Tag Archives: Education

Making Noise

Myths about Autism, Stimming, , ,

The “disruptive” behaviors of autistic students, commonly adduced in arguments against inclusive education, actually fall into several different categories.  There are the “noisy” behaviors, the “movement” behaviors, and then—much more problematic and harder to defend—the “injurious” behaviors.  I would like to address each in turn.  First:  the “noisy” behaviors.

 

I have what’s called “cough-variant” asthma—instead of wheezing when I have an asthma attack, I cough.  I’ve had this all my life, but when I was a child it went un-diagnosed and untreated, and I lived with two  chain-smoking parents.  As a result, I did a LOT of coughing.  Sometimes it was just intermittent mild barking, but when I got sick—as I did at least three or four times a year–it became an almost constant, deep-chested, disgustingly gooey, hacking that usually went on for several weeks.  At these times, I coughed all day at school, seldom stopping except to gasp for breath.  Once, in middle school, Suzie H. indignantly informed me that my coughing had made her fail a test.   And in retrospect, I suspect that my coughing distracted and annoyed other students on a regular basis.  But no one ever complained to the teacher or the school administration about it, no teacher ever even mentioned it to me, and I never got in trouble for all the noise I was making.  Presumably, if they thought about it at all, they assumed, correctly, that it was beyond my control.

 

Students with autism who make noise in the classroom seldom enjoy the same tolerance.  A significant proportion of autistic children engage in regular vocalizations—making random sounds, or repeating words or phrases to themselves—often without even thinking about it.  It’s just something they do.  Others “stim” by tapping on their desks with pencils or their fingers—again, without even thinking about it.   These activities are usually beyond their control, just as my coughing was.  Yet unlike my coughing, this autistic noise-making tends to be seen as extremely problematic, as “disruptive” to the classroom.  Other students, teachers, and administrators get angry, assuming that the autistic kids are doing it “on purpose,” and could “stop if they wanted to.”  In reality, however, the kids don’t usually realize that they are making noise.  If confronted, they either stop for a while and then unconsciously start up again, or they become agitated and do whatever they have been told to stop doing even more.  And then the presumption becomes that they are “defiant.”

 

The fact is, however, that classrooms are almost never quiet, peaceful places in which everyone listens attentively to the teacher.  Classes are constantly being disrupted by noises outside the school (construction, garbage trucks, sirens, kids laughing and yelling on the playground, etc.),  within the school (squeaky shoes in the hallway, announcements on the public address system, fire alarms, etc.), and within the classroom itself (class pets squeaking and rustling, kids dropping books, coughing, sneezing, and whispering to each other).  If the noises made by autistic students could be accepted as just one among a number of similar distractions, if the noise could be explained to the other students in those terms, and then compensated for by strategic seating, the use of padded cubicles, and the substitution of other forms of self-soothing for autistic students whenever possible, then one of the main obstacles to inclusion could be overcome.  But this would require both teachers and students to look at these behaviors in a different and more tolerant way.

 

 

 

 

PLACEMENT: WHERE DO AUTISTIC STUDENTS LEARN BEST?

Education, Myths about Autism, , ,

 

By law, students with autism are entitled to a free, appropriate, public education in the “least restrictive environment” that is “appropriate” for them.  But exactly what environment that should be is an extremely tricky question.  The educational placement of autistic students has given rise to explosive debates in newspapers, on twitter feeds, and during legislative sessions, as well as in EIP meetings, law courts, and even family gatherings.  One reason for this is that every single autistic student is different, and what works for one, will almost by definition not work for others.  But all too often, other factors—which should legally be irrelevant—come into play.  One recent study, for example, has shown that individual state policies and finances may make as much difference as a student’s abilities in determining his or her placement.[1]

 

The inclusion of autistic students in mainstream classes, alongside their neurotypical peers throughout the day, is theoretically the gold standard, the “least restrictive” of all educational environments.  However, full inclusion is also the most contentious form of placement, and not usually for the right reasons.   Emotion, ideology, and prejudice shape the arguments of both opponents and proponents of inclusion. [2]

 

