Last week, Michael Savage said that most kids diagnosed with autism weren’t really disabled. "In 99 percent of the cases, it’s a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out.” At Pajamas Media, we learn that autism is the new sacred cow, and that the rest of society should be protected from these kids. A few weeks ago, Greene and Foster said that it was impossible that 1 in 7 kids were disabled, though they had absolutely no proof on that matter.
What’s going on? Why the hate?
There’s an inclusion backlash. People, unaccustomed to seeing kids with disabilities, are getting them thrust in their faces in their kids’ classrooms. Newly empowered parents are leaving their homes for the first time and taking their kids to Wendy’s, amusement parks, and movie theaters. The public is getting their first look at temper tantrums and hyperactivity. They may have to listen to a meltdown while they enjoy a Single Combo at Wendy’s rather than enjoying their God-given right to a peaceful meal. They have to endure the kid who won’t shut up during Wall-E. They have to make accomodations and, for some, that’s tough.
There still aren’t enough supports for families with disabilities. Disabled kids are being put into classrooms with untrained aides, who don’t know how to contain the kids. It’s inclusion, but bad inclusion.
The disability denial fits in really well with people who also deny poverty. They apply the "they have just gotta pull themselves up by the bootstraps" philosophy to everything.
The thimiserol debate has caused some lasting damage. There’s a very strong case that there is no link to immunization and autism, but less than smart people have concluded that since this claim is false, all claims about disability are false.
Also, it would be really nice to think that disability is just about bad parenting. Then you can take back all those taxes for schools. You have a handy villian — the stupid mother. With this line of argument, you can roll back the welfare state and hate women all at the same time. What a bargain!
Apt. 11d 
I think that a lot of the conflation has to do with different entitlements authorized for “bad kids” as against “disabled kids.”
If your kid is “bad,” then its perfectly reasonable to kick him out and send him to a separate classroom where he won’t disturb the “good” kids.
If your kid is “disabled,” then he is entitled to a “Free Appropriate Public Education” which may require “inclusion” and “mainstreaming.”
Now, it may be a perfectly reasonable position to say, “Yeah, some kids are disabled, but any policy that addresses an appropriate education should make sure that the plan doesn’t doesn’t have any negative impact on the other kids.”
It’s a lot easier, though, to say, “These kids aren’t disabled. They’re just bad!” Then, its not a mushy discussion on weighing relative interests of different types of children, but instead an argument with a clear right and wrong.
I think there is also a different outlook between parents based on the “status” of the kids. When the Raggirls (young, but with no known disabilities — said spitting through fingers) are out at a Wendy’s and a temper tantrum begins, I drag that kid the heck out of Wendy’s and we stand in the parking lot until its over (and get commiserating looks from other patrons).
I can imagine, though, that if the meltdowns are more common due to a child’s disability, there’s a different balancing act, and you are more likely to stay in the Wendy’s throughout (and get much different looks from the patrons!)
While I think there is greater awareness of the reality of autism-type diseases, I don’t think there’s yet a consensus on “how long” society should have to deal with a screaming jag in the movie theatre, or “how much” of an interruption is acceptable for a mainstreamed student. And there will always be a gray line with the more accepting parents, and the mom who thinks her daughter’s education is being negatively impacted because “that teacher has 24 kids in the class, and she spends half her time dealing with those two ‘problem kids’ with the IEPs, and that leaves only half her time to deal with the other 22 ‘normal kids’, including my Suzie, who’s grades have slipped from A’s to B’s this year because of it.”
There will always be limited resources, and which group (rightly or wrongly) is claiming a larger share this year will be villainized by the rest, who will have to split a smaller pie.
Michael Savage is at one far extreme, but I think there’s a more reasonable spectrum that his view is off the end of.
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Further complicating things, let’s imagine that 3-4 of the 24 kids in Ragtime’s hypothetical classroom have some degree of ADHD. (That’s conservative–I bet there are plenty of classrooms with a lot more ADHD kids.)
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I am always drawn back to the money issue. Let’s remember: Congress has never fully funded IDEA. Never. Add to that the inequities and limitations of funding public education through local property taxes and you have a system custom built to create resentment against disabled kids. Savage is obviously a jerk. The bigger problem is systemic and chronic underfunding of public education and the avoidance of the necessity to implement and fund effective disability policy.
