Autism And Education

Why does the author advocate taking funds away from the programs that help her son maximize his potential instead of advocating for more dollars for gifted education? She is comparing apples to oranges, anyway. If her daughter is as bright as her Mom perceives her to be, she is most likely much more clever than any aide who'd be available to customize educational approaches for her, anyway.

I have a similar situationto Mrs. Linsley,having a gifted daughter and an autistic son. Except my son is both disabled(Asperger's Syndrome) and incredibly gifted. When the diagnoses came in, the school wanted to make sure that he would take the same standardized tests as the rest of the kids becasue he did so well. What to do?Giftedness is just as much an exceptionality as autism, but a gifted child can learn in any environment, whereas overcoming the difficulties of autism are hard won. I don't believe either child should be favored economicaly by the school system, but the truth is that giftedness is seen as less important a liability and giving money to gifted education is seen as elitist. And unfortunately,that reputation has some sway, as the richest whitest kids are the ones most often placed in gifted programs.But do we cut of the legs of our gifted kids evenas we stretch the ones who have difficulties on the Procrustean bed of No Child Left Behind?

My son is a profound dyslexic and has a memory problem. He has an above average IQ and excels in math. We have struggled for 4 years to get the school system to support his disability. My son is in fifth grade reading at a second grade level. For the last year I have paid for my son to receive individual learning therapy. The school system does not have funding to purchase programs that are recommended for dyslexic children. The school spent their budgeted money on programs to help struggling students but this has not benefited my son or others in his school that have dyslexia. I feel all students, with a disability, gifted and talented or just like everyone else, would benefit from more money from federal programs to support education. While you feel money should be taken from one program to benefit another, your situation is not what every family faces. If we have less money then more children who are struggling would suffer. My child deserves to not just meet minimum standards, not when he could also prevent the next worldwide flu pandemic, or invent a new form of nonpolluting transportation.

I am a practicing school psychologist of 10 years, which means I am the person who assesses, determines eligibility for special education services (Autism, Specific Learning Disability, Mental Retardation), and helps with the identification of a Free and Appropriate Pubic Education (FAPE) for students.

In my experience and upon reflection of the article and the comments listed, there appears to be a misunderstanding of a student's FAPE. Specifically, most people struggle with the following question: "What does 'appropriate' mean?" In public education "appropriate" often translates to the following: "Every student has the right to the opportunity for an 'A' grade in a course or mastery of a skill." "Appropriate" does not translate to: "Every student should receive an 'A' grade" or "Every student should receive an 'ideal' education."

One purpose of special education is to provide disabled students with the opportunities to earn the "A" grade or demonstrate mastery of a skill. (Note. Sometimes on the way to mastery for a skill, such as single digit addition, the disabled student needs to first learn to orally count, identify numbers, or be prompted to use the bathroom independently because if the student cannot perform these skills instruction of single digit addition will be impacted.)

Unfortunately for most disabled and gifted students, it comes down to the quality of instruction delivered in the classroom. It also comes down to the support provided at home and in the community. Remember, the purpose of public (not private) education is to provide "appropriate" education. The responsibility of the parents and the community is to make a student's "appropriate" education "ideal" using additional resources and supports.

The NAACP is right - A mind is a terrible thing to waste. It benefits society when every member meets his/her full potential, and gifted chldren have as much right to reach their full potential as any other group of children. Wake up America!
Margaret

I am the mother of a gifted 8 year old boy who has additional special needs; fine and gross motor delays and sensory processing disorder. After fighting our school district for 3 years, for any type of assistance, be it intellectual or Occupational Therapy or Physical Therapy, we have given up and taken matters into our own hands. We pulled our son out of school this year and began homeschooling him. Our son was in crisis and he desperately needed help. His frustration and boredom were so extreme that it was causing him severe psychological distress and anxiety.

Now, we homeschool him and cover all of his OT and PT through our health insurance (after a long drawn out battle with the insurance company.) He is happier than he has ever been, making great strides in his fine motor and gross motor delays, and we are learning more about sensory processing disorder to make his environment more comfortable. He is excelling in all of his subjects and decompressing from the trauma, yes - trauma, of being tortured in a public school setting for being brilliant and quirky.

Our nation does not value intellectual rigor and it will be to our detriment in the future. We were not going to stand by and let our son suffer anymore. This has been a serious hardship on our family, but it is a necessary hardship. As a gifted teen myself, I was so bored and frustrated in school that I turned to drugs for entertainment. I missed more than 40% of my senior year of high school and still got straight A's in all AP classes. What does it say about our educational system when someone who is completely wasted can ace the hardest subjects in a difficult school? I felt cheated and I was not going to let my son feel the same way. His aunt, my sister, was tested as profoundly gifted as a child. Our mom did not know what to do with her and neither did her expensive private school. She has spent her entire life suffering from depression and not fitting in. And yes, she has made more than one attempt at suicide. It is not fun, nor easy, to be intellectually advanced in a dumb-downed world. When we received our sons IQ score, I cried for 2 weeks, knowing the difficult road that lay ahead for him. However, I will not wring my hands with worry and leave his future to a bunch of education bureaucrats. His life is literally at stake. The United Negro College Fund got it perfectly when they said, "A mind is a terrible thing to waste."

