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Charter schools that ironically will find ways to filter out students with special needs so that they can save money and juke test scores.
That certainly is true where I live, too. Most of our charter schools simply don't accept special needs kids or children from poor families, to the point that they are almost all that is left in many public schools. It's a vicious cycle. The charter schools take away the top students, lowering the academic levels of public education, just encouraging more parents to pull their kids from public schools. And the charter schools have no more shame about being largely white and upper class than the most snobbish private schools ever did. How's that for equal opportunity? The death of public education will be the death of America as we know it, more than any other single factor.
That certainly is true where I live, too. Most of our charter schools simply don't accept special needs kids or children from poor families, to the point that they are almost all that is left in many public schools. It's a vicious cycle. The charter schools take away the top students, lowering the academic levels of public education, just encouraging more parents to pull their kids from public schools. And the charter schools have no more shame about being largely white and upper class than the most snobbish private schools ever did. How's that for equal opportunity? The death of public education will be the death of America as we know it, more than any other single factor.
If the public schools were as good as the private people would not be pulling their kids out.
I am an OT who worked with special ed kids in a public school district, and for all those who think there are all these kids on IEP's solely because of a diagnosis of ADHD, that was not my experience at all. In order to be classified and get an IEP, you have to fall significantly below grade/age level in several areas of development determined by score on standardized tests.
Also, while Asperger's is not the same as autism, typically Asperger kids have similar social and behavioral disabilities, and often need a special classroom for the increased structure and low teacher to student ratio.
IMO, the most money was mis-spent by parents who were in denial about their child's disability and abilities. Kids with severe disabilities whose parent insisted they be in a regular ed classroom, regular bus, etc and so needed an individual teacher in the classroom for him, a personal bus aide, etc. I'm all for inclusion but not for every child, and IMO if the child needs all that support, they are in an environment whose demands are too high for where they are developmentally.
Thank you for saying this. I was trying to explain this in a much earlier post about my autistic son's diagnosis. My son is now in a SPec ED contained classroom with a teacher and aide support plus main streams into kinder class for a few hours with aide support. I am glad my husband and I got him diagnosed before kinder with the school district. He is thriving in the environment that he is in and becoming very verbal. He was almost non verbal until age 4-4.5.
Also, while asperger's is not the same as autism, typically asperger kids have similar social and behavioral disabilities, and often need a special classroom for the increased structure and low teacher to student ratio.
That may depend on the age of the student. I taught middle school and have had quite a few kids with Asperger's through the years and many of them do just fine in regular classes, especially in classes where the subject matter and teacher are highly structured. It is important that the teacher understands their quirks and responses correctly when there are issues. Not every teacher or classroom is suitable for these kids, but when there is a good match it can be very rewarding for both the student and the teacher. I absolutely adored most of my Aspies and most thrived in my classroom, and I had regular sized classes. But I had a friend, who is an excellent teacher on the whole, where it was a nightmare.
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Originally Posted by ocnjgirl
imo, the most money was mis-spent by parents who were in denial about their child's disability and abilities. kids with severe disabilities whose parent insisted they be in a regular ed classroom, regular bus, etc and so needed an individual teacher in the classroom for him, a personal bus aide, etc. I'm all for inclusion but not for every child, and imo if the child needs all that support, they are in an environment whose demands are too high for where they are developmentally.
Can you provide me a link to one of these 10,000 articles from a reliable source like The New York Times? Ten thousand articles is a very large number. I don't think all of the American newspapers combined has 10,000 articles in their science and health sections of their newspapers discussing autism. I am referring to NYTimes, WA Post, S.J. Mercury News, S.F. Examiner, The Oregonian, etc. Please link me to an article because your 10, 000 number sounds grossly inflated. What is the phenomenon you are referring to? Clarify please! Thank you, in advance.
Can you provide me a link to one of these 10,000 articles from a reliable source like The New York Times? Ten thousand articles is a very large number. I don't think all of the American newspapers combined has 10,000 articles in their science and health sections of their newspapers discussing autism. I am referring to NYTimes, WA Post, S.J. Mercury News, S.F. Examiner, The Oregonian, etc. Please link me to an article because your 10, 000 number sounds grossly inflated. What is the phenomenon you are referring to? Clarify please! Thank you, in advance.
Peer reviewed research, a much higher standard than The New York Times, in recent years backs up the notion that ADHD is significantly over diagnosed, and children are being medicated who don't need it. For instance, in the 10-year longitudinal study, Project to Learn about ADHD in Youth (PLAY), funded by the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, the following was found:
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...revealed that the number of parents in the community sample who reported that their children were taking ADHD medication was 10.1 percent in South Carolina and 7.4 percent in Oklahoma. Yet, of the children taking ADHD medication, only 39.5 percent in South Carolina and 28.3 percent in Oklahoma actually met the case definition of ADHD.
Or my "favorite" from a study in North Carolina (Measuring Inappropriate Medical Diagnosis and Treatment in Survey Data: The Case of ADHD among School-Age Children):
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Morrill explains that the study shows that children born just after the kindergarten cutoff date were 25 percent less likely to be diagnosed as having ADHD than children born just before the cutoff date. "This indicates that there are children who are diagnosed (or not) because of something other than underlying biological or medical reasons.
"We believe that younger children may be mistakenly diagnosed as having ADHD, when in fact they are simply less mature," Morrill says.
They are just younger in age and therefore developmentally less able to focus, so we are labeling them as disabled and medicating them.
It is my understanding that in order to obtain an IEP a child has to be struggling academically, not just diagnosed with something.
Our son has a diagnosis of adhd (he is not medicated) and Tourette's syndrome. He is a straight A student and we send him to a private school but it is my understanding that he would not qualify for an IEP anyway right? Not that I think he needs one.
Peer reviewed research, a much higher standard than The New York Times, in recent years backs up the notion that ADHD is significantly over diagnosed, and children are being medicated who don't need it. For instance, in the 10-year longitudinal study, Project to Learn about ADHD in Youth (PLAY), funded by the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, the following was found:
Or my "favorite" from a study in North Carolina (Measuring Inappropriate Medical Diagnosis and Treatment in Survey Data: The Case of ADHD among School-Age Children):
They are just younger in age and therefore developmentally less able to focus, so we are labeling them as disabled and medicating them.
This is valuable info. Thank you. Do you have any info pertaining to over diagnosis of autusm, btw? Thank you.
This is valuable info. Thank you. Do you have any info pertaining to over diagnosis of autusm, btw? Thank you.
Autism spectrum disorders are the new diagnosis de' jour. It will take a while for reliable, peer-reviewed, longitudinal research to catch up, and either validate or repute, the current trend of over diagnosis that classroom educators are saying exists based on anecdotal evidence. Based on past history with other disabilities, the educators' observations with be validated. That should come as no surprise, we are the ones in the trenches.
I will tell you one thing, from an educator's standpoint, Autism and Asperger's do not belong in the same category. By the time they are in school a couple of years, it is like lumping those that wear glasses together with those that are blind.
It is my understanding that in order to obtain an IEP a child has to be struggling academically, not just diagnosed with something.
Our son has a diagnosis of adhd (he is not medicated) and Tourette's syndrome. He is a straight A student and we send him to a private school but it is my understanding that he would not qualify for an IEP anyway right? Not that I think he needs one.
Depends on the state and depends on whether either of them create issues either for him or other students. It does not have to strictly be academic, such as behavioral disabilities. For instance, a lot of speech kids, one of the most common disability categories, do not struggle academically but are on IEP's because they receive services.
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