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Disabled kids are being put into classrooms with untrained aides, who don’t know how to contain the kids. It’s inclusion, but bad inclusion.
I work at a pool in the summer teaching swim lessons, and the issue of inclusion has been coming up a lot lately. In our case, it’s not as important as school (obviously), but our program tries to accommodate all children. The problem is, we don’t always have an aid, or if we do, it’s just one of us (and we are completely untrained). Some kids are easier to work with, but others are tough. We actually had to deny group lessons to an autistic swimmer because we didn’t know how to help him be a part of the group (and it became a safety issue). He needed one on one help, and we just didn’t have an extra instructor. So inclusion without help or training can be pretty frustrating, mainly because we do want those kids to get something out of our program.
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Nice post.
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On the subject of untrained aides – IME the job of special education aide requires no more than a high-school diploma, physical strength and infinite patience. At one school where I worked (in the office, not the classroom) there was huge turnover in the aides because the requirements were so low – you couldn’t be an ex-convict, but little else – and they were ill-trained and poorly paid. I can’t see how that would be good for the kids.
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My #2 fits somewhere on the ‘disabled’ and also somewhere on the ‘bad’ spectrum. He has ADHD. He also picks fights with his brother and sister and can make standing near us in a bus or sitting near us in a plane or restaurant less restful than being near another family. We do our level best to contain him and spare those around us (and it’s not dreadful – he’s the kid twirling around the subway pole, not the one screaming imprecations and spitting). Generally, I have felt that folks were pretty tolerant when we are in public.
In school, it likely helps that he gets pulled out of regular class for a special in English and Virginia Studies with the other IEP kids, so Ragtime’s little Suzie isn’t competing with him. There is a certain amount of bonding with the other IEP parents…
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I’ve recently been hearing backlash from parents of disabled children, also.
I’ve experienced this from both sides, and I oppose full inclusion.
My disabled child gets pulled out of her inclusion class so often that the disruptions only add to her learning problems. Meanwhile, it’s clear that the teacher cannot “differentiate” instruction sufficiently for all the types of students in her heterogeneous classroom.
My non-disabled child has been continuously forced into heterogeneous learning groups that have had the effect of impeding his education, IMHO. Middle school inclusion is puzzling to us. The more severely disabled sit with their aides isolated from the rest of the students in the classroom and in the cafeteria. My child wonders what educational benefit these students receive in the inclusion classroom.
Savage seems to be an extremist willing to spew hate for ratings. The frustration that many of us feel is not caused by hate of the disabled or of the poor or of women.
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“The more severely disabled sit with their aides isolated from the rest of the students in the classroom and in the cafeteria. My child wonders what educational benefit these students receive in the inclusion classroom.”
Wow–that seems really legalistic. Technically, those kids are mainstreamed, but realistically they might as well be having lunch on another planet. I wonder what the disabled kids and their peers are taking away from this set-up?
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“Meanwhile, it’s clear that the teacher cannot “differentiate” instruction sufficiently for all the types of students in her heterogeneous classroom.”
These issues explain at least part of the charm of the so-called “Crayola Curriculum.” Forget about academics (which only half the class is going to get anyway). Let’s all color!
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I understand the frustration and confusion with disabled kids from non-hate mongers like Savage. Let’s go back to the meltdown in Wendy’s scenario. All kids have meltdowns, right? But the way that you deal with a meltdown from a regular kid is very different from the way that you deal with a meltdown from a disabled kid. A regular kid, you can take aside and talk sternly, threaten punishments, and, if all else fails, drag them out of the restaurant. If you’ve got a disabled kid, the stern tone of voice may make things worse. They may not have the receptive language skills to understand the threat of punishment. Pulling them by the collar into the car may result in something very, very bad happening in the car. Sometimes the only way to deal with a tantrum of a disabled kid is to give them hugs and wait for things to run their course. For someone who has no clue how these kids tick, that may look like spoiling.
