My autistic son has been very busy with scissor work lately. It’s taken him about 4 years to get the hang of using scissors, and he’s still kind of awkward in the way he holds them. But he’s really starting to do a good job of cutting around an outline. Not terribly close to the lines as yet, but still he’s preserving the general shape of a thing, which is super!

I got a simple scissor work booklet earlier this summer, which my son & his youngest sister have been enjoying these last few weeks. If you are looking for scissor work for your preschooler or special needs child, it’s still available free at CurrClick: Simple Scissor Practice by Middaysnack.com.

Today’s freebie from Homeschool Freebie Of The Day, though, was a neat surprise. It was unscheduled, as the expected download was temporarily unavailable. The replacement, When Mother Lets Us Cut Out Pictures, has lots of really cool outlines for kids to choose from. It’s an early 20th century book that’s been scanned, and all the “patterns” are negatives so kids can colour the plain white interior of their shapes, once they’ve cut off the black exterior. These are more complex than the easy scissor practice, and the book also provides written instructions on how to cut a variety of shapes and objects. This is a good book for older children. It might lead to an interest in papercutting as a craft.

If you want a free copy from the abovementioned site, you must go before the end of today. If you miss it, you can also download it free from the Internet Archive.

Do check out Homeschool Freebie Of The Day, regardless. They offer a new freebie each weekday, and usually one extra freebie per week for their subscribers. (You don’t have to subscribe, but only subscribers get the link to the extra weekly freebie.) I find that I pick up a few neat things every week or so from their site. It’s fun for the bargain hunters and lovers of freebies.

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A recent post on Angela DeRosett’s blog announces that an Ohio radio statio is dumping controversial commentator Michael Savage’s syndicated show, after he made rude comments about autism. I won’t post the entire article here, as you can read it on Angela’s blog. Here’s an excerpt, though:

The talk-show host last week described autism as a racket and said 99 percent of autistic children needed fathers to tell them to stop acting “like a moron.”

Savage, who claims more than 8 million listeners a week, later posted a message on his Web site saying greedy doctors and drug companies were overdiagnosing autism….

[WHK manager Mark] Jaycox decided to yank Savage after receiving about two dozen calls and e-mails from parents of autistic children, who said they were hurt by the remarks.

“I had one dad almost cry,” Jaycox said.

From “Radio station dropping Michael Savage after controversial remarks about autism” (Julie E. Washington, Plain Dealer)

It was also noted that “Savage blamed the prevalence of autism on ‘a racket’ to get disability payments dreamed up by ‘poorer families who have found a new way to be parasites on the government.’” (”Radio host Michael Savage incites protests with autism comments” [Edgar Sandoval and Helen Kennedy, New York Daily News])

In the same article Savage is quoted as saying that he would have been diagnosed autistic as a child because he obsessively lined things up & counted bathroom tiles. He implied that the diagnosis interferes with a person’s functioning, more than does the condition itself.

I’d just like to say kudos to Mr Jaycox for his decision. While there is undeniably a certain amount of uncertainty about whether all conditions now grouped as Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD’s) really are autism, and there may very well be an increase in diagnosis that could see some children labelled as autistic who ten years ago would not have been, the comments Mr Savage made are simply ignorant.

Take it from the mother of an autistic child:

