As a speech pathologist with many years experience with ASD children, I can most definitely tell you that in my red state, special education students on the spectrum do not get the services they need. I worked in public & charter schools. Most of the kids were on Medicaid, & our GOP governor denied additional federal funds for Medicaid expansion.
I retired early due to burn out. I bought thousands of dollars of my own materials, & had caseloads of at least 65 students (& as high as 90 students!). It was so frustrating knowing that many kids needed intensive, 5 day per week therapy which was impossible to deliver. Many principals covertly resented the sole speech therapist in their schools because special Ed kids drag the school academic score down. I delivered therapy in many locations, in a storage closet with no windows. Now in my state any teacher or therapist can be accused of indoctrination, being woke, saying gay, or choosing a therapy book deemed inappropriate by any parent. I don’t mean to brag, but I am a gifted therapist, top of the heap. And I just couldn’t take the lack of care for my profession, & especially for our poor children & their families. I’m glad your child got the services!
Our youngest was born severely tongue tied. He had zero movement except the very tip of it. They told us after clipping it, he would need speech therapy. And he did. The school half heartedly had him in speech therapy for two years, without any improvement. Insurance only covers adults who have lost the ability to speak. So, we did without, cut out any thing extra, and twice a week we drove 180 miles round trip for his therapy. Within the span of a single summer he was able to speak clearly and anyone could understand him. It was worth the extreme effort, but how many people could never have afforded even the sliding scale they offered.
I really wish we, as taxpayers had a say in how our tax dollars are spent. Caring for a child with special needs is extremely stressful, the added expense contributes to that. Congratulations to your family for achieving a successful outcome.
Your story reflects situations that many specialists in education face. It is devastating to lose educators like yourself. Society pays for the lack of care to all students and adults on the spectrum. Quality of life should be important to the damn idiots taking up oxygen in DC. May you have brighter days ahead.
As an Autustic adult over the age of 50, noone knew what the fuck Autism was when I was a kid. That's why I am a strong proponent of helping kids. I don't have kids, thankfully, but I strongly support public education, and making sure kids get fed at school.
I was "hyperactive." Now it's AUDHD. My 4 kiddos have some combinations of adhd and asd. The specialists have been great and I learn a lot from them.
A few school administrators, the other parent (abusive), and oblivious legal and family court system have made things much harder for my 15 and 8 year old. Covid, nasty 3 year dissolution, late diagnosis for the oldest, delays and denials of service. These poor kiddos have been through it.
I'm grateful for my conditions because I can at least relate to them and see things the same way when neurotypicals struggle. Acting as a translator sometimes, since I made it this far, lol. For starters, they need to understand once respect is lost, that kid will not do anything, and it is on the adult to make the effort to meet the child where they are, not demand the reverse. It's like they can read the words of the diagnosis and not comprehend they actually mean something for those experiencing them. I discussed their communication issues with CPS, who followed a script just the same. If they spoke another language, they would surely be offered a translator.
I have a friend whose adult son is non-verbal autistic. She is a fairly new widow. She is very proud of the fact that she & her husband were “planners,” and they were, but neither of them planned for him to develop liver cancer during Covid when we weren’t encouraged to go to doctors.
So now my friend is by herself, single income, caring for her son 24/7 but with thoroughly inadequate respite care (as well as other program deficits, like space for independent living for her son with other adults w/similar disabilities). She recognizes all these deficits. She wants her son to have as meaningful, independent as he can have. But she insists on voting for people who will never willingly spend one red cent on programs for people like her son. I’m at a loss. She’s not stupid by any means, and she knows she alone can’t provide what her son needs to live his best life. I just don’t get it.
I feel the same about gay and trans kids as well, that live in the christofascist part of America. Poor kids. Really sad for all the children whatever medical things they have.
My autistic son is 34, and we went it mostly on our own with respect to social skills and speech therapy. For everything else we had to fight tooth and nail with the school district. This is in a blue state and a relatively wealthy school district. This all makes me so mad.
True, if you don’t walk into every conference fully armed with knowledge of the law, mounds of paperwork from doctors and the time to monitor the school administrators to make sure they are taking care of your child’s needs, your child will suffer.
Never, ever label yourself a bitch for fighting for your child. The educational system in the US leaves a lot to be desired. The care and attention a child receives is based on money. The administration is top heavy and some parts of the country do not pay their teachers enough. Do you have any idea how much professional advocates charge? They are able to charge outrageous amounts because fighting the education machine is not easy. You are Mama Bear.
