I am speaking of extreme profound special ed kids. The overwhelming majority of sped kids can and do aquire at least functional academic abilities, and or “life skills” Even a lot of profound kids can aquire some “skills” (although they are at the level of a baby, and will never work)
However, there are still kids who are extremely profoundly affected mentally (say either autism or profound mental retardation) These are kids who might not even be aware that their parents are their parents, or be able to smile. Should we even bother enrolling them in school? Don’t get me wrong…I know a lot of kids who have severe issues, but they can still learn. However, I was reading sites like: http://hydranencephaly.com/ These are kids who are just going to sit there and maybe smile once in awhile. There’s also a new member of a syndrome organization I am involved in. Her daughter is in a persistant vegetative state. She is “enrolled in school” (typical special ed school) Granted these cases are rare but it still seems like there are still a significant number of kids who are just…like they need to be in an insistution somewhere. What does everyone else think?
Isn’t a school an “institution somewhere”? Even if the kids in question cannot learn, it at least gives their poor parents a break from them for a few hours.
Whether very severely mentally handicapped children should be institutionalized full time is another question altogether, and may vary from family to family. Some parents may not want that for their children, and would prefer to take care of them themselves. Some might feel otherwise.
“Persistant vegetative state”? You can’t educate someone who’s in a coma.
Are you saying they’re wheeling this comatose kid into a school and claiming to be “educating” her? Or do you mean she’s enrolled on the books as a “student” without actually being one? Because in the second case, I’d guess that there’s some benefit to having her enrolled, that it qualifies her for something.
If they’re actually wheeling comatose kids into schools, I have no idea what they could be hoping to achieve.
In the Netherlands, severe developmental disabilities can exempt a child from otherwise compulsory education. Is that the question?
There are absolutely children for whom “education” is not relevant. This comes in many degrees. Of course often they will still need to do something with their day, so often they will be at some kind of institution, either as a resident or during the day. While there they will probably receive some form of stimulation appropriate to their level and needs.
Define what you mean by “educated”.
My daughter worked at a school for highly acute special needs kids, she had some great experience’s of being able to teach them basic behavioural things but none of them were going to get their PHD. Most didn’t live long enough to graduate.
I don’t know about the child in question, but they definitely do this. I’ve evaluated alternative state assessments that involve video, and there have been several children who the viewer is told has the mental age of 3-9 months, who are taped for hours sitting there unconscious while the annoyed teacher dutifully asks them each and every question because the child is a “student” and all students must take state assessments.
I daresay if the only classes that interest a particular child are Animal Cruelty 101, Prostitute Dissection 203 and Police Taunting 304… the educational process may be a less-than-optimal use of resources.
Yes, someone else has seen this too! Shakster, I know you can’t educate a kid who is in a coma…and even kids on the more severe end of the profound spectrum may have something in their IEP that says “So and So will indicate which shower lotion he likes best.”
From what I understand they’re wheeling her into a school and claiming to be “educating” her.
I’ve wondered about this too, but damned if I can’t think of a “solution.”
First off, is it a problem? Sure, the profoundly handicapped are probably not learning anything as students, but are they going to do any better at home, parked in front of a TV all day? And this is burdensome for parents. So if it’s not school, it will be daycare. And because most parents won’t be able to afford daycare, the solution is government assistance. Which is really no different than sending them to public school. (Although maybe the costs are lower because perhaps you aren’t paying the salary of teachers and paraprofessionals?)
Also, and maybe this only applies to certain diagnoses, but hope is a powerful thing. People hear about other children, previously written off as hopeless, learning to speak and/or communicate, and this gives them hope about their own children. Or maybe they think sending their kids to school, even it’s just a semblance of school, will provide some stimulation and support so that–if there is some masked intelligence–their kid won’t be tortured inside with boredom. A daycare facility doesn’t carry that kind of assurance.
Its burdensome for the school district.
A friend of mine has a daughter with severe CP. Now, she learns, she is a bright girl and needs a chance - at least, they think she’s bright, she can’t communicate much out at this point. But out of the school district budget for her comes a full time aid, plus additional personnel and resources. My friend says its about $100k extra from the school budget every year to have her in school. Average per pupil expenditures in our state is less than $11k.
In a state where my kids can’t take books home because they are shared - so if you need use your math book to do math homework, you are screwed, this seems like its possibly a misallocation of resources.
My cousin Joshua is in this situation. He was born without part of the lining of his brain, and cannot move or talk. He wears diapers and eats through a tube in his stomach. He is 19, and attends school every day. It is my understanding that he can keep going to school until he is 21 or 22. He can’t really interact, but he does smile at you sometimes, and has definite reactions to certain things.
I don’t know how I feel about this. On the one hand, it is nice for my aunt to get a break everyday. But I don’t know that our school system is designed to give parents a break from bad times. She does not work, so it’s not an issue of daycare. Our local school system is okay, but I don’t see why any money is spent on his “schooling”.
It may just be a matter of the worst, best solution, but I am wary of so many resources being lumped together into a one size fits all schooling, when a more nuanced system would serve all students, including the “gifted and talented” ones, better.
