Special Needs Advocate?

Watching the Democratic and Republican Conventions had me on the edge of my seat...well, some of it at least.  As an aunt of a special needs child, I relate to Palin on some level.  I have witnessed my sister raise her 9 year old daughter with autism.  Things have not been easy for her, yet she is blessed with her amazing child nonetheless.  Everyday presents challenges, some knows and others completely unpredictable.  Sarah Palin promises to be an advocate if she and McCain are elected President and Vice President.  I have heard various things from special needs parents and their opinion on her stance.  While some parents aren't convinced because no specifics were laid out, others were quite pleased knowing that not only a mother, but a mother of special needs, knows what works and what doesn't.  She will do her best to help these children and their families. 

    

Of course, other critics are concerned with her stance on school choice and whether choice would only drain money from public education and special public education.  Well, here is where I am baffled by those critics of not only Palin but choice itself.  My sister has struggled all these years to get good education for her daughter.  If she were allowed choice, she could have chosen to send her child to a neighboring public school with an amazing special education program or to the private school just two blocks away that has better services for special needs children.  Educational choices are incredibly important to all parents, but especially those with special needs children. 

    

I hope and pray for all families like my sister's that Palin not only advocates for special needs children in other areas, but for educational choices.  With her intentions to help special needs families and her support of school choice, I think we could have a great combination on our hands. 

    

Many other states have created programs that allow children with special needs to receive scholarships that can be used at any public or private school, and the results have been astounding.  Not only has the parental satisfaction level skyrocketed, but the children's success is through the roof. 

    

This past year, Missouri legislators were not up to the task to allow for such a program, but hopefully they will soon realize it needs to be done. 

 

This is from a blog: "Blessed with Autism":

The central concern of many parents with children who have special needs is the financing to fulfill the decades-old federal mandate requiring public schools to offer educational services to their children — or pay for them in nonpublic school settings.

Exactly my point...give them the choice to go to nonpublic settings.  What have we got to lose?

Empowerment

Any parent of a child on the Autism Spectrum will tell you life is not easy and definitely not something fabricated. Life with a child with autism is a challenging life, one with obstacle after obstacle. Families need to be empowered to stay strong and fight for their child's rights. Unfortunately, some people are naive about the truths about life with autism. The reality is that 1 in 150 children are diagnosed with autism. While Missouri has improved in many ways, such as increasing funding for diagnosis and treatment, there are still ways to improve.

The Blue Ribbon Panel on Autism was created by Michael Gibbons to figure out the best ways to help families affected by autism. The panel consisted of 16 people, including lawmakers, educators, parents, doctors, and health officials. From the discussions in the panel, the recommendations were brought to light. It created the Commission on Autism Spectrum Disorders, which helps advise the government how to implement the best models brought about during panel discussions. Also created was the Office of Autism Services, which serves as a medium to help families navigate through the various services, resources, and care services available.

Missouri has made these advancements in Autism early diagnosis and treatment, but there are still many more things to do to help. Not only do people need to be aware of the condition and make treatments available, they also need to make sure children are receiving the education they need. Early detection helps children enroll in special needs preschools, but unfortunately, after that, many children are without access to those schools. Many public schools are simply not equipped to properly educate and treat children on the spectrum. Those children should be granted access to the schools that are capable of properly educating. Autism awareness is a stepping stone to this problem, an important one, but it is time we look beyond what we now know and look to changing how special needs education is delivered.

Key Elements

Teaching children with special needs takes an extra talented teacher to know what the child needs. There are special steps in order to make sure the child is getting the education he/she needs, which can be hard to perfect in some situations. Unfortunately, not every public school can provide the child with that type of teacher. This is not to say that private schools can always provide that either. While it may be easy to know what needs to be done, it is harder to actually implement those plans.

According to Education.com, there are several key elements to effectively teaching special needs children:

• A teacher who sets high expectations for the child and who encourages peer interaction and mentoringas appropriate.
  
• Special and regular educators who collaborate in instruction and who have a sense of ownership in the process.
  
• Individualized instruction with decisions based on careful collection and analysis of data focused on measurablegoals and behaviors
  
• Special services are brought into the classroom to facilitate generalization and to prevent stigmatization
  
• A collaborative team approach -including regular and special educators, school administrators, supplemental school personnel, and parents or guardians -is employed to set goals and to evaluate progress of the IEP
  
• An assumption that all children can acquire skills if instruction is modified to help the child succeed
  
• Adapting the school environment by extending school hours or the school year and coordinating with home caregivers.
  
  When children are forced to attend schools (by geographical location or lack of funds to attend others) and not receiving the education they require, they are missing out on windows to their future. Education is the first step in life....from the day you are born, you are learning new things. If a child's brain is not encouraged to grow and grow correctly, it will stagnate and the child's life will forever suffer. Here the scenario changes...there is a private school down the road that has excellent special needs teachers...but the parents cannot afford it. Or the neighboring school district has the best special needs teachers around, but the family lives just outside the borders. Guess who is ultimately negatively impacted by this? The child! Now, imagine if the parents and the child had the choice...wouldn't that be nice?

Funding solutions for children with autism

Gov. Matt Blunt signed legislation providing $5 million for the Thompson Center for Autism in Columbia on June 30. The significant investment will help those with Autism throughout the state and further demonstrates his commitment to these families.

His goals are to raise awareness and increase treatment options for Missouri children. For this to be possible, Blunt realizes the importance of adequate funding for places like the Thompson Center. The center was created in April 2005 to promote research, treatment and education to improve the lives of children with neurological conditions.

Autism cases are becoming significantly more common. One in 150 kids—and even more shockingly—one in 94 boys will be diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder—which totals more then 4,200 people in Missouri.