I have bipolar disorder. I didn’t know until I was 49 years old. I am 66 now and am fine on my pills and therapy. When I was in 1st grade I would bounce off the walls sometimes and then cry later. I was just deemed a sensitive little girl. I think if I hadn’t been at the top of my class, I wouldn’t have been able to stay in a public school. No one ever questioned that I might have a brain with neurons firing differently than a so called “normal child”. My Mom had bipolar disorder too so it was considered “normal” in my home.
You are a wonderful person and I don’t have the patience or self control to listen to any ignorant comments from uninformed right wingnut go on about neurodivergent children. Quite frankly, I believe a lot of these people don’t acknowledge their children’s needs.
My daughter is severe on the spectrum and non verbal. We rely on government to keep her at home with us and out of a facility so that she can have a good home and family life. I can’t imagine voting red.,
I expect that Trumpetoons would love -- except in the cases of their own kids, of course -- to impose a "T-4 Final Solution" on cases of autism and other mental illnesses on Americans of all ages.
"T-4" was the Nazi euthanasia program. They launched it in 1939 to clear hospital beds of such people to allow space for wounded landsers coming back from Poland. The patients were gassed with truck exhaust. The casualty count in Poland was not as bad as anticipated.
However, two things resulted:
1. The Nazis saw the efficiency of the program and upgraded it for further "final solutions."
2. The program was publicly known, and Germans complained about it, including high churchmen, who demanded to know who gave the order. As it turned out, Hitler himself signed off on it. Furious, Adolf kept his name off documents for mass murder after that, to keep his good name.
My ex has since softened his stance, and to the best of my knowledge he’s not MAGA (though his one sister and brother are), but he used to routinely complain about the “takers”. He bought into the whole Reagan “welfare queen” lie and didn’t associate assistance of the disabled, the elderly, veterans, etc. with those “takers” (which of course is a large portion of people receiving aid). I may have made a comment to the effect that his son was one of those “takers”. I honestly think he never thought that before. Blows my mind. Our now adult son required all the services you mentioned as a child, but luckily we had an awesome school district. He lives on his own now and has a PT job, but still needs help with various tasks. In fact, I work for him (via Medicaid). But even today, he gets SS and Medicare, as well as Medicaid.
A family member’s kid is on the spectrum but was diagnosed Asperger’s which wasn’t under the autism umbrella at the time. Parents had to go it alone as far as social skills classes which weren’t cheap, but did it anyway because the alternative wasn’t an option the way they saw it. Fortunately, the kid was high functioning so it all ended well, but JFC, half the women in those classes drove fancy cars and still got help while my family member drove her old Honda and paid through the nose.
What evidence is there that Barron Trump is “obviously autistic”beyond just media speculation? His mannerisms could be the result of something else. Has he ever been diagnosed?
I don't personally know MAGAs or their equivalent, but I've read enough on US websites to see how it goes:
generally, for them it's an exception - such when christian fundies get abortions, they have a good reason, but every other woman is still a slut who should be punished for having sex
"Get the government out of my medicaid/ welfare" said by teabaggers - elected! - before Covid, without any irony, because, as you already noticed, they "of course deserve" welfare/ medicaid, etc , but everybody else on welfare is a lazy moocher who should be forced to work
with autism especially, I suspect (but don't have data) that the venn diagram of "parents who believe autism is caused by vaccines aka conspiracy believers" and "parents who are conservative voters" is a circle.
When looking up the definition of populism, part of it speaks of the population as being against elites. All the felon wants to do is make policy to benefit the elites . Tax breaks for the 1%, gutting environmental laws that benefit everyone but ending them benefits the elites in fossil fuels. Catering to Christian nationalists “elites”and their schools that cheat children of the rest of us of an adequate education. We sent our kids to a catholic school but never thought about getting “vouchers” that would take $ from public schools.
DNC has to redefine populism for the American voter to help them see that MAGA does not practice populism but they do practice elitism. And elitists do not have the welfare of the common man/woman and their children as a priority. Please help them understand that!
As a speech pathologist with many years experience with ASD children, I can most definitely tell you that in my red state, special education students on the spectrum do not get the services they need. I worked in public & charter schools. Most of the kids were on Medicaid, & our GOP governor denied additional federal funds for Medicaid expansion.