On the one hand, it seems clear that full inclusion offers autistic children their best chance for a good education that can lead to college, employment, and independence.  In every other setting (except, under some circumstances, the homeschool), educational offerings are much more limited and future opportunities restricted.  Segregated special education classes and separate “autism schools” usually offer little in the way of real academics, even though they may be excellent at teaching functional living and social skills.  As a result, parents who believe that their kids are capable of academic achievement are often prepared to fight like grizzly bears to keep their kids in the mainstream classroom for all or most of the day.[3]

 

Grizzliness is necessary because while many teachers and school administrators support inclusion whenever possible, other educators—along with some public figures and some parents of neurotypical students—are vehemently opposed to it.  The reasons given for this vary, but the central claim is that autistic students (usually all lumped together in these arguments, despite the huge differences among them) behave in ways that are disruptive to their classmates and the school.

 

According to a 1994 memorandum from the federal Office of Special Education, excessively disruptive behavior can be used as a rationale to remove a child from an inclusive educational setting:

 

If a student with a disability has behavioral problems that are so disruptive in a regular classroom that the education of other students is significantly impaired, the needs of the disabled student cannot be met in that environment.

However, before making such a determination, school districts must ensure that consideration has been given to the full range of supplementary aids and services that could be provided to the student in the regular educational environment to accommodate the unique needs of the disabled student. If the placement team determines that even with the provision of supplementary aids and services, that student’s IEP could not be implemented satisfactorily in the regular educational environment, that placement would not be the LRE placement for that student at the particular time, because her or his unique educational needs could not be met in that setting. [4]

But precisely what behaviors reach the “so disruptive” threshold?  And what proportion of autistic students actually do disrupt classes any more than their neurotypical classmates?  These questions will be the subject of the next few posts.

 

 

 

 

[1] Jennifer Kurth, “Educational Placement of Students with Autism,” Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities 30 (2015), pp. 249-56.

[2] Note, for example, the over-the-top language found on journalist Richard Moore’s Autism page:  http://www.rmmoore1.com/autism.  He describes autism as an “epidemic” and compares it to a natural disaster:  “Now, in the United States and around the globe, a powerful earthquake of arguable origin has set off yet another health tsunami, which at this very moment is racing across the ocean of our lives, already affecting millions and millions, with millions more still in its path. This time it is a neurological disorder called autism, or Autism Spectrum Disorder…”  In writing about education, Moore insists that autistic students (all lumped together) simply “learn differently” than neurotypical or even other special needs students do.   He describes demands for inclusion as largely driven by ideology (while ignoring the “different and less” ideology that drives his own writing).

[3] E.g., the post “Autism and IEPs and Grizzly Mommas . . . Oh My!!”  on the Autism Sparkles blog:  https://autismsparkles.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/autism-and-ieps-and-grizzly-mommas-oh-my/.  Bear in mind (pun intended), that these ferocious parents are not always right—sometimes the mainstream classroom is simply intolerable for their children, who would be better served as home (if possible), or in a special education classroom with additional academic programming to suit their needs.  More on this below.

[4] Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, “Questions and Answers on Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) Requirements of the Idea,” November 23, 1994.

Teaching Autistic Children: Perceptual Issues

auditory processing disorders, Education, Learning Disabilities, visual processing disorders, , ,

Another significant, but seldom-recognized problem has to do with perceptual issues.[1]  A student cannot learn if she cannot see or hear what is being presented to her.[2] Very, very few public school teachers understand how perceptual systems—which directly affect learning—work in autistic students.  For example:  many (not all—remember: each autistic individual is different) have difficulties with auditory processing.[3]  It may take them a fraction of a second longer that neurotypical students to turn spoken sounds into intelligible speech, and this is just long enough to cause significant problems, as they constantly try to play “catch-up” with the rest of the class  They may also find it difficult to separate the significant sounds they are supposed to be hearing from background noise.  As a result, these students are often unable to follow a lecture or video, or comply with their teacher’s spoken demands.  Group work is even worse, as the autistic student struggles to separate what his or her own group is saying from what is going on in other groups around the classroom.  There are work-arounds for auditory processing issues, such as special seating near the front of the classroom, close-captioning for videos, the provision of both spoken and written instructions, exemption from group work, etc.  But the teacher must first be aware of the problem before solutions can be found.  Many a well-meaning and thoughtful teacher has caused frustration, withdrawal, even “meltdowns,” by insisting on a phonics-based approach to reading for a student with poor auditory processing skills. For such a student, a “whole-word” approach might work better. [4]