I tend to not be judgy about these things in Wendy’s. For me, fastfood joints are open to all kids no matter how loud or disruptive. It’s not fine dining. Ditto for all family places — pools, amusement parks, playgrounds, malls. Churchs/places of worship are grey areas. No meltdowns allowed at fancy restaurants or subway platforms.
lindsey, you’re a sweetie for working with the autistic kids and no one blames you for drawing the line with the very difficult one. The problem is, as so many of you said, the lack of real support for the disabled kids. They get bad aides, isolated at lonely tables in the cafeteria. There are also not enough services or after school activities for disabled kids. I’ve heard so many stories about the problems getting haircuts for these kids. It’s incredibly traumatic and they need patient, trained people to do that. Instead, they have to be restrained in a barber’s chair and quickly shaved by a barber who hates their guts.
One of my kids went to Fancy Camp this summer where he had pool parties, races, games, and swim lessons. The other boy had to go to summer school where he had to work on remedial reading lessons when he could read two years ago, where they never went outside, and where they spend the afternoon watching videoes. I had to send him to this program, because that’s all there is. He spent an hour gazing at Jonah’s swimming certificate last week. He wants one, too.
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I think, over time, there will become more acceptance of issues involving Wendy’s, the movie theatre, and the pool.
I think where you are going to continue to face an uphill battle forever is in the classroom.
When my eldest was in kindergarten, there was a single “mainstreamed” boy. Our system has fairly good services, and a well-trained aide was with “William” all day. Every day, though, when she came home and I would ask, open-ended, “How was school today?” — the first thing out of her mouth was a story about “What William did.” What crude thing he said on the playground. What smaller boy he was bullying. What the teacher had to do because of him.
We never had grounds to complain. The stories were always about what William did to other kids (boys — he avoided all of the girls in the class), and because there were good services, it never took TOO much of the teacher’s time away from the rest of the kids. But it was amazing how many William-stories we had to get through before we heard about the science unit or the new story. A huge part of her perception of kindergarten was colored by this one kid.
But in this last year (first grade), my daughter got the “new teacher”, and it was pretty obvious that they were breaking her in easy with a group of “easy kids” — the known trouble-makers were all funnelled to a well-experienced drill-sergeant style teacher. The difference in my daughter’s perception of school WITHOUT a “problem kid” in the room was amazing. “How was school” is answered with actual items of education — not who did what to whom.
I think there is unchallenge-able assumption by the advocates of disabled kids that mainstreaming provides benefits for both the mainstreamed kids and the “normal” kids. But I think in most situations that is just not the case.
It’s completely reasonable, I think, to ask parents of non-disabled kids to make some reasonable sacrifices for the benefit of the disabled kids. But the discussion never seems to be framed as trade-offs. The disabled-advocates position is either “This works best for everyone,” or else, “I’m legally entitled and everyone else will just have to suck it up.”
Either approach is bound to lead to a backlash.
Also, it creates a disconnect on the range of abilities between kids who aren’t “classified,” but are only performing a little better than the kid with the “disability” label. The “disabled” kid gets the available services, and the parents with the kid just on the other side of the line feel like they have to press to get their kid “classified” in order to get the extra services. (As you have said in previous articles, there is not an “epidemic of mis-diagnoses”, but for the parents with the kids who are not found to be disabled, there is a huge incentive to go get a second or third opinion!)
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I think the reason so many people say negative comments about children with autism is because no one really understands it. I have worked with children with autism and each one of them were different. One may have fits while the other doesn’t communicate at all. On top of not understanding the characteristics of the disorder, professionals do not understand what causes the disorder. The medical world used to blame vaccinations, but now they are not. The medical world doesn’t even have a clear cut way to diagnose a child because of the lack of understanding of the disorder.
As far as the problem with teacher aids. Now that No Child Left Behind has been put into place, aids have to have a two year degree. Now with that said, NCLB does not specify what the two year degree should be in. In my district, the aids hired for my classroom have to have some experience with children with behavioral problems. However, in larger districts there is a need for aids but there are so many other jobs that pay more and they do not want a job only paying 10 per hour when they can make 15 per hour. I train all of my aids the way I want them to handle the children’s problem, and so far they have been able to help the children.