I retired early due to burn out. I bought thousands of dollars of my own materials, & had caseloads of at least 65 students (& as high as 90 students!). It was so frustrating knowing that many kids needed intensive, 5 day per week therapy which was impossible to deliver. Many principals covertly resented the sole speech therapist in their schools because special Ed kids drag the school academic score down. I delivered therapy in many locations, in a storage closet with no windows. Now in my state any teacher or therapist can be accused of indoctrination, being woke, saying gay, or choosing a therapy book deemed inappropriate by any parent. I don’t mean to brag, but I am a gifted therapist, top of the heap. And I just couldn’t take the lack of care for my profession, & especially for our poor children & their families. I’m glad your child got the services!
Thank you for caring and your effort to help the neurodivergent children. It breaks my heart to see the children’s needs ignored.
Our youngest was born severely tongue tied. He had zero movement except the very tip of it. They told us after clipping it, he would need speech therapy. And he did. The school half heartedly had him in speech therapy for two years, without any improvement. Insurance only covers adults who have lost the ability to speak. So, we did without, cut out any thing extra, and twice a week we drove 180 miles round trip for his therapy. Within the span of a single summer he was able to speak clearly and anyone could understand him. It was worth the extreme effort, but how many people could never have afforded even the sliding scale they offered.
I really wish we, as taxpayers had a say in how our tax dollars are spent. Caring for a child with special needs is extremely stressful, the added expense contributes to that. Congratulations to your family for achieving a successful outcome.
Your story reflects situations that many specialists in education face. It is devastating to lose educators like yourself. Society pays for the lack of care to all students and adults on the spectrum. Quality of life should be important to the damn idiots taking up oxygen in DC. May you have brighter days ahead.
Thank you for your kind words💙
Perhaps your comments need to appear in lots of local newspapers or other public locations.
As an Autustic adult over the age of 50, noone knew what the fuck Autism was when I was a kid. That's why I am a strong proponent of helping kids. I don't have kids, thankfully, but I strongly support public education, and making sure kids get fed at school.
I was "hyperactive." Now it's AUDHD. My 4 kiddos have some combinations of adhd and asd. The specialists have been great and I learn a lot from them.
A few school administrators, the other parent (abusive), and oblivious legal and family court system have made things much harder for my 15 and 8 year old. Covid, nasty 3 year dissolution, late diagnosis for the oldest, delays and denials of service. These poor kiddos have been through it.
I'm grateful for my conditions because I can at least relate to them and see things the same way when neurotypicals struggle. Acting as a translator sometimes, since I made it this far, lol. For starters, they need to understand once respect is lost, that kid will not do anything, and it is on the adult to make the effort to meet the child where they are, not demand the reverse. It's like they can read the words of the diagnosis and not comprehend they actually mean something for those experiencing them. I discussed their communication issues with CPS, who followed a script just the same. If they spoke another language, they would surely be offered a translator.
I have a friend whose adult son is non-verbal autistic. She is a fairly new widow. She is very proud of the fact that she & her husband were “planners,” and they were, but neither of them planned for him to develop liver cancer during Covid when we weren’t encouraged to go to doctors.
So now my friend is by herself, single income, caring for her son 24/7 but with thoroughly inadequate respite care (as well as other program deficits, like space for independent living for her son with other adults w/similar disabilities). She recognizes all these deficits. She wants her son to have as meaningful, independent as he can have. But she insists on voting for people who will never willingly spend one red cent on programs for people like her son. I’m at a loss. She’s not stupid by any means, and she knows she alone can’t provide what her son needs to live his best life. I just don’t get it.
It's incomprehensible.
Great article
I feel the same about gay and trans kids as well, that live in the christofascist part of America. Poor kids. Really sad for all the children whatever medical things they have.
A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members". And for the most part we are barely pulling a D grade.
My autistic son is 34, and we went it mostly on our own with respect to social skills and speech therapy. For everything else we had to fight tooth and nail with the school district. This is in a blue state and a relatively wealthy school district. This all makes me so mad.
True, if you don’t walk into every conference fully armed with knowledge of the law, mounds of paperwork from doctors and the time to monitor the school administrators to make sure they are taking care of your child’s needs, your child will suffer.
It got to a point where the secretaries for my school district’s special ed director recognized my voice on the phone.
