Educational and recreational segregation used to be the model for children with special needs. Then, integration came into vogue. Now we’re got segregationists debating integrationists, and truly, we’re all missing the point.
Recently I heard an interview given by a blogger, Harold Dougherty who describes his child being forced into an integrated setting that was a disaster for his son. He describes the new bureaucrat in charge as being an integration extremist, with very bad consequences for the child. This situation is outrageous! The issue is not segregation versus integration, but rather that children should never be
forced, to be either integrated or segregated. Instead of being placed in a setting that works best for the child in consultation with the child’s treatment team, some children are apparently placed based on: A) the philosophy of the reigning bureaucrat or “educrat” of the day and/or B) the cheapest placement for the school district.
Every child should have the right to be integrated when the integration works
for that child. When an integrated setting is inappropriate and does not work, the answer is not a segregated setting with a group of children who are being ghettoized.But rather, one-on-one treatment that is
customized for the specific child with autism. Then, the treatment professional can grab every possible integration opportunity available for that child when it works, and can work toward integration opportunities when the child needs to learn pro-social behaviors and routines prior to the effort at integration.
To illustrate, it may be counterproductive for an untreated child suffering from severe autism to be placed in a calculus class. Prior to placing the child in the integrated setting, he or she needs to learn the skills and routines to be successful in that setting. This goes for educational settings as well.
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Comments (3)
We really need to do more. Not only to educate ourselves and the rest of the world, but we also need to be able to point to who's who in the community. Which doctors can help, which makes things worse, speak at schools, teach out children to be compassionate, get involved with legislation, we need to not just advocate for our children, but for all the children who have ASD.
If it's a choice between staying home and going to a special ed class, you may as well stay home. They literally don't do anything in those classes. That is the entire reason behind the push for integration, or "mainstreaming." The problem with putting a disabled person in a mainstream classroom is the attitudes that come from the teacher, teacher's aide, and the bureaucrats who assign them. A quiet student with a disability may be totally ignored, especially if it is an intellectual disability or another DD. I'm sure people have as many reasons that their kid with a DD doesn't need to be in a mainstream class as there are those who have reasons why their kid without a DD doesn't need to be around kids who do. But of all the people I and my family interacted with, trying to get the education system to mainstream us, there was not a single one of them whose essential problem was one of fanaticism. More than anything else, the problem was that these people were dead lazy. They just plain did not want to go to the effort of mainstreaming anyone, no matter how well that student could succeed in a mainstream setting.
Before we sound the trumpets on the people who wrongly think mainstreaming is for everyone, let's get a decent proof of concept first. Let's have a school system that will actually go to the trouble of following an IEP before we pronounce the old ways proven correct. Let's actually try the newways before pronouncing them failures.