1. The main interventions for autistic people - Applied Behaviour Analysis, sensory integration, speech and language therapy, assisted communication, an Individual Education Plan at school, etc. - are based in painstaking and repetitive adaptations that help the child learn all the things neuro-typical children learn with minimal efforts. They involve no drugs; in fact, most professionals are very cautious about prescribing medication. They also generally involve care givers other than doctors. There are no gold mines for the doctors and pharmaceutical companies in this diagnosis, and in many places there are too many kids needing diagnosis & not enough doctors to handle the case load. People are lucky to get a diagnosis: follow-up is even harder to get.
2. A diagnosis of ASD is made according to fixed guidelines laid out in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV,) the fourth edition of a handbook used in the United States and elsewhere by mental health professionals. A doctor can’t arbitrarily decide a child is autistic; usually 2-3 professionals make the diagnosis based on observed behaviour and recognized tools (such as the CARS, ADI-R and Vineland.) There are no whims involved, either on the part of parent or health professional.
3. Most of the autistic kids I’ve known do have both a  mother and a father around. And believe me, if telling our kids to smarten up did the trick, we’d have solved all our problems a long time ago. I don’t know a single parent of an autistic child who doesn’t put in hours and hours of behaviour management, therapy at home, homework help and more. There are countless interviews, meetings and trainings; adaptations to family routines and to the home itself; sleepness nights when the child himself can’t sleep and can’t be left unsupervised; sleepless and teary nights, worrying about what will become of our children; books read, web sites scoured and professionals interviewed in an attempt to find the best care for our kids; complex strategies developed over months, just to be able to do normal things like take the kids to McDonald’s or do the weekly groceries. If telling our kids to just behave themselves could save all this effort, do you not think we’d have kicked them in the proverbial butt a million times over - father or no father?
4. If anyone out there is foolish enough to believe that the meagre disability benefits given for kids with autism begin to cover the damage they do or the adaptations we have to make to our lives in order to keep them alive from one day to the next, let alone paying for the therapy and special equipment that they require - well, I have some nice waterfront property you might be interested in.

One of the things people with ASD are known for is obsessive-compulsive behaviour such as counting things repetitively. Another is a certain aloofness, and difficulty with interpersonal relationships. Autistic people can often seem rude, brusque, outspoken even to the point of disregarding another person’s feelings. Who knows, Mr Savage may well be somewhere on the spectrum after all.

Wouldn’t it be a wonderful world if he got to have the help he needed learning to live in a society that doesn’t understand him, rather than to be told he’s just poorly mannered and to be punished by losing air time and sponsors when he makes unqualified judgements on the radio? Then again, maybe he’s just getting his just desserts….

Angela DeRossett, whose blog entry alerted me to this news, will be giving a lecture on “Homeschooling with Autism” at the 2008 Heart of the Matter Homeschool Virtual Conference. At the time of writing she is scheduled for 2:15-3:15 pm EST, on July 31st. Those who aren’t able to listen live will be able to download this and other lectures. Click the graphic at right for more information on the conference.

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Further exploration of the death of an autistic boy who had been wrapped in a weighted blanket has yielded much food for thought:

1. The school staff apparently used the blanket to restrain little Gabriele Poirier as a punishment for being too loud. This was not an attempt to calm him - it appears more likely it was done out of anger or spite, or to put the fear of the staff into the child.
2. The blanket used weighed almost 40 lbs - not much less than Gabriele’s own 53 lbs. Did these people not realize he would have trouble breathing with it wrapped around his body and face at least four times?
3. The staff set a timer for 20 minutes and walked away, leaving the restrained child alone. But after his death the school lied to Gabriele’s parents and said he had hidden under the blanket himself. People in situations like this one lie because of one thing: they know they are responsible for something very bad happening, and they don’t want to get caught. If they were untrained in how to use the blanket, they sure found out fast enough that what they did was an abuse. Otherwise they’d have nothing to hide.

What has come to light with this case is that this kind of inappropriate restraint is forbidden by law in our health care facilities, but there is no law that prohibits it in Quebec schools.

Poirier said his lawyer has contacted Minister of Education Michelle Courchesne to request a law be put in place restricting the use of restraints in schools. He said he would also like to see better teacher training. (”Autistic child suffocated in therapeutic blanket: Quebec coroner” (CBC)

(Education Minister Michelle Courchesne can be contacted at ministre@mels.gouv.qc.ca or consult this page for other modes of contact.)

The parents of Gabriele Poirier are filing a claim for compensation from the school board, after the coroner ruled that their son’s death was a violent one which could have been avoided.