Now I don't feel like such a bitch for schooling them on policy ;)
Never, ever label yourself a bitch for fighting for your child. The educational system in the US leaves a lot to be desired. The care and attention a child receives is based on money. The administration is top heavy and some parts of the country do not pay their teachers enough. Do you have any idea how much professional advocates charge? They are able to charge outrageous amounts because fighting the education machine is not easy. You are Mama Bear.
Thank you! Raar! 💕
I have bipolar disorder. I didn’t know until I was 49 years old. I am 66 now and am fine on my pills and therapy. When I was in 1st grade I would bounce off the walls sometimes and then cry later. I was just deemed a sensitive little girl. I think if I hadn’t been at the top of my class, I wouldn’t have been able to stay in a public school. No one ever questioned that I might have a brain with neurons firing differently than a so called “normal child”. My Mom had bipolar disorder too so it was considered “normal” in my home.
You are a wonderful person and I don’t have the patience or self control to listen to any ignorant comments from uninformed right wingnut go on about neurodivergent children. Quite frankly, I believe a lot of these people don’t acknowledge their children’s needs.
The saddest, AND most infuriating aspect of "conservatives"! The purpose of a government is to help everyone have the best life possible. 💙❣️💙❣️💙
My daughter is severe on the spectrum and non verbal. We rely on government to keep her at home with us and out of a facility so that she can have a good home and family life. I can’t imagine voting red.,
I expect that Trumpetoons would love -- except in the cases of their own kids, of course -- to impose a "T-4 Final Solution" on cases of autism and other mental illnesses on Americans of all ages.
"T-4" was the Nazi euthanasia program. They launched it in 1939 to clear hospital beds of such people to allow space for wounded landsers coming back from Poland. The patients were gassed with truck exhaust. The casualty count in Poland was not as bad as anticipated.
However, two things resulted:
1. The Nazis saw the efficiency of the program and upgraded it for further "final solutions."
2. The program was publicly known, and Germans complained about it, including high churchmen, who demanded to know who gave the order. As it turned out, Hitler himself signed off on it. Furious, Adolf kept his name off documents for mass murder after that, to keep his good name.
My ex has since softened his stance, and to the best of my knowledge he’s not MAGA (though his one sister and brother are), but he used to routinely complain about the “takers”. He bought into the whole Reagan “welfare queen” lie and didn’t associate assistance of the disabled, the elderly, veterans, etc. with those “takers” (which of course is a large portion of people receiving aid). I may have made a comment to the effect that his son was one of those “takers”. I honestly think he never thought that before. Blows my mind. Our now adult son required all the services you mentioned as a child, but luckily we had an awesome school district. He lives on his own now and has a PT job, but still needs help with various tasks. In fact, I work for him (via Medicaid). But even today, he gets SS and Medicare, as well as Medicaid.
A family member’s kid is on the spectrum but was diagnosed Asperger’s which wasn’t under the autism umbrella at the time. Parents had to go it alone as far as social skills classes which weren’t cheap, but did it anyway because the alternative wasn’t an option the way they saw it. Fortunately, the kid was high functioning so it all ended well, but JFC, half the women in those classes drove fancy cars and still got help while my family member drove her old Honda and paid through the nose.
What evidence is there that Barron Trump is “obviously autistic”beyond just media speculation? His mannerisms could be the result of something else. Has he ever been diagnosed?
I don't personally know MAGAs or their equivalent, but I've read enough on US websites to see how it goes:
generally, for them it's an exception - such when christian fundies get abortions, they have a good reason, but every other woman is still a slut who should be punished for having sex
"Get the government out of my medicaid/ welfare" said by teabaggers - elected! - before Covid, without any irony, because, as you already noticed, they "of course deserve" welfare/ medicaid, etc , but everybody else on welfare is a lazy moocher who should be forced to work
with autism especially, I suspect (but don't have data) that the venn diagram of "parents who believe autism is caused by vaccines aka conspiracy believers" and "parents who are conservative voters" is a circle.
When looking up the definition of populism, part of it speaks of the population as being against elites. All the felon wants to do is make policy to benefit the elites . Tax breaks for the 1%, gutting environmental laws that benefit everyone but ending them benefits the elites in fossil fuels. Catering to Christian nationalists “elites”and their schools that cheat children of the rest of us of an adequate education. We sent our kids to a catholic school but never thought about getting “vouchers” that would take $ from public schools.
DNC has to redefine populism for the American voter to help them see that MAGA does not practice populism but they do practice elitism. And elitists do not have the welfare of the common man/woman and their children as a priority. Please help them understand that!