 

Other autistic kids have trouble with visual processing.[5]  They may be able to see clearly only with peripheral vision, in which case a teacher who insists that they “look at me” is actually ensuring that they will not see what the teacher is doing.  Meares-Irlen, “Scotopic Sensitivity” or “visual stress” syndrome is also often present in autistic kids.  Letters, words and numbers will appear to move around on the pages of a book or on a classroom whiteboard, making it almost impossible to follow what is being taught.  Some students affected by this syndrome may be helped with colored overlays or tinted glasses.[6]  When these don’t work, there are other work-arounds.  My own daughter, for example, struggles with math problems because of “floating” numbers.  She has developed her own (admittedly, rather time-consuming) system of writing out the problems using different colored pencils for different rows or columns.  The colors helped her keep numbers in their proper places.  Reading on an Ipad, with a font size large enough so that only a single line of text appears on the screen can help those with this syndrome with reading.  Teachers can help students find ways to deal with visual processing issues, but—again—only if they are aware of these issues in the first place.

 

If students can’t make sense of what they hear or see in the classroom, they will inevitably fail in school.  It is up to trained specialists to diagnose their auditory or visual problems, and it is then up to their teachers to find ways to help them overcome these perceptual issues.

 

 

 

 

[1] On sensory perception issues in autistic schoolchildren, see Olga Bogdashina’s excellent Sensory Perceptual Issues in Autism and Aspergers Syndrome (London:  Jessica Kingsley, 2003).  On sensory experience in autism more generally, see J. Horder, C. Wilson, M. Mendez and D. Murphy, “Autistic Traits and Abnormal Sensory Experiences in Adults,” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 44 (2014), 1461-69.

[2] There are work-arounds, of course, used in schools for the deaf or blind, but most autistic students are not actually deaf or blind, so these techniques may not work for them, even in the unlikely case that they are offered them.

[3] P. Dawes, D. Bishop, T. Sirimanna, et al.  [“Profile and Aetiology of Children Diagnosed with Auditory Processing Disorder (APD),” International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology, 72 (2008), 483–89], found that about 9% of children referred to a clinic specializing in auditory processing disorders also had a diagnosis of autism; this suggests that autistic children are much more likely to have an APD than neurotypical children.

[4] Leslie Broun, “Teaching Students with Autistic Spectrum Disorders to Read,” Teaching Exceptional Children 36 (2004), 36-40.  See also: Kate Nation, Paula Clarke, Barry White, and Christine Williams, “Patterns of Reading Ability in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder,” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 36 (2006), 911-19;  Kelly Whalon, Stephanie al Otaiba, and Monica Delano, “Evidence-Based Reading Instruction for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders,” Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities 24 (2009), 3-16; Janet Spector, “Sight Word Instruction for Children with Autism:  An Evaluation of the Evidence Base,” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 41 (2011), 1411-22.

[5] Unfortunately, the scientific study of visual processing issues in autism is still in its infancy.  Even the quite recent articles often fail to look beyond the most basic issues of face and pattern recognition:  e.g., Marlene Behrman, “Visual Processing,” in the Encyclopedia of Autism Spectrum Disorders, ed. F. Volker, P. Pelphrey, and D. Powers (New York:  Springer, 2013), pp. 3290-99.  Experienced teachers may offer more reliable information on how visual issues affect schoolwork:  e.g., Bogdashina, Sensory Perceptual Issues in Autism.

[6] The Irlen method of using colored overlays and glasses to treat these individuals remains highly controversial, but has proved life-changing for some autistic individuals.  A famous example is that of the late Donna Williams, the Australian writer and autism activist.