On to the public issue. I think it is such a grey area. Both parents have a right to be there and both parents have their own rights…who’s is more important? Since I am a special ed teacher, it does not bother me when children have melt downs. I do have two children of my own and when they have melt downs I leave so the other customers don’t have to listen to my children. Honeslty, I believe the parent should remove their child from the situation and take him or her outside or to another room if possible until the child stops the tantrum. I take mine to the car and I explain to them what I expect. Eventually they, even autistic children, catch on.
Maybe one day society will accept autism as a true disability but until there is a clear cut reason for the disability, society will not accept it. The same goes for ADHD. People still say ADHD is bad parenting. Go figure! All that can be done now is to hold your head up high, and hope for the medical teams to have a break through.
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My son was in an inclusion class for third grade, and the four special needs students didn’t bother him at all. In fact, he just had a playdate with one of those kids last weekend. The teacher was a little crackers, so it wasn’t the best year for him, but it had nothing to do with the special ed kids. (They always pick the strict teachers for the inclusion classes. The trouble is that strict often goes along with having a mean streak.)
However, a good friend of mine had a similar experience as you. I even wrote a blog post about it. The problem with the “williams” isn’t the kid. It’s the aide. If the boy is hurting or bullying other children, the aide should be on him like glue in the playground and not off chatting with the other aides.
Parents of disabled kids are a little touchy. They get tired of people who are afraid that their kids are going to get cooties from the SE kids. They have been jerked around a lot from administrators. They’ve been given the cold shoulder at Wendy’s. Their kids have not gotten invites to birthday parties. All they have is their legal rights to an individual, nonrestrictive education. If they seem a little vigilant, that’s why.
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“They’ve been given the cold shoulder at Wendy’s.”
Hey, no one ever gets the cold shoulder at my house. 😉
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Ragtime,
Let me push back a bit. Perhaps your child was benefiting from William’s presence in the classroom, but you weren’t. That is, your expectations of kindergarten education may be too lofty. The science unit? Must that be the first thing discussed when the child comes home? Socialization is a big part of the kindergarten story and your child was obviously focusing on it. Why not let her? The order in which she reports school news to you will have very little to do with what she actually absorbs in the course of a day. Just wait until high school when the question “what did you do in school today?” is invariably answered with “nothing.”
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“Just wait until high school when the question “what did you do in school today?” is invariably answered with “nothing.”
hey, that’s not supposed to happen until high school? My two do it already, and they were in preschool and the 1st grade. This, of course, makes me worry that things are terribly awry, but I really don’t think they are.
Ragtime summarized a bit of my concerns, too. I don’t think the solution to our concerns is exclusion, but it’s also not sticking your fingers in your ears and humming.
The thing is that classes are environments, especially in this day of cooperative learning, in which children interact with one another as well as the teacher. A class in which there is a very disruptive child (and an aide isn’t going to prevent all disruptions because the children we’re talking about are not going to be magically undisruptive just because someone is available to them) is going to be different as a unit.
As I said, I don’t think the solution is exclude every potentially disruptive child. But we need to recognize the impact on the class (without assigning blame). As some others have said, what we on the “other side” worry about is the unexamined ideology that inclusion is always win win win all around or alternatively, I have rights and you don’t, so . . . If our discussion was, instead, how do we optimize outcomes for all the children, with the understanding that sometimes there are going to have to be drawbacks and benefits to any solution for any child, we could have a different conversation.
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Let me push back a bit. Perhaps your child was benefiting from William’s presence in the classroom, but you weren’t. That is, your expectations of kindergarten education may be too lofty.
To an extent, you are right. As I said: we never complained about “William.” It may have, overall, been a positive. His aide was excellent, but also was not an impenetrable force field. She could prevent the second shove or taunt, but not always the first.
On the plus side, on William’s “good days,” she always offered to help out in the classroom — subject to interruption if she was needed for her primary purpose. The class was divided into groups of four tables, and the aide was always willing to answer small questions in William’s “group” if the teacher was attending to other children. And having William in the room did provide an exercise in socialization.