Blunt has passionately fought for these individuals, obtaining $3.9 million in state funding last year for a day treatment program in Joplin (the first in Missouri), to expand staff and training therefore reduce waitlist for Autism diagnosis and treatments and $1 million for other Autism projects. Overall, Blunt has secured $17.6 million for the cause.

http://governor.mo.gov/cgi-bin/coranto/viewnews.cgi?id=EkEuluAFylniSUVCVP&style=Default+News+Style&tmpl=newsitem

A virtual school year wrapping up

By Bob Priddy
The state's first virtual school year is virtually over. The program has had its successes and its failures.
The virtual school program lets students study from home, working through the computer with distant teachers. Program Coordinator Curt Fuchs says 32-hundred students enrolled, but forty percent dropped out--perhaps because the courses proved to be tougher than they thought they would be. Some just flunked out, many of them doing so for the reasons students flunk regular classes.
But Fuchs says there were a lot of successes, such as the child of some missionaries in New Guinea who took four advance placement courses and a fifth course as a high school junior and passed them all. He will enter his senior year in high school with four college courses already to his credit, thanks to the Virtual School Program.
Fuchs says Missouri started with a much larger number of students than most other states have started with. Fuchs says the education department also learned it needs more policies to deal with the program.
Because students enrolled at various times, they will finish their work at various times. Fuchs says the last of this school years' students should finish next month. Enrollment already has begun for the next virtual school year.

Missouri Trying Alternate Schooling Methods...

Slowly, but surely, I am seeing innovative efforts in the great state of Missouri to branch away from the traditional and sometimes failing education program. The state implemented, for the first time, a virtual school year. This allows children to work from home or the neighborhood library...anywhere that has Internet. Courses are available 24 hours a day and seven days a week. This program allows all schools throughout Missouri to offer students equal access to a broader array of coursework, let alone allowing more flexibility and a potentially easier learning environment. The fact remains, not every child in the public education program in Missouri has access to a great education and this can be seen as one step closer to that...granting something to everyone, independent of where they live. Additionally, this program could help children with disabilities who may have problems physically getting to schools, or for those students who need to take classes in which their teachers are not able to teach well. The possibilities are endless. Of course, being the first year, there are always hurdles to jump through and lessons to learn. Either way...it is some sort of change!

Parents of Autistic Children Still Searching for Help

Having a child with autism is not only trying on parents emotionally, but financially as well. This past legislative session I watched as a bill went around and around...a bill that could have helped thousands of children with autism or other special needs. Unfortunately, the bill did not pass. Instead of looking out for those children, certain legislators seemed more concerned with how their vote would look to certain groups, such as the teacher unions. Below is an article taken from The Joplin Globe. Parents demonstrate how incredibly expensive it is to take care of and educate a child with autism. Hopefully this state autism commission will help combat some of those issues, however, I hope next session, a similar special needs bill will come about. Perhaps not being an election year will force those legislators to think about the issue...not how their vote looks to a small number of groups.
Lieutenant governor signs bill creating state autism commission
By Joe Hadsall
jhadsall@joplinglobe.com
A statewide commission on autism spectrum disorders will be assembled and, by July 1 of next year, will produce a plan for Missouri to offer treatment, training and other services.
Trisha Buerge, of Joplin, said she appreciated hearing the news. She is the mother of Jaxon, a 5-year-old autistic child who receives treatment from the Ozark Center for Autism.
“I think it’s important for the commission to provide information to the Legislature,” Buerge said. “They should know what autistic kids need to grow into successful adults.”
Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder visited the Ozark Center for Autism in Joplin on Monday and signed Senate Bill 768, which calls for the commission’s creation. The commission will be made up of representatives from the General Assembly, health-related state agencies and autism-related organizations, and parents. Kinder was filling in for Gov. Matt Blunt, who is out of state.
The bill also creates the Office of Autism Services within the Department of Mental Health.
Paula Baker, chief executive of the Ozark Center, said one of every 150 children today is diagnosed with some form of autism.
The state has spent more than $15.3 million in new money on autism over the past two years. The Ozark Center on Autism was created as a result of that funding.
Tysha Van Becelaere, of Pittsburg, Kan., said her son, Xander, has benefited from the center.
“The school district wasn’t able to provide enough of the speech therapy that he needed,” Van Becelaere said. “We tried to supplement that cost with insurance, but we were denied.”
Children at the center receive applied behavioral analysis, an intensive form of one-on-one training. But the treatment is expensive: A year of treatment at the center costs about $72,000.
Baker said the center offers a sliding scale to parents based on their income. Other costs are paid for by state allocations and private gifts. But it is enough for only 13 children to be admitted into the program this year, she said.
Kinder spokesman Gary McElyea said members of the state commission should be chosen fairly quickly.
Buerge said the commission’s top priority should be to address the cost of applied behavioral analysis, and that health companies should help cover it.
“Insurance coverage should be mandated,” Buerge said. “We’ve paid about $70,000 a year over the last four years.”
But Sen. Gary Nodler, R-Joplin, said he wasn’t sure whether that extra money should come from the state’s general revenue or from insurance-premium payers.
“It won’t come from the insurance companies, that’s for sure,” Nodler said. “It will come from premium payers. But as the state gets a grasp on the issue of uninsured citizens, a system that relies on forcing insurance to cover costs will likely exacerbate that problem.”
Missouri currently is focused on using money for treatment of autism, Nodler said. But as the commission develops a plan, the state should focus more on researching the causes of autism, he said.


Financial impact

Senate Bill 768, which was signed Monday by Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, will cost an estimated $630,504 over the next three fiscal years.