of those "left behind." Thankfully, our Long Island elementary school offers an AHAP (Academically High Apptitude Program) providing one full day of pull-out in grades 4-5. After that, there's nothing to offer these children in Middle School until they qualify for just two 8th grade honors classes. Educational offerings for gifted children should be mandated.

Gifted children are truly the ones left behind...and yet THEY are our nation's future leaders. Thanksfully, our Long Island School District offers a full day pull-out in 4th and 5th grade. But, then there's nothing in Middle School until they qualify for just two 8th grade honors classes. Gifted educational opportunities should be mandated in all school.s

Our gifted children are indeed the future leaders of tomorrow. They are among the most overlooked students and comprise an important group of those "left behind." Thankfully, our Long Island elementary school offers an AHAP (Academically High Apptitude Program) providing one full day of pull-out in grades 4-5. After that, there's nothing to offer these children in Middle School until they qualify for just two 8th grade honors classes. Educational offerings for gifted children should be mandated.

Well said. I have been advocating extra attention for the gifted for years. Ms. Lindsley, having children on each end of the spectrum, is in a unique positoin to judge the educational opportunities of both chidren. We must do more to advance the children that are bored and unchallenged in our school sytem.

Well said. I have been complaining about this to anyone who would listen for years. The fact that Ms. Lindsley has two children on each end of the spectrum gives her a unique insight into the challenges faced by both of these children. It is time to fix the problem.

Setting aside the moral issue (which will never, ever, ever happen). Focusing on either extreme leads to people who can swallow bags of money with no guarantee of significant gains. Autistic and severely handicapped students will only proceed so far, even with all the help in the world. Certainly we want them to be as happy and productive as possible. But at the opposite extreme, the same is surprisingly true. Above a certain level of native ability, it stops being about what we give people, and about their own choices. Our culture has many, many people who were 'gifted' in school, but are just sort of paddling around now. Because intelligence doesn't correlate to productivity beyond a certain point.
Rather than focusing on the extremes, our resources are best utilized to push the middle quartiles higher. The kids who are a little slow but otherwise dilligent, or the kids that are bright but might not be able to hack it in college without a little extra push. Focus on filling their toolboxes a little fuller.

Helen Keller had multiple disabilities; the Unabomber was most likely gifted. Complex variables come into play in life which determine the type of adult that child becomes. Who can say what contribution to society any child, as an adult, may make? To be sure, there are costs and difficulties in educating both sides of the intelligence spectrum. But, let us at least agree that the highest end of the spectrum has the clear advantage in life. To begrudge our disabled children the educational services that may one day lead them to more independent, productive lives in favor of our gifted children is incredibly shortsighted.

Perhaps if the title of the essay wasn't "Autism and Education" we'd be making progess here. Even though the author has an autistic child, I've personally seen the 1:1 teacher ratio used in public schools for Downs, Physically Disabled, etc. for various children that are not autistic! It is a great expense to school districts and the debate which Lindsley brings up is good. We would make lots of progress by changing a few things so we could challenge our brightest, and maybe we'd just have to find some changes in Spec Ed funding to free up some dollars for other students.

Lets focus on where the US is educationally in relation to the world. Funding isn't going to increase considering the current economic state. Thus, we need to look at how we are spending our financial resources. Yes, helping those less fortunate is an important moral indicator. However, if the US continues to stick its head in the sand as to where we are educationally vs. the world, the US will lose. Then what will happen to the gifted, average and all the kids too helpless to help themselves?

The US education system has fallen behind, gravely, I'm afraid. We have largely benefited from China, India, Pakistan, etc. being so far behind previously that we were ahead. Guess what? They all figured out that a way to improve their status was to find the brightest and educate them at a very young age (the US needs to first start more, then drive down accelerated programs to start in Kindergarten). The US has plateaued in many disciplines while Asia and Middle Eastern coutries are literally teaching millions of their citizens multiple languages, sciences (how will the US combat biological warfare or discover other potenially habital planets), etc. While in the US, standards are far too low and start far too late (gifted often starts in 3rd grade). Why do so many in the US hate math and science? Because we aren't teaching it often enough or soon enough. Students need to learn those disciplines at a younger age (like the rest of the world has figured out). Yes, the gifted (and Spec Ed) should not be segregated from the general population. To state putting gifted kids in a private gifted school is bad for the public schools as they do often tutor the less fortunate. While this does have benefits to both groups, accelerated learners should not be neglected b/c they perform above grade level (although in the US they sadly are often treated this way).

Don't begrudge Lindsley because she wonders if the system is fair. Ignoring the problem won't make it go away and we'll all lose out if it doesn't get fixed.

The reality is that there is a finite amount of money available for education. And the idea that a gifted child can learn in any environment is true only if you include learning to be bored, a distraction and a disciplinary problem. I have kids with learning differences, mental illness, and Asperger's. They are also all brilliant, but have struggled mightily to be allowed to approach their learning in the ways that work for them. This can be very threatening to a teacher, which is not to knock teachers -- how they manage a classroom of 30+ kids I don't know. The real shame is that teaching these kids can be rewarding and enlightening for the teachers and their classmates, as they are the definition of thinking outside the box. They bring new perspectives and information to everything that involves them in their learning (rote memorization, being forced to write out all the steps of a math problem, etc. are not helpful to them -- for example, a kid with dysgraphia but who is an intuitive math whiz just cannot write out the problems). The question is: how do we as a society determine the best place to put the money that people are willing to pay in taxes for their schools? To the very bright, the average (who often get lost in this shuffle), the moderately disabled, the severely disabled. It is tragic that we have to choose.

I think the problem is that many bright kids who look like they're overachieving are actually underachieving.

They look like they're overachieving because we measure them against the average. If we were to ask if they're working up to their full abilities, we'd see that many are actually underachieving. We use this approach with disabled kids. Why not with the millions of bright kids, too?