One Year Later: Alex Barton
Published May 21, 2009 @ 02:22PM PT
It was a year ago that then 5-year-old Alex Barton was voted out of his Florida kindergarten class by his classmates, as directed to by their teacher, Wendy Portillo. Portillo first had the students say what they did not like about Alex after which they voted "Survivor-style" about whether he could stay in the classroom. Alex was "voted out": The incident sparked national, and international, attention and Portillo was suspended for a year without pay and lost her tenure. Earlier this year, Portillo appealed the ruling, which was upheld.
Portillo's having her students "vote out" Alex has continued to haunt Morningside Elementary School. Yesterday's Palm Beach Post notes that "Morningside faculty and administrators still aren't allowed to talk about the Alex Barton vote because of pending legal action"; some parents feel that "their school has been unfairly and unjustly tarnished over the past year." Certainly there was a great deal of media attention focused on the school in the wake of the May 2008 incident. But has anything been done at the school and in the school district to prevent something like what happened to Alex from happening again to another child on the spectrum; from any child, period?
Another article in the Palm Beach Post considers whether, one year later, things are better for students with autism. One parent, Phyllis Musumeci----who "became a national autism advocate after her autistic son was physically restrained 89 times while attending a Palm Beach County school"---has tried to change laws about seclusion and restraints, without results, and even suggests that things have gotten worse, not better. According to Jack Scott, director of the Center for Autism and Related Disorders at Florida Atlantic University, the incident created "some awareness," but---from reviewing responses to online coverage of what happened at Morningside Elementary school as year ago---"there are still many people who mistakenly believe autism is a behavioral issue that can be corrected with disciplinary methods."
And that is a huge misunderstanding about autism and about how to teach children who are on the autism spectrum. One hopes that, at the very least, the teachers in the school that Alex used to attend have learned something about teaching students on the spectrum---and it's not clear that anyone has.
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Comments (1)
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Author
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Kristina is a Classics professor in Jersey City, New Jersey, a blogger (formerly at AutismVox), a translator (of Virgil), and an advocate every day for her son, Charlie.
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End the Perpetuation of Pity
221 People
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End the Perpetuation of Pity
I may be an adult now, but was a child myself once and can totally understand the bullying and how our misinterpreted difference often. But at times its beyond me how bad it continues to be in this day and age, beyond belief:
"mistakenly believe autism is a behavioral issue that can be corrected with disciplinary methods."
To me its simply unfortunately many in the none autistic community create our problems and then blame us.
just one of many examples I could give:
i.e. child starts school, is overwhelmed, sensory overloads and instead of being taken to a quite area to help calm child, the child so often gets told off and of course then out of usually a misunderstood difference, frustration, anger sets in leading to shutdown, meltdown or simply withdrawal, that's what I use to do... and then the child gets labelled a difficult child with behaviour problems!
As for myself as a child
"I was born different, as a child it was hard everyone telling me no, no, no without understanding me.. as a child I got bored so easily, i didn't play up for attention, I just needed things to do, others to understand and allow. Still as an adult now I am like an over active computer at times and do not switch off easily, so before you judge or tell me off - PLEASE try and understand my differences, as any misunderstood difference is damaging and will only caused me more frustration and you more pain...!"
Sadly because others can not cope with my extremely fast processing skills and the way I do things, they hold me at arms length, maybe its them that can not understand or cope with me, but they should at least try and understand , allow and accept... Aspergers Parallel Planet - www.asplanet.info
Please none autistic individuals you really need to listen to those of us on the autism spectrum if not for our sake, but the sake of every individual autistic child...
Posted by Alyson Bradley on 05/21/2009 @ 05:44PM PT
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