Lee's Summit Autism: October 2013

Thursday, October 31, 2013

Autism Acceptance Day: Imagine a World Where Everyone Was Against You....

Disabled 5-year-old's death in Kenner classroom is re-examined in court | NOLA.com

WATCH: Special Needs Children Choked, Tackled, Electrocuted & Killed In Schools (GRAPHIC, VIDEO) | The Libertarian Republic

Schools Claim Wide Leeway for Restraining Special Needs Kids

ABC News filed a special report that featured the stories of special needs children who are brutally restrained in their school environments. Schools believe they need a range of tactics and leeway to deal with autistic children who “act out”.

WATCH: Schools put genius child in special ed, tell mom he can’t learn. Now he’s free, and he could even win a Nobel Prize

Some of the tactics include receiving electric shocks and choke-holds, as well as securing students in restraint rooms. Kids have died from some of these incidents. A surveillance tape from the interview below shows five teachers tackling and restraining a child in what they called a “therapeutic hold”, which killed him. Doctors blamed the death on “cardiac arrest while being subdued”.

Teacher's aide accused of shoving special needs student - KCTV5

Teacher's aide accused of shoving special needs student - KCTV5

KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV/AP) -

A teacher's aide in the Kansas City School District is accusing of shoving an 11-year-old student who has Down syndrome.

Both state social workers and school district officials are investigating the teacher's aide after another aide and a teacher came forward to report that the employee in question had shoved Devon Williams.

Darwin Williams, the boy's father, said he wants criminal charges filed. He filed a police report, and Kansas City police confirm that detectives are investigating.

Devon is a student at the African-Centered College Preparatory Academy off East Meyer Boulevard in Kansas City.

Darwin Williams said he is outraged. He said he was told that the aide shoved his son against a wall with no warning.

When Devon got home that day, Darwin Williams said he and Devon's mother could tell something was wrong.

"He was not his normal self," Darwin Williams recalled. "He came home with his head down and moving real slow. Normally, when he comes home from school, he's happy-go-lucky."

But he couldn't tell his parents what happened, and his parents didn't know until they were contacted by state social workers, who were alerted by district employees.

The 49-year-old aide denies that she shoved Devon. She provided a written statement to the school in which she said she is completely innocent and would never commit such a terrible act against a child.

Citing privacy laws, a Kansas City Public Schools system spokesman said he could not discuss the specific allegations.

The district did issue the following statement:

"KCPS takes the health and safety of its students seriously, and does not tolerate the abuse or harassment of any student. In general, and as mandatory reporters, any allegation of abuse results in a notification to the state's child abuse hotline, where it is reviewed by state officials. Concurrently, an investigation is undertaken by KCPS and police are notified. Appropriate actions taken based on the findings of those investigations."

Darwin Williams said the district desperately needs to reopen a school for special needs children. The Delano School was closed in 2011, and Darwin Williams maintains this wouldn't have happened if Delano were still open.

"They need special care and special teachers for them," he said. "They can't operate correctly in the public school system. They need a special school for special needs students."

JetBlue Launches 'Blue Horizons For Autism': Program Aims To Make Flying Easier For Families With Autistic Children

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Performance of Students With Disabilities Hard to Gauge in School Accountability - On Special Education - Education Week

Getting a clear picture of how students with disabilities have performed under the accountability measures once mandated by No Child Left Behind is difficult because of differences among states in measuring progress, says a report from the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, a project of the Institute of Education Sciences.

The Inclusion of Students With Disabilities in School Accountability Systems: An Update is the latest snapshot of how schools fared under an accountability system that required them to break out the performance of students with disabilities and move them towards 100 percent academic proficiency. The report looks specifically at the four school years from 2006-07 to 2009-10; school accountability has in recent months changed dramatically with the permission of accountability waivers that have now been granted to 42 states and the District of Columbia.

Looking at student performance, the report found that in the 31 states with relevant data that the researchers were able to gather, more than half—56 percent—of the public schools were not accountable for the students with disabilities subgroup in any of the four years examined. In contrast, 23 percent of schools were consistently accountable in each of those years.

The researchers then turned their attention to schools failing to make adequate yearly progress, and for that measure were able to collect information from 39 states and the District of Columbia for 2009-10. Six percent of schools in those states that did not make AYP did so solely because of the students with disabilities subgroup. Twenty-eight percent missed the mark because of the disability subgroup and some other factor.

Once a school was identified as being in need of improvement because of the performance of students with disabilities, it tended to stay that way: 83 percent of schools in that category in 2007-08 retained that classification through 2010-11. The same held true for schools that did not face any sanctions because of the disability subgroup: 74 percent of the schools not identified for improvement in 2007-08 continued in that status through 2010-11.

So what to make of all of these statistics? In their conclusion, the authors of the report say that it is hard to tell.

Although the ESEA may be straightforward in its overall objective to improve the achievement of all students, the numerous provisions and regulations may make it challenging to determine exactly how well [students with disabilities] have been performing. Adding to these complexities is the fact that states use different tests, adopt different proficiency standards, use different methods for measuring progress, and set different minimum subgroup size for accountability purposes. These differences lead to variation across states in how [students with disabilities] are included or excluded from school accountability systems and how [students with disabilities] performance affects schools' AYP determination and school improvement status, which make cross-state comparisons difficult to interpret.

