Your autistic child is not getting school support-or had it, but now it's gone

You’ve got to be…I just can’t…What the..?

I’m sorry. Sometimes, the stunning lack of understanding from our school boards leaves me speechless. 

Especially when this happens:

• They create a fantastic IEP meant to provide just the right mix of supports for a student who’s really struggling.
• They actually provide all the supports—consistently and with the right approach.
  
• The student getting those supports does a complete 180°--gone is the anxious student who is struggling academically, replaced by a student who can  and does do  the work...perhaps they make the   honour roll, even!

Sounds great, huh?  At the risk of bursting your bubble,  it’s what often happens next that is so frustrating:

• In response to this kind of student success, some schools, in their infinite wisdom, go, ‘Awesome! Our work here is done,’  and they cut the supports that allowed the student to succeed.  

As soon as the child is no longer sorry he was ever born, trashing the classroom, or two grades behind…well…BAM! The individualized, relevant, valuable support that was just so perfect gets yanked.

It’s hard to find the words to describe just how stupid this practice is.  Methinks some educators weren’t paying attention when they attended their Autism 101 course. 

That premise—that you support autistic students until you no longer ‘see’ challenging behaviour or academic struggles—is backward, wrong, uneducated, and doing harm to the children.

Maybe we can start to bring  these schools up to  snuff.  Pass this on--supporting autistic students is really as easy as A, B, C once you wrap your head around this little reality:

Since autism is a unique way of learning and of experiencing the physical environment, once you figure out what the student needs, you provide it. 

And when by providing it you cause a profoundly positive  change such as I have described in brief above,  you  keep providing it. 
Mind blown, right?

The  supports our children need  are (very often) not temporary measures:  the instructional and assessment accommodations and highly trained staff are essential for them, not optional. These are the conditions under which these students can 'access the curriculum' and feel safe and calm in the school setting.

If and when parents and professionals who are interested in the well-being of the child over the  school budget determine that a support is no longer needed, then, and only then,  should a plan be developed to taper the support and transition to the new expectations.

Agree?  Don’t be silent.  

We  have to stop being bullied  or flattered into accepting less than we know our children need.