High school for Autistic/Aspergers kids to open.
 

This was in the local news today. There wll be a new private high school opening here with the aim of specializing in the education of high functioning Aspergers and Autism sufferers. It will be inclusive in that you don't have to have those problems to attend. But it will be a "non-denominational faith-based school" with the name Veritas Christi. ...Which doesn't sound terribly non-deniminational to me.... And I also can't see why it needs to be faith-based at all..... Of course it's a private school which can be whatever it wants to be, but if you truly believe this as an educational necessity, why introduce this faith thing? I know some people have a belief that their god is and must be with them in everything they do, and that's fine, but why impose that on others -especially those who have a hard time picking up social cues from real people never mind omnipresent invisible faith-based entities? Probably a knee-jerk atheist reaction, but this seems like such a good idea and yet such a mixed-up way of implementing it. I wonder if financial backing has anything to do with it?



http://www.annarbor.com/business-rev...ism-aspergers/

Don't blame the religious schools for focusing on Autism and Aspergers. Blame the non-religious schools for ignoring them.

Nondenominational in this context means not following just one brand of Christianity ... it's not a Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, or Presbyterian school. It's a private school ... what does it matter if they're Christians, Jews, Atheists, or Satanists?

Any school that specifically address issues of Asperger's/Autism Spectrum is a good thing. We have a private residential school in the area. For the most part they do a great job with their students, I only hear from them a couple of times a year.

I hope he didn't really say that.:rolleyes:

You'd think, but I've actually found in my personal experience that faith is more common in autistic adults than in the general population. Maybe it goes along the same lines of why many autistic individuals prefer the company of animals and feel that they can communicate with them better than neurotypical people: God's pretty nonverbal too. :)

Either way though, I'd say it's a safe bet that if the parents are sending their kids to this school, they are probably already exposing them to a certain amount of religious experiences in the home to begin with. None of these kids are going to be blindsided by anything the school might have to offer.

I didn't see any reference to what they would offer, I think Monster is making an assumption on curriculum, based on the name and the backers.

Oh I just meant the cultural environment they'd offer; even the deeply fundamental schools only do maybe one or two religious studies classes each semester, the curriculum is still standard high school stuff. Like any private school, it's less about the education and more about the social/cultural facets.

I agree, but I didn't see anything stated about having any religious teaching at all. I think that's an assumption.

This.

A friend of mine in CT sends her autistic daughter to a special school for them, too. I forget what it's called, but she loves it.

Right, it was a gut-reaction based on assumptions and lack of direct experience, that's why I wanted to open a discusion on it. It seems odd to me, but as I can't say why I thought I'd rely on you lot to tell me about it ;).

Right, that's sort of where I was going with the funding question -is it because there is more funding available to/from religious organizations?

If I had an Autistic/Aspergers kid, i certainly wouldn't let that in itself put me off sending my kid there but I guess I find it odd how that the A/A speciality is what they're pushing in the press, but there's very little mention of it on the website.

All in all, my first reaction was "fantastic", but then as I read on it just seemed a little disassembled, but I couldn't put my finger on what felt wrong.

Absolutely. Not to mention that this private school is collecting tuition from the parents. Any school that tailors to kids on the spectrum is going to require smaller class sizes, teachers with some minimum of extra training if not outright certification, and additional curriculum items focusing on social skills, among other things. There's actually a similar program in the school district around here for kids on the spectrum, called SCORES. Some kids spend all day in the SCORES classroom, while others go to mainstream classes half the day and then get extra help with the classwork in the SCORES classroom, while others go to all mainstream classes, but then spend a few hours in the SCORES classroom after school for extra social skills work. Overall, it's cheaper than sending an aide to shadow every kid that needs one, but a lot of school districts still opt for the even cheaper 'head in the sand' approach of insisting these kids don't need an aide or any extra help, that if the academics are up to par then the kid is ready to be tossed into the fray. Which of course is ridiculous.

Becuse you know if you're wrong, we can't wait to tell you. :lol2:

I got the impression they are trying to play down that aspect. Even adding High School as part of the name is geared toward giving the kids the "High School", not "special school" feeling.

yeah, I read that bit about why it's called "high school".

You know what it is, it's that the press and the website read like a kid's exam essay. Making sure they mention all the buzzwords, but not really bringing it together coherently enough to make me believe it's going to work. Yes, we'll specialize in A&A. Yes, we'll cater to regular kids. Yes, we'll have small classes. Yes, We'll cover the full curriculum. Yes, we'll provide a good faith-based moral background to the education. Yes, we'll do that without excluding anybody. Yes, we'll turn water into wine and lead into gold.

Nice thought about opening a high school for aspergers or autistic kids. If the school started teaching them about the behavioral activities and communication skills which they are struggling will help them to better understand the things and they can lead their life happily.

Do you have them in India, Skyler? The schools, not the aspergers/autistic kids, I assume they're everywhere.