An upcoming report from IES will focus on school practices that relate to student educational outcomes.

Monday, October 28, 2013

Lee's Summit R-7 School District: Action Alert: Group Homes and Institutions are Not Community Living

What does "community" mean to you? For some people, this question doesn't mean much. But for the hundreds of thousands of Americans receiving Medicaid Home and Community Based Services (HCBS), the meaning of community has huge implications.

In 2010, the State of Missouri tried to use Medicaid funds that were intended to serve people with disabilities in the community to build group homes on the same property as an institution. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) rightly refused to allow Missouri to use Medicaid Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) funding for this plan, as the purpose of HCBS funding is to help people avoid institutionalization, not to fund placements that segregate people from their communities.

As a disability rights organization committed to advancing equal access and inclusion for all people with disabilities, ASAN belives strongly that anything that segregates people with disabilities from our communities is not community.

CMS has been trying to implement strong minimum standards for HCBS settings, to prevent what almost happened in Missouri from happening again. CMS has proposed regulations that would prevent HCBS dollars from going to institutions, settings that are on the grounds of an institution, settings that are segregated on the basis of disability, and settings that have the characteristics of an institution, such as lack of privacy or rules about when people can eat and sleep. This is a significant opportunity for the disability community to support a real minimum standard for the meaning of community living.

We need your help to make these standards a reality. CMS will issue a final rule by the end of 2013. Unfortunately, the institution, nursing home, and sheltered workshop industries have already written to CMS and Congress opposing any standards for how and where HCBS dollars are used. We need our community to write in to tell Congress and CMS that:

Community living cannot occur on the grounds of an institution or in settings that operate like institutions, denying people privacy and imposing rules that limit personal freedom and choice.

Community supports do not involve the use of sheltered workshops and other facility-based settings that separate and congregate people on the basis of disability.

HCBS funding should be used to support people with disabilities living in typical housing that they control, located in existing communities, alongside neighbors with and without disabilities.

HCBS funding should be used for supported employment and community involvement - not for sheltered workshops or segregated day service settings.

Here's what you can do:

Contact your Senators and Representatives and ask them to write letters to Secretary Sebelius letting them know that you SUPPORT the proposed rulemaking by going to Contacting the Congress. Including your personal story and a photo is encouraged.

Don't hesitate to add your thoughts about what community living means to you.

Send a copy of this advocacy alert to your friends and colleagues encouraging them to write in too - the more people who write in, the stronger our position will be. Help us get the word out!

This is a critical opportunity to have our voices heard. Now is the time to speak up and speak loudly about the importance of these new regulations.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

I'm Sorry - From One Special Needs Mom to Another |

The thing about “I’m sorry” is that it’s something we’re constantly telling people we don’t want to hear. We don’t want people to pity us as parents of children with special needs. We don’t want people to be sorry that we have a child with special needs, or with challenges, or sorry for our daily struggles, or our challenge to survive the hour much less the day or a lifetime. I’ve said that before myself… don’t pity me. Don’t pity my child. I wouldn’t change a thing (except maybe there would be a couple things). But essentially, don’t be “sorry” for me / him / our family / our life.

With that, I’ve found that when I want to say, “I’m sorry”, it’s been hard to find words that say something else. Because to me, when I say “I’m sorry”, it means…

That it totally sucks that you just found out your 9 year old has the mentality of an 18 month old; that’s a hard one for people to wrap their heads around from the outside, much less as a parent. And it sucks that it also means that (realistically) while there will be so many beautiful things he will accomplish in life, so many changes he will make in the people around him that are heartwarming, touching, and yet to be known, there are still so many things he will not get to experience in life. I’m sorry means… I know you already knew it, but it sucks to have it thrown at you on a piece of paper, in black and white.

It means it sucks that on top of everything else, he has yet another ‘big deal’ diagnosis. That what he already has should be ‘enough’, but along the way has come Sensory Processing Disorder and more. And now, he has Autism too. I’m sorry means it sucks that the biggest positive outcome of this diagnosis is that he can be eligible for more services. Because it just sucks that he needs more services for another diagnosis… regardless of what it is.

It means I’m sorry… because I am overcome with the emotions that linger from every slam to my soul, for every time my own son received a new diagnosis. Each delivery no less devastating than the one before.

Many will differ with me. Will say how horrible I am for not appreciating my son, or your son, for who they are separate from any diagnosis.

Except…

My son is the most important person who has shaped my adult life, and I would have it no other way. My son has taught me about love, resilience, strength and bottomless selflessness. More than that, my son has taught me that it’s okay to be human. To feel the pain that comes with knowing the struggles he will face in his lifetime. That it’s okay to be paralyzed with fear for all the struggles I don’t yet know about, and that I can mourn those losses so long as I recognize the accomplishments when they come. But my son has also taught me that it’s okay to say “I’m sorry” out of compassion and empathy for what another mother feels when she is told many of the same things that I have been told.

