You hit on a great point. Even though as a society we’re way beyond our past treatment of disabilities, we still have a long way to go. (The closet thing seems to me to border on criminal) To me it is a great frustration that we waste so much of our tax money on “overhead” which includes waste, fraud, and misspending that we don’t have any left to help where we really should. Ideally, you would be able to choose if an in-home program or away from home program would be best for your child and family situation. Like you said – there is a big difference between can’t and won’t. I just don’t think the politics involved with government (both sides of the aisle) is the best way to get help where help is needed. In certain situations, it is better than nothing, but I see communities come together in ways that embarrass local and federal governments (I could tell some stories about Katrina that never made the news).

In the end, there is no easy or simple answer. The best solution probably involves a hybrid world where a combination of situations co-exist. I will say that your children are fortunate to have you.

It is very nice to meet you and I wish you all the best!

Though it’s all theoretical at this point anyway. We have nowhere near enough people on “our side” to make something like this a reality right now.

I do have a non-verbal autistic child in the public preschool and I daresay he costs WAYYY over $5,000 to educate. Even at the age of three, he has a designated para (read: someone exclusively dedicated to his care at all times; he’s that disabled!) and is in a class with a specially trained teacher. The class has only six students. The bus has a driver and an aide. I can’t begin to tally the costs on that.

I won’t say that I could do a better job than the preschool at this point. I don’t know anyone in real life nearby who has a non-verbal child, and no way to know if I’m doing the right thing or what new ideas are out there. I don’t have access to that fancy ($$) teacher training. I try to learn ideas from the school and implement them at home, but honestly, his situation is beyond “just be a good parent and he’ll be ok.”

I appreciated that there was a program called First Steps that helps handicapped children in their homes until their third birthday. Parents get way more say in who helps when than they would in a school with an IEP. So my child would be at home with me, but the speech therapist would come into our home and help Woodjie with speech in his “natural” environment. It would be nice to have some specialized help through insurance, state or local agencies for severely handicapped children. I think we’ve evolved as a society a little beyond the “bible times” in that we don’t set our disabled kids on the street corner each day to beg for their daily living. (No, I don’t believe in long-term welfare for able-bodied people, though. To me there is a great deal of difference between can’t, won’t, and temporary setback needing neighbourly help.)

The preschool is awesome, but the elementaries here? Not so much. I began homeschooling after they locked another one of my autistic children in a closet in the elementary. He’s verbal, though. That school stinks. I don’t “get” how two different schools in the same district can be so different. So… no clue what I will do when my non-verbal child is older.

Annyyyyway, nice to meet you online. Take care!

Things are changing – and I think for the better. Competition for the college systems will be good for them – they will start to add value too – as they used to do!

Thanks

Bernice Franklin