But come to think of it, that may not be a correct assumption. I wonder if the prevalence is higher in some countries?

It is. What's more, dark-skinned ethnicities are disproportionately more likely to be on the spectrum, and those living in Western countries are even more likely than those same ethnic groups living in their home countries.

Hmmm... western lifestyle plus ethnic susceptibility?

They think the ethnic susceptibility is about Vitamin D levels: darker skin means less absorption from the sun, thus less Vitamin D production in the body. Autism rates are also higher in colder/rainer climates as well. Vitamin D is critical to a functioning immune system.

I should think a western lifestyle would provide more opportunity to get all the nutritional needs. Oh wait, maybe not at McD's and Dunkin's. ;)

Vitamin D would be an interesting angle. We have laws putting D in milk but if you can't drink milk...

Well, according to the D gospel, the recommended daily amount (400 IU) is nowhere near what the average person really needs to maintain appropriate blood levels anyway. Up until 1990, all infants in East Germany routinely received 600,000 IU every three months at their pediatric checkups until they were 18 months old, after studies done within the country in the early 50s showed that nearly all infants were severely deficient in their blood levels. But when the wall came down, that practice and the research behind it got lost in the unification of the two medical systems.

Nowadays you can order a home blood test. Both kids had already been done as part of their medical workups (and were far below healthy levels, so now we supplement,) but my mother and I did ours out of curiosity. Both severely deficient, despite the fact that my mother had already been supplementing with twice the recommended allowance. I'm convinced it's one of a number of contributing factors for autism, anyway.

That is exactly opposite of my experience. I see a lot of autistism spectrum/Asperger's kids and adults, and they have all been Caucasian. And by "all," I mean every single one of them. Can't remember ever dealing with any Blacks, Asians, or Hispanics.

Well, you're talking about minority populations, so the overall numbers are still going to be lower. There are a total of 8 cites here. But where you really see the disparity in my experience is in Indian and Middle Eastern Americans. Of the 10 autistic children in my son's class, 4 are Indian/Pakistani/MiddleEastern, and we live in a very white community.

Me too. * I'm thinking*


Maybe one African American and American Indian but that is out of dozens of special ed classes, one residential training center and a state school.

When you see so many kids and adults with disabilities it's hard to pull the needle out of my haystack of memory.

Ugh... And on this note, just this evening Mr. Clod came home from work to tell me that a coworker had awkwardly approached him about what to do now that her 2-year-old daughter has been diagnosed with autism. She and her husband are Indian.

GFCF Lady to the rescue.

Yeah, but not until she's ready. We've both agreed I can't talk to her yet, because I'm bitter and jaded--time to take this bull and grab it by the horns!--and she's still in "she just needs a little speech therapy and everything will be fine" land. Everyone at his office actually already knows about our kids and the site, so the fact that she chose to approach him means she'll be on track in another couple of months.

We actually figured out last night that she lives pretty close to us--her daughter and Minifobette will be classmates in PPCD.

The amount of Vitamin D put in milk is literally just enough to prevent you from getting Rickets.

They squeeze D out of pig and cow skin to put in milk. Lacto-vegetarians crack me up...

It just occurred to me last night, one major reason why I see so many more Indian familes than wolf and sky might have: while I have met many families pursuing only traditional behavioral therapies (the kind who tell me, "we don't believe in that stuff" or "that's just too hard, I could never do it,") I cannot recall meeting a single Indian family on that side of things, one who wasn't pursuing biomedical treatments.

I would imagine this is because 1.) they are already predisposed to a certain number of non-Western medical treatments, and 2.) it is relatively easy for them to switch to a fully GFCF diet, because traditional Indian cuisine is already made with bean flours and no dairy. So while the studies may show a certain statistical increase in darker-skinned families affected overall, they're far more over-represented in my community.

Another interesting thing: by a very large majority, the mothers who tell me they aren't interested in biomedical treatments are significantly overweight. In my local biomedical group of about 30 moms, there is only one woman who is at all overweight. I'm sure some of it's from being on the diet themselves, but many of them also eat their own non-GFCF foods after the kids go to bed (I, for one, am busting out the ice cream container every single night.) Now that I think about it, I participated in a study awhile back about both the demographic and personality traits of biomedical versus traditional-therapy parents. It would be fascinating to track that one down after it's published...

I've been racking my brain over this ... I also recall a higher proportion of Ashkenazi Jews.

I forgot to mention that they may or may not have been on the autism spectrum.

I actually only remember them because I was punched in the eye by the first guy. ( accidentally) He was also mentally ill.

The second guy had OCD and I only remember him because he was an energizer bunny.

I have good luck with people and kids with disabilities. I am very non threatening and have genuine compassion for them so out of 20 years only the very extreme stand out and not because of any ethnicity. They just happened to be in an ethnic group.

I think all of us are in an ethnic group, aren't we?