Celdas bidimensionales

young boy with a “zest for life” who skipped the school hallways and greeted everyone “with all of his exuberance.” He was placed in a classroom with a new teacher, who Andromeda described as young, but experienced in working with children with special needs and managed her classroom with structure and a somewhat rigid demeanor. She recalled an encounter when dropping Jack off at his classroom one morning. Jack had gone ahead of her and ran excitedly down the hallway to great his new teacher.

She was visiting with another parent and she strictly said, “I’m talking to a parent and you must not run. Now go back to the end of the hall and walk down again.’” She and I butted heads many times. I ended up saying to her, “I understand that Jack needs structure and he needs things to be orderly, but you can’t take his spirit away. I believe that it is because of his spirit that he is alive today and I don’t know if he might need it again. I can’t let you rob it from his life. I would think that you would be excited that you have this student who is happy to be here and happy to see you. For any parent that you may be talking with, it would give them a good feeling to know that you have a child in this classroom who is so happy to be here, especially when some are coming in kicking and screaming and their parents are basically dragging them down the hallway. So don’t you turn my child into one of those children.”

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the teacher began to develop a mutual respect for one another and a strong partnership in support of Jack.

Through the school system, Jack and Andromeda also began receiving in-home support for two hours every other week and first became familiar with the use of schedules as a behavior management tool.25 She recalled, “It started out very basic, he was five. He wasn’t reading, so she (support provider) used picture schedules.” By the time Jack was eight, Andromeda had customized a personalized behavior management system for Jack through the use of schedules, clear rules and expectations, and incentives for positive behaviors. She commented,

He was thriving and life was good. I mean…it was different than the average eight year old life, but when you go from a kid who you are constantly chasing after, who can’t sit more than five minutes and who you can’t get to engage… you think you are never going to have any normalcy. For a while, I felt like a prisoner in my own home. It was scary to go out with him. You just never knew what he was going to do and so you were anxious and your anxiety would raise his anxiety and therefore the behaviors got worse…Now we could take him to see a play. He could read and he had a list of rule cards. You know…now we just had to point. He would read them, sit back down and smile. I would smile at him and we would just go on. We took him to Disney World, Washington D.C. Yeah we modified – we did

everything outdoors. We took him to Mount Vernon, the Smithsonian - inside a little, but not too much. You begin to create your vacations around what he can do.

25 _{Schedules - pictorial and text – have been found to be highly effective tools in providing support for} persons with autism, who commonly struggle in situations presenting multiple and concurrent stimuli and when transitioning from task-to-task and environment-to-environment. Through visual cues, individuals are able to anticipate change through structure, predictable patterns, and clear expectations. Benefits include a reduction in stress and anxiety and increased independence.

He rode the metro, he stayed in hotels. You know, he did ok! So you feel lucky. With this system in place, Jack experienced much success in his early years of schooling. By third grade he was learning to read and doing math. Although primarily taught in a self-contained special education classroom, Jack began participating in a general education classroom for a few hours every day. Andromeda commented on the

significance of this experience.

It didn’t dawn on me for all of the years. You don’t really think about it. You are walking down the hallway and there are all these kids on either side of you and no one ever said anything to you. But now, when we walk down the hallway and he’s been spending time in the classroom next door…and they all [the other students] start saying “Hi Jack! How are you today?” You start realizing what he has missed and what he is now getting.

The following year, Andromeda received notice that Jack’s special education program was being relocated to a new school and that he would be assigned a new teacher. Andromeda recalled,

We were given a teacher who had never taught kids with autism before and seemed to know nothing about it. She didn’t want to hear anything about schedules and rewards. In six months, I watched five years of growth go right down the tube. Aggressive behaviors were mounting at school and at home. Things were just spinning out of control. I started driving the school district crazy, because our lives were disintegrating before my eyes and I now knew what I could have and what I was losing. There was nothing worse than that.

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might better accommodate Jack’s needs.

What I found was that the ones who could handle his behaviors were not

appropriate academically. Those programs who had strong academics didn’t have the behavior things in place that Jack needed. And the ones that could do both were full. Well….I couldn’t lose him and that’s what brought us here.

The transition to a new city was challenging and finding the most appropriate placement for Jack took time. Once again, Jack was placed with a teacher who had little experience in working with children with autism. Jack’s aggressive behaviors continued and Jack’s school day was shortened to half-days. After consulting with a lawyer and weekly school meetings, Jack was allowed to return to school for full days. Although his new teacher received specific training on strategies for working with children with autism, challenges continued. Andromeda recounted

There wasn’t a mistake this teacher didn’t make. We were trying to teach Jack to go to a quiet spot when he became angry or frustrated. “Jack, this is your quiet spot.” The closest place for Jack to go was down the hall. They had one of those rubber bats and pillows that he could take out his aggression without hurting

anyone. One morning after months of going through “if you get angry or frustrated, don’t hit – go to your quiet place,” Jack was sitting at a table doing puzzles. The teacher was talking to someone else and Jack went up to say something to her. She said “Not right now Jack.” He went back to what he was doing. We still don’t know exactly what happened, but he got up to walk past her and she said, “Where are you going?” He said, “I’m going to my quiet space.” She said “No you are not. You are not angry.” Well…he hit her. Then he got to go. When she told me what

had happened, I just looked at her and she said, “I blew it.”

Jack was soon moved to a new school and placed in a self-contained classroom for students with severe and profound autism. Andromeda shared,

I had a lot of concerns when I first saw his classroom. He (the teacher) only had two students and one was going to high school the next year. The other student was severely autistic and non-verbal. The big goal on his IEP was to keep his shoes on for the whole day. You know, I had Jack. Jack reads, does math. I said to the teacher, “I’ve heard that you are a great guy and that you do great work, but I don’t think you’ve really worked with anyone like Jack. Jack has academic goals and I know that you know a lot about autism and behavior problems, but do you really know about teaching math, reading comprehension, social science, science or any of that?” He said, “No, not really.” “That’s my concern and then it becomes

warehousing Jack. I don’t want Jack to become warehoused. I want him to learn. I don’t want babysitting. I want an education. This is free and appropriate public education. This is not warehousing him and let him stim for seven hours. It’s not ok.” I continued saying to his teachers, “Jack needs to be academically challenged” and I kept being told that we can’t bring him into those classrooms until his

behaviors get better. “He could hit and hurt someone and we are going to be liable, because we know about his behaviors.” I said, “His behaviors are not going to get any better as long as he stays in this classroom. The lesson of the day is how to dress Mr. Bear. He had that when he was three! He’s 10! Do something.” Although Jack’s placement remained, he was allowed to participate with one-on- one supervision in a program at the same school for students with milder forms of learning

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challenges. With increased opportunities to be intellectually challenged and behavioral supports in place, Jack’s behavior significantly improved. The following year, district administrators transferred Jack from the self-contained program to his home middle school, which offered a similar advanced program for students with learning challenges. Although there were occasional setbacks, overall, Jack did well and continued in the program

throughout the remainder of his middle school years.

7.1.3 Jack as a young adult. Now a senior in high school, Jack, in many ways, lives the