Autistic Help?

Question

My little brother, Z, is 5 years old and has autism but he what they call high functioning. He does not have any behavioral problems, (rocking, ignoring people, tantrums etc.). He does have a speech problem and he is delayed. However, he tries so hard to learn all the time. He wants to learn and he likes it when my family and I help him with his ABC's, colors and numbers.

The school he is going to right now doesnt want him there. They said that they had a speech therapist who was going to come in and work with him. So far they have not had anybody work with him.

Can they legally refuse to teach him and send him somewhere else?

Is that right?

Answer 1

No, they cannot legally refuse to teach him. However, if I were your parents, I might consider moving him to a school that has more open minded thinking.

Hopefully your brother has an Individualized Education Plan that outlines what services he is supposed to be receiving. If he is not receiving those services after a period of time, then it is time to get your parents to call your State Department of Education and speak to a director in the Special Education Department. This will get results, I guarantee you. The school just hates to get a call from them.

Your brother is in a very critical period of his life, so getting proper instruction and speech and language therapy is crucial. You may not be aware of this, but autism is considered to be a communication disorder, which is why speech and language therapy are so important.

Answer 2

absolutely not!! Your brother is entitled to special services. Its what you pay taxes for. In connecticut there is a group called CPAC look it up and see if there is anything similar in your state. My son was 1st diagnosed with sensory integration disfunction and was able to get into a special ed Kindergarten (its also a high functioning form of autism) he is now diagnosed as ADHD and recieves special services like a speech therapy (he didnt talk until well after 3yrs) My best service was simply getting a prescription from my doctor to take him to occupational therapy. It makes the state get involved. I did this at the local childrens hospital. Look into your local autism support groups they should have answers as to how to get through the system. It sounds like the teachers are lazy and dont want to do their job. Keep doing what your doing with him you sound like a great big brother

Answer 3

Schools do have a legal responsibility towards your brother and his education. If your parents were to take him out of school then the responsibility passes to them. If the school are not meeting his needs your parents should go in to address this situation and perhaps appeal to the school board. Just because he has high functioning autism does not mean they can send him some where else, that would be discrimination against a disabled person. If he wants to learn and his family are willing to help, the school should feel proud to have him as a student. Good luck.

Answer 4

They have to do what is in his IEP... so if he has x number of hours of speech therapy per week, and he doesn't recieve them, I would bring that up asap. If it was never designated in his IEP, though, then they don't have to do it.

And how do you know they do not want him there? Is he in a regular education classroom or special ed.? You need to make sure his needs are met in the IEP. If he doesn't have one, you should seek out the Child Study Team, and have your son classified, and start the IEP process immediately.

If the school he is going to can't meet those needs, then you can send him out at their expense...

Answer 5

Here is an Odd answer from Old Autism.

Before the modern Autism curse took hold and made autism into a designer condition many of us from all over the world had figured out autism a never in print before human thought process.

When we think and talk you note the lack of eye contact ,and while we learned to look at brain generated images we need to think with (like your Day Dreams) we also learned to convert those images to words and speech. In a nut shell that is autism's key   an invisible to you thought process.   Once we learn those sub thoughts the building block of the human mind we can do normal thought just like you do and if we learn to water down our Savant and Rain Man thoughts we can be pretty social too.  

Modern autism took away autism's hope as its ignorant experts lost track of the roots of autism and today will not own up to us.  We don't mean to but, we deflate the modern autism Epidemic just by doing what we do.  Here they call this Autism Research and they are really cheating mankind out of his core knowledge, all of humanity is losing out.

Rich Shull, Author Autism Pre Rain Man Autism  built on Temple Thinking in Pictures and Inventor of the Turing Motor.

Answer 6

Watch my video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbgUjmeC-...

Answer 7

If the school cannot provide the services he needs they can refer him to another public school or to a private school/facility..if to a private school/facility it must be at no cost to his parents.. The only other way they can refuse to educate him is if he is found to be of danger to other students, himself, or faculity...such as behavioral problems. You said he does not have behavoral problems so that should not apply to him. Even if that was the case, yes they could refuse to educate him at the school, even expell or suspend him, but they must still provide education and related services to him, such as to receive them at home.  

He is covered by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) which is a federal law that guarantees a free and appropriate public education for every child with a disability...doesn't matter what state you live in. This means that if your brother is enrolled in public school, his education should be at no cost  and should be appropriate for his age, ability and developmental level.

He should have a Individual Education Plan (IEP). This is a legal document that outlines his eduaction to meet his specific needs. The school district must educate the child in accordance with the IEP.Students with disabilities have a right to related services to help them learn and receive the maximum benefit from their educational programs. Related services, according to IDEA, consist of "transportation and such developmental, corrective and other supportive services as are required to assist a child with a disability to benefit from special education." These services are to be determined on an individualized basis, not by the disability or category of the disability.

If a child needs any of these "related services" to benefit from his/her education, they must be written into the IEP. Frequency and duration of services, as well as relevant objectives, should be included.

Before he can receive speech/language therapy, which is a "related service", he must be evaulated by the schools speech pathologist. Either a teacher can refer him for an evaluation or your parents can request one. Either way he cannot be evaluated without parents permission. After receiving parents permission they have up to 60 days to evaluate him.  If your parents do not agree with the evaluation done by the schools speech pathologist, they can request he be evaluated by a speech pathologist outside of the school, in which the school board must pay for. They will determine what type of speech/language therapy he needs, how many times a week he'll need it and how long each session will be. If speech therapy is not included in his IEP then they must have an IEP meeting to revise his IEP to include the therapy which will state when his therapy begins and the duration of it(6 months, 1 yr, etc),  how many times per week he goes, the length of time for each session, long & short term goals for him. As he accomplishes goals they will revise his IEP to include new goals..if he is having difficulty meeting certain goals the IEP will be revised to change the goals in order for him to accomplish them. If he needs any type of accommodations in speech therapy they must also be included in the IEP.

I would have your parents look at the websites below, one is to IDEA and one is to wrightslaw..which will tell your parents everything they need to know about his and their rights.