The profoundly incapacitated kids do not go to school, (or, at least, not to public schools). They do, indeed, tend to live in institutions where they can receive the necessary care. (E.g., http://www.hattielarlham.org/v/srv-ch-residential.asp)
The discussion is probably about the next tier up, where the kids can, indeed, function at some level, but require massive expenditures to bring them along. As a society, we created this problem in typical legislative fashion. In the bad old days, kids with Down Syndrome, (for example), were locked away and not given any education, even though most people with Down Syndrome are quite capable of functioning at some level in many work environments and some can even live on their own with some assistance. (Down Syndrome is the most widely known disability, but there are many similar situations such as Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.)
So, when advocates for such kids began to urge that they be given an opportunity, laws were written to include all disabled kids in mandatory education. Unfortunately, there is little in the laws that recognizes those who can actually benefit from an education, those who will benefit from continued engagement with a person trained in that field, and those who simply need to be provided care. We still really do not know where to draw those lines, except to have each child evaluated with a personal plan written for them. In the real world, there are some parents who demand that their child who will never recognize his or her name be given an opportunity to go to Harvard and there are some other parents who have a very high functioning child who they write off as “dumb” who will not seek even the minimum level of support to allow them to become self-sufficient. And, of course, there are always the periodic stories of children who were given up as hopelessly incapable suddenly demonstrating amazing capacities when a new tutor or a new situation appears. Schools, juggling many other tasks and obligations often defer to the parents, so we find extraordinarily expensive support provided to some children who do not actually benefit from those services while other children get lost in the system and are provided far less support than they deserve.
This. I have no problem with having the kids in a social setting for a few hours a day, but when one child takes up resources that could help ten other kids, I have to wonder where we can and should draw the line.
Dangerosa, what would you recommend as a solution for your friend’s little girl? Let’s assume there’s enough reason to believe the little girl is smart and just can’t show it right now. If you were in charge, how would you allocate resources so that her and everyone else’s needs were adequately addressed.
So, I’m confused: does the US not have schools separated by abilities at all? In the Netherlands, for example, special education is divided into four clusters:
- Children with a visual handicap
- Children with hearing problems
- Children with developmental disabilities
- Children with severe behavioural problems
Most children, if they have problems of just one kind, can attend normal schools. These children get assistance from the government (called “a backpack”) that goes directly to the school, to help pay for special facilities. The children who attend the special ed schools tend to have multiple, and very severe problems. On top of that, if the situation is severe enough, children can be excused from compulsory education. But children with severe problems wouldn’t be sent to a normal school. How would we expect teachers to cope?
My MIL works in a cluster three school, with children with severe developmental and physical disabilities. They have a teacher for two children, on average. These children need help with every single thing they do. There is no point sending them to a normal school.
monstro, regarding “hope”, I think that only applies if for some reason the situation or outlook for children with a severe disability is bad. Where I worked in Romania, yes, children are forgotten, get no attention, and so lag behind their capabilities. They never get a chance to develop. But that’s Romania, pretty much the poster child for “terrible treatment of developmentally disabled kids”. Where my MIL works, there is loads of love and attention for the children. They are productive in their own ways. They are stimulated and encouraged. Hope isn’t going to “cure” them or anything. They have been diagnosed, they have a clear prognosis. But their situation isn’t sad, or hopeless. Believe me, if there is any change it will be noticed, encouraged, nurtured, they will be moved on from where they are. But that’s not really something that happens, AFAIK.
Read this page. It’ll help you understand the laws regarding inclusion in the US.
As of the 90s, no, we don’t tend to send many kids to “special” schools anymore, and although some do exist for children with autism etc the decission to send them there is the parents’.
Unless someone is a threat to themselves or others I can’t see why they should be institutionalized. It would be much better if people with overwhelming learning problems where still allowed access to society. There main caretakers… whoever that would be should be given frequent breaks. The scenario I’m describing would be the most ideal in my opinion.
Seems weird to be wasting school resources on them. And the school probably has to hire specialists to take care of whatever physical needs they have, further eating into the resources allocated to it. Using school as daycare is one thing if your kid could benefit from school, but using it like one when there’s no chance pretty much seems like it’s at the expense of the other kids’ school experience.
Tangent question: if a kid like that is born to parents who don’t want to or can’t take care of it, what happens?
Other tangent question: what happens to said unteachable kids when they reach adulthood and outgrow daycare/school? One parent just has to give up their job and be a full time carer?
We should be increasing resources so that neurotypical and atypical kids get the help they need. It’s a crappy situation where regular kids don’t have enough books and there are special needs kids that take up a lot of resources and will probably never be able to go through life unsupervised.
Autism rates alone are something like 1 in 70 male children and 1 in 100 female. Add in other disabilities and it might be 2-3% of all kids have special needs that half to be accommodated. That’s a lot of kids.
Otherwise, what should we do? Drown at birth? Have cut off tests at certain ages and then institutionalize the rest?
BTW, if you think it’s a crappy situation, try being the parent of a child with severe difficulties. I can only imagine and I say that as a parent of an autistic child in a special needs class.
Tangent 1: Be institutionalized. The child may also go through the foster care system.
Tangent 2: Social security and medicade kick in at 18. It’s a great fear for parents about what to do.
Why does every single post of SDMB get totally off topic? xD
Yes, by the evidence presented by most of the posters before me, there are indeed children who are incapable of being educated.