Having one “William” in our class was probably about neutral — as to my individual kid’s experience — but I wouldn’t have argued with the parents who thought it netted out as marginally positive or negative. Add a second and third William, though, and the disadvantages from lost teacher attention and distraction will probably outweigh the marginal increase in “diverse socialization opportunities.”
So, yes. There were certainly benefits as well as costs. But I think Sam’s post might be a small example of the “It’s in everyone’s best interest!” line of argument that tends to ignore the costs as non-existent, and will deny the very premise if a parent claims that her child is being harmed by the mainstreaming process.
It is the direct counterpart to the “inclusion hurts the included kid by putting him in an inappropriate setting” argument that anti-mainstreamers use. And its equally patronizing, and equally a load of bull. Let me determine what is best for my kid. I’ll let you decide what setting is best for your kid. But I think we have to both recognize that sometimes our answers will be different, and have to work out some sort of resolution.
And in working out that resolution, one side having an IEP and a “legal right to FAPE” to wave around as a trump card, while the other side is yelling about how your kid is “ruining my kid’s education” can easily lead to frustration and hurt feelings on both sides.
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Ragtime,
Yes, good special ed. policy requires flexibility and multiple approaches – and those are the things that are so expensive. I keep brining it back to money, but my experience as a parent of a disabled child and as a member of my local school committee has confronted me with the money problem more times than I can remember. Without sufficient funds, school districts lapse into one-size-fits-all procedures that exacerbate the kinds of problems you mention. Without sufficient funds, untrained aides are placed into sensitive and difficult circumstances. And without sufficient funds the “sped” parents feel the sting of the “why do the sped kids get all the money” complaints. I really do fear for the future, too: you’ll notice the announced 2.3 billion dollar deficit in the NY State budget. Massachusetts is hurting, too. Add to the the massive federal budget deficit and it’s very hard to see how real solutions for disability policy in the schools will be possible in the foreseeable future.
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Sam, money is terrific! Our district spends $19000 per student overall – obviously not a lot of that goes to a $65000 teacher and her 23 kids in the classroom, or the occasional bus to take them on a field trip… There are a lot of aides around, the IEP kids get pullouts so they are not damaging the experience of the regulars around them, we have a lot of supportive services. This is possible in a rich community with 210000 full time jobs and only 180000 residents, and many of those are empty-nesters or just starting out. It’s fabulous, but I doubt the country as a whole could duplicate this.
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My kid was physically and verbally bullied this year. For months, the first thing out of his mouth when he came home was what John C. did to him. I had at least three meetings with the school about this problem. John C. was in the Gifted and Talented program. His brains and inflated ego made him much more dangerous than any special needs kids.
So, it’s not like inclusion has brought new bullying to the playground. It’s always been there.
re: the benefits of inclusion for regular kids. Well, our home is an inclusion home. We all live with a special needs person. Sometimes that means that I have to tell Jonah to pipe down, so that Ian can get a word in edge wise. Sometimes Jonah is embarrassed (though my brother and sister regularly embarrassed me when I was a kid). Sometimes he doesn’t get a 100% of my attention. But he’s also learning that the world is made up of a lot of different people, that not everybody is perfect and shiny, that he can’t always be the star of the show, and that he has to help people less fortunate than himself.
re: learning in inclusion classes v. non-inclusion classes. Inclusion classes have the aides that often serve the classroom as a whole. They also have less students. The biggest determinant of how much your kid is going to learn is the teacher. Sure, the special ed. kids are an easy target and a new arrival to the scene. But if your kid isn’t learning in school, blame the teacher, not the ADHD kid.
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But if your kid isn’t learning in school, blame the teacher, not the ADHD kid.
OTOH, it seems reasonable that there are teachers who aren’t up to the demands of special needs children. This in essence shrinks the pool of teachers who can teach in a mainstreamed environment, driving up costs for education.
What is so very wrong with tracking? Teachers can focus instruction towards the (narrower) range of abilities in the class. It isn’t obvious to me that any teacher, no matter how talented, is able to give the top 10%, bottom 20%, and middle 60% a quality education (even if ADHD weren’t in the mix). Something has to give, and IMHO that something is the illusion that One Classroom Full Of Diverse People Is Best For Each.
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