Just because I believe there should be funding for gifted education doesn't mean I don't believe there should be funding for special ed kids. One does not necessarily cancel out the other. I'm not sure where some of the posters seemed to get that impression. In PA, gifted education falls under special ed, but receives NO state funding. Not one dime. It amazes me how many similar issues there are between special ed and gifted ed. It would be more helpful if we could join forces instead of berate each other. I reiterate - EVERY child should be entitled to be educated to their fullest potential. Yes, I do what I can at home and we are in a good school district. However, what of those gifted kids in the poorer performing districts where there is one parent who works 2 jobs just to get some food on the table. They have NO resources except for the public school system. The teachers are too busy making sure they make AYP and have no time to encourage these students. If the teachers don't motivate that student, they WILL drop out of high school and may very well become a brilliant criminal. (Has anyone seen "Catch Me If You Can" with Tom Hanks - that was a gifted child.) For those that don't believe ignoring gifted children can lead to dropping out, read this http://www.hiceducation.org/edu_proceedings/Esra%20Ayse%20Kaskaloglu.pdf There are no actual statistcs, but some very good information.

I have never understood why it is OK for adults to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on one child so that he can live up to his potential, while letting others languish. There is NO funding for gifted students here. Forcing a child with a 160 IQ to spend the day in a regular class is akin to forcing an average child to spend her days in a class with children with IQ???s of 40 ??? cruel and unusual punishment. Yet one of these we do across the country constantly, and one we wouldn???t dream of. Why are we discriminating against gifted children? America currently does not value intelligence, and we see this with the frighteningly high suicide and dropout rates among our brightest students. They can see that they are not valued and their special needs are not understood. As a mom dealing personally with highly gifted and autism issues, I plead with you ??? please consider the concept of helping ALL children reach their potential. Some day you will need a doctor or a scientist ??? to cure you or save the earth ??? or just to pay the heavy tax burden of supporting the masses ??? and they may no longer be there to save you or your children.

I am a parent of two gifted children and one with full blown autism. Public schools aim for the middle of the bell curve and if they use any extra funding for those on either end it is always for the disabled or disadvantaged. To think that No Child Left behind addresses the needs of the gifted is to live in fairy tale land. I am extremely grateful for the special education that my autistic son recieved but ache as I see my other children settle into lives as underachievers. One of my children who is extremely gifted dropped out of high school because he couldn't stand the boredom any longer. Gifted children have much to offer the word but teaching them requires a kind of special education of its own. These children don't need to be given more busy work but challenged to use their wonderful couriosity in productive ways. They are often sensitive people and requie a teacher that understands all their needs. Many of our countries problems could be solved if public education recognized this and acted accordingly.

Dear Lindsley,
Please understand that all children are all worth the SAME. Maybe you should take some of the responsibility of your daughters advanced learning and help her yourself. School is only half of our children's education. Your son deserves an equal chance to excel. Not more and definitely not less. We are all worth the same.

Your son has the same soul same heart and no one knows what the future holds for him. Yes, your daughter should be challenged. But also stop complaining, thank God she can achieve and do something constructive with it.

I speak from the same vantage point. I have a son who is 14 and a HIGH FLYER gifted child who has started his own business at 9 and has his own web page. Know what he does? He created a button for his non=verbal brother with autism. It states I'm not misbehaving I have autism please be understanding. He sells them for 3 dollars each. He donates 1 dollar to autism speaks and the others go to Joey's therapies that the SCHOOL doesn't pay for. he has donated over $25,000 to autisms speaks and wants to become a special needs lawyer. www.autismbutton.com He didn't complain that he wasn't learning enough---he did a positive thing with his GIFTED smarts. While realizing his brother was worth the same. If us as parents don't feel our special children are WORTH the same ...who will? I think you are way off base here. What does it say about a society that thinks less of our most vulnerable.
Shame on you, your son needs your voice.

Hate to tell you gifted doesn't equal perfect. Gifted kids can be just as disruptive as any child can be and many kids with autism or any disability are not disruptive in class at all. Slower does not equal disruptive. Helping other kids would help the boredom for these gifted kids, but I can see your point, why should they help anyone let alone their fellow peer.

The issue here is not to neglect or cut off all funding to Spec Ed students but rather if we could reallocated some funding to capitalize on the brightest of our students. It could be as simple as not requiring so much paperwork for the Spec Ed students and we could free up funds. If you think waiting until high school, paying for private (being gifted does not mean you are wealthy), or doing the home school is reasonable, I'd say we need to look at the state of the US versus the world. As much as some on this board want to ignore this fact, the US is falling behind. I wonder how many posters here have done research into recent growth rates of other countries in the math & sciences and how early this education starts in other countries (usually by age 4 or 5). What comes from our brightest? Not just doctors and lawyers, but astronomers, inventors (technological advances), and scientists. The US college system spends a great deal of time training other countries students (student visas) to fill up universities physics & math programs b/c we don't have enough US students in these disciplines. A large part of this is due to the fact that we wait too long to identify and encourage our brightest students. The US cannot afford to continue to allocate all its resources to one sect of the educational population. Again, simple changes could result in a reallocation of funding. It does not mean you have to give up or ignore the Spec Ed students. I'd fear there aren't going to be more funds, so we must look at what we can change to meet the needs of all - it is in our country's best interest to bring some change.