So, my friend, when I say I’m sorry, please know that I’m not sorry for your special needs life. I’m not sorry that your son is who he is, because I love him too. Just know that I’m sorry for all the pain that I know you feel right now, and for how it feels when you read that on a report, for when your mind jumps ahead to all the questions you won’t yet have answers for in the years ahead. I’m sorry for the mourning you will some day do in your own time, own space and own way.

My friend, I say I’m sorry because it sucks to go through all this pain in order to find the beauty…but know there has to be beauty because he’s an awesome kid. Maybe I’m sorry will mean something different when it comes from someone who doesn’t know you, your son, the special needs life… but I hope you know what it means from me, when I say…

I’m sorry.

Monday, October 21, 2013

Missouri House Interim Committee on Education Hearings | Missouri Learning Standards

The Missouri House of Representatives Interim Committee on Education is holding a second round of hearings about a number of education issues facing the state. The Missouri Department of Elementary & Secondary Education encourages parents, teachers, administrators and community members to attend these hearings and make your voices heard. This is your chance to provide input on the priorities for lawmakers leading up to the 2014 legislative session.

Topics will likely include:

Common Core State Standards
Foundation formula for education funding
Student transfers from unaccredited to accredited districts
Teacher tenure
Educator evaluation

Interim House Education Committee Hearing dates and locations:

Monday, October 21, 3:30-6:30pm at LaGrange College, 2800 Palmyra Rd, Hannibal, MO 63401
Tuesday, October 22, 1:00-4:00pm at Northwest Missouri State University, Student Union Board Room, 800 University Dr. Maryville, MO 64468
Tuesday, October 22, 7:00-10:00pm at UMKC – Atterbury Student Success Center – Pierson Auditorium Room 245 – 5000 Homes, 5110 Rockhill Rd., Kansas City, MO 64110
Wednesday, October 23, 1:00-4:00pm, University of Central Missouri, Elliott Union, Elliott Room #237A/B, 511 South Holden, Warrensburg, MO 64093
Wednesday, October 23, 7:00-10:00pm, University of Missouri – Columbia, 319 Jesse Hall, Columbia, MO 65211

55 years in prison for e-mails and phone calls? | The Daily Caller

The criminalization of mental illness — i.e., the imprisonment of individuals with a mental illness for behavior that is a symptom of their illness — is a damaging, and increasing trend. Daniel Jason is just one of tens of thousands of individuals trapped by it.

Handsome, with an athletic build but a gaze that can make him appear lost, Daniel has Asperger Syndrome. A developmental disorder (on the autism spectrum), Asperger Syndrome makes it difficult for Daniel to communicate and socialize normally with others. Individuals with Asperger Syndrome want to form strong and loving relationships with others but don’t know how to do so. Their focus on something can become obsessive.

Those with Asperger Syndrome usually have normal or above average intelligence. In December 2005, Daniel graduated early from the University of Iowa with a Bachelor’s Degree in finance. The next year he entered the university’s graduate school of business. Daniel took $2,000 of his bar mitzvah money and made $120,000 by trading options online.

Unfortunately, Daniel’s first time dating did not go well. In late December 2005 or early January 2006, after about 11 months of dating, his girlfriend, a fellow student, ended their relationship. In emails, phone calls, and text messages, Daniel alternated between begging his ex-girlfriend to get back together and threatening to reveal personal secrets if she didn’t.

Arrested on March 30, 2007 for violating a protective order that his ex-girlfriend obtained against him, Daniel has spent most of his time since then in prison, even though he hasn’t committed any violent crimes.

On May 29, 2008, after unsuccessfully representing himself at trial, Daniel was sentenced to five years in prison for violating the protective order and two years for witness tampering. On December 1, 2010, Daniel was sentenced to 27 months in prison and three years of supervised release for mailing a threatening communication to his lawyer from prison.

On November 5, 2012, Daniel was charged with one count of stalking while restricted by a protective order (he sent several email and Facebook messages to his ex-girlfriend) and two counts of extortion (in two voicemail messages left at his ex-girlfriend’s place of employment, he threatened to disclose “embarrassing information” about her). If convicted at his trial, scheduled to begin October 22, Daniel can be sentenced to up to 55 years in prison. Prosecutors offered a 10-year sentence if Daniel agreed to plead guilty but have withdrawn their offer.

Lee's Summit R-7 School District: "The #1 mistake people make when working with those with Asperger's"

Thank you so much for checking us out, we know that you'll be thrilled with what you see.

You can watch the video we promised you "The #1 mistake people make when working with those with Asperger's" by clicking here: Watch the video

Here at Asperger Experts, we come from an insiders perspective, and teach parents, teachers, therapists and those with Asperger's to live better lives, understand why they do what they do, and unlock the potential of themselves, and everyone around them.

The basis of everything we teach is contained in this video, so make sure to watch it.

If you ever need anything please email us at expert@aspergerexperts.com

Talk soon,

Danny & Hayden
Asperger Expert