The Challenges Facing Autistic Children in America’s Schools

Autistic Intelligence, Education, Intelligence Testing, Non-Speaking, , , , ,

After 1990, the number of young people with autism diagnoses educated in public schools in the United States rose rapidly;  the legal mandates of IDEA ensured that still others were educated in private institutions paid for with public funds.  Overall, then, access to educational institutions has improved dramatically for autistic children within recent decades.  It is doubtful, though, whether many of these children have reached their full educational potential.  Despite greatly improved access to schools, huge challenges continue to face autistic children seeking an education.  Few teachers are adequately trained to meet their learning needs, and indeed, those needs are still poorly understood even by “experts.”  The educational environment remains hostile, from both a sensory and a social perspective.  School buildings and classrooms are full of often unnecessary sensory stressors and distractions, not to mention intimidating bullies.  Moreover, autistic students continue to be disproportionately subject to severe and even life-threatening discipline, often for fairly minor infractions of the rules. These challenges will be the subject of the next few posts on this blog.

The most serious problem by far facing autistic students in American schools, however, is the presumption of stupidity, which leads to appallingly low academic expectations.  In one recent research project, only 56% of the autistic students studied had any academic skills at all listed in their IEP goals.  Their teachers simply did not expect them to reach grade-level academic content standards.[1]  This is because far too many teachers continue to associate autism with intellectual disability, even though, as we have already seen, current scientific research indicates that autistic people have the same range of intellectual abilities as everyone else.  The ability to speak (expressive language), depending as it does on physical capabilities, is certainly not a good indicator of intelligence.  Nevertheless, far too many (indeed, most) schools continue to assign empty labels like “high-functioning” or “low-functioning” to their autistic students, based on speaking ability and extremely problematic I.Q. testing.  Those labelled “low-functioning” are generally considered intellectually disabled.  They tend to be be shunted off into special education classrooms, which provide some life-skill and social-skill training, but often almost nothing in the way of academics.

 

One such individual, Michael Weinstein, describes his school experience in this way:

The school officials tested me and said I had an IQ of less than 70 and would never get a high school diploma, so I spent a lot of time learning how to wipe off cafeteria tables, sort utensils, and make little arts and crafts projects. Although I understood everything that was said to me, I could not indicate in any way, verbally or non-verbally, that I understood them.[2]

Eventually Mr. Weinstein learned to type, enabling him to demonstrate his genius-level I.Q. and his exceptional skills in mathematics.  Similarly, Philip Reyes reports that his teachers “were well meaning but believed I could not understand much of anything because I could not talk or write to communicate that I was smart and understood everything going on around me.”  Instead, Philip says, he was trained like an animal in school, “as everyone tried to make me act normally with candy rewards.”[3]

There is no inherent reason why special education classrooms cannot be intellectually challenging, but in practice they seldom are.  Bright young people may spend years in these classes hearing basic arithmetic facts or the names of colors repeated over and over again, but learning nothing that might later help them as either workers or citizens.  Ido Kedar, another non-speaking autistic, fiercely criticizes the thinking behind these practices:  “The assumption that people with severe autism all have impaired thinking has resulted in the underestimating of the true abilities of thousands of individuals, lack of adequate educational opportunities, isolation, loneliness, boredom, frustration, hopelessness, and a life of entrapment within one’s own body. This price is too high.”[4]

 

[1] Sara Witmer, and Summer Ferreri, “Alignment of Instruction, Expectations and Accountability Testing for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder,” Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities 29: 3 (2014), 136-38.

[2] Michael Weinstein, “Life with Autism” on the Golden Hat Foundation blog:  http://www.goldenhatfoundation.org/about-us/blog/125-golden-hat-foundation-blog-70211

[3] “Communication Device Opens Up the World to Nonverbal Autistic Boy, Buffalo Evening News 12/3/15:  http://buffalonews.com/2015/12/02/communication-device-opens-up-the-world-to-nonverbal-autistic-boy/.

[4] Ido Kedar, “Motor Difficulties in Severe Autism,” on the Ido in Autismland blog:  http://idoinautismland.com/?p=376.