Let’s hope we also see disciplinary action taken against any staff who took part in the “punishment” and the later attempts to cover up the truth of what happened. There have been a whole pack of excuses given for these people - they were ignorant, untrained, etc. - but it seems pretty clear to me that no primary aged student should be left in a school unsupervised for a period of 20 minutes, much less a special needs child.

It also doesn’t take much imagination to figure out that when you wrap a child from the tips of his ears to his ankles in a blanket that weighs almost as much as he does, then place him on his belly and walk away from him, he’s going to have trouble breathing. Isn’t that just common sense? Didn’t these folks sit up and pay any attention when kids in Ontario group homes started dying due to improper use of restraint several years back? It’s not as though this is a new issue.

My son is home safe from yet another year in public school, and I am breathing one huge sigh of relief. Even though I know the staff at his school are considerably better trained and supervised than the buffoons at the so-called specialized school that killed little Gabriele, many days I still hold my breath and worry until he gets home. All it takes is a power tripping adult with a little bit of privacy, and all sorts of things can happen to our babies…

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From the CTV evening news:

Report into child’s death

A coroner has ruled that a school south of Montreal acted improperly when it wrapped an autistic boy in a heavy blanket, leading to the child’s death.

Gabriel Poirier, 9, suffocated at a school for handicapped children in April.

Teachers had wrapped him inside a blanket sometimes used to calm autistic children.

In the dark

For a long time, his parents thought their son died accidentally at Ecole Marie Riviere in St. Jean-sur-richelieu after he had become agitated.

But a coroner’s report revealed the boy was wrapped inside the 39-pound blanket four times with his head inside and his arms pinned to his side. He was also left unsupervised.
When his teachers went to remove him from the blanket 20 minutes later, his face was swollen and blue. He died the next day in hospital.

Fallout

So far there have been no criminal charges but the family plans to launch a civil suit against the school. The Commission Scolaire des Hautes Rivieres, which oversees the school, has ordered all its facilities to stop using the blanket until it gets clear directives from the government.

For those readers not familiar with the concept of a weighted blanket, it helps some people with sensory integration disorder (common in autistic kids) to settle down. These kids often have trouble to feel where their bodies are in space, and some crave weight or pressure. They will bump or crash into things (or people) throw themselves to the floor, hit themselves, etc. Sitting under a weighted lap pad or blanket, wearing ankle weights or a weighted backpack, moving around heavy objects, etc. are often therapeutic.

That being said, these are measures usually prescribed by an occupational therapist and people using them should be trained by the OT in their safe and appropriate use. Wrapping anyone up with both arms restrained and face covered falls far short of anything even vaguely therapeutic. Leaving a restrained person alone unsupervised is just plain negligence.

Yes, autistic kids do like to get rolled up in the “kid burrito.” Maybe even a couple turns of the blanket or rug. But one would never wrap a child four times in a 39 lb blanket and then walk away from him. He needs to be able to get free if he becomes uncomfortable.

Fortunately, my son’s OT is the salt of the earth. We’re finishing up our school year, and she’s already planning for his activities & therapies for next fall. The Bug gets great OT care at his school, and we know that nobody lays so much as a finger on him without being properly trained by the therapist. She is ultra-careful, and sets an example the folks at this St-Jean school would do well to follow.

If your introduction to autism came from Dustin Hoffman’s groundbreaking performance in the 1988 film Rainman, you’ll catch the play on words. This young man has autism, and he runs to raise money to help raise awareness and make the world a better for autistics.

I first came into contact with Alex’ Mom, Janet (jypsy) when our Bug was waiting for his diagnosis. She and I corresponded only a couple of times, but she left a lasting impression on me. Seeing how Alex had been much like my son when he was younger, and seeing how far he had come over the years, gave me hope at a time when daily life was truly a struggle.

My Bug has gone from a non-verbal whirling dervish who ripped every book and paper he could get his hands on, to a thoughtful and expressive child who at age 8 is learning to read. I have every hope that he will continue to blossom, much as Alex did. In the years to come I can see him taking class trips, getting his high school diploma, and discovering his purpose in life.

Thanks so much to jypsy and the Run Man for their inspiration!

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