People who scam parents of S/PMH kids

Indy, you are obviously taking this thread very personally and lashing out, but I don’t think the OP deserves to be the target of all this anger. Do you want your daughter to go to an art class and have the teachers lie to you about whether or not she actually did the work they are passing off as hers, which is what we’re discussing here? (Honest question - not snark.) If you truly don’t care about whether or not your daughter actually did the work the teachers are claiming she did, then I bow to your superior knowledge and experience. If you just want to rant and rave about how hard it is to have a handicapped child, you should probably start a thread about that rather than yelling at the OP of this one.

Any “teacher” that uses Facilitated Communication to show supposed progress with a child’s development will get nothing but my scorn. With a severely developmentally disabled child, if you show a drawing of a cow to a “facilitator” but show a drawing of a house to the child, without telling the “facilitator” that you are showing a different picture to that child, the “facilitator” will guide that child’s hand and a drawing of cow will come forth every damn time, providing that there are no verbal clues from “facilitator” to child.
You can either rant that I don’t know what I’m talking about because I don’t have a severely disabled child, or you try this simple test.

See, now* that *is being a scamster. :mad:

I don’t think the kids drawing with 99% help is a scam, no one is being hurt, and I bet some of the kids are drawing a little. After all, my cat can “paw paint”.

The point of the exercise is not to make the parents proud. The point of the exercise is not to create art. The point of the exercise is supposed to be to provide interactions with other humans in situations in which people normally interact.

I have known many hundreds of profoundly mentally retarded people, and many severely handicapped people. I have engaged in actions which even professionals in the field thought were pointless, and exercises in delusional hope. Now, thirty years later, I recently watched one of those hundreds walk to the cafeteria to have lunch. No one much noticed it, of course, except to tell him to hurry up. He was happy, though.

A little girl I was told would “never live long enough to learn to roll over” recently attempted to escape from our building. She would have made it, too, but those darned kids in the hall ratted her out!

Go away and leave us alone, please, we’re trying to create art here, and it takes all our attention and concentration.

Tris

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” ~ Aristotle ~

This is where you started to go wrong. You were just looking on for a few minutes. Everyone of these children (not vegetables) are individuals. Everyone of them has different personalities and problems. You can’t know what was happening in the interaction of the educators and children. Don’t judge until you’ve been in the trenches. Until you’ve gotten to know and work with a child personally, you can’t know what is and isn’t beneficial to each child.

Indygrrl, I don’t think the OP meant any disrespect for the people that work with those children or to the parents. The OP seems to just be wondering if the parents are being self delusional. I used to work for the Autistic Program in my home state, so I have a little experience with mentally handicapped children, but none that could compare to yours…still, try to understand that to those of us not in your position what the OP said about the drawings does seem a little off.

Except this is in the pit. If it were in IMHO and the OP were seeking understanding, it would be fine. But based on a few minutes of observation–and the assumption that the letters on the wall were from the parents of the same kids she saw–she’d pitting people who are doing an incredibly difficult job without any understanding herself of what it means to do that job well.

I think Indygrrl just placed a swift kick in the right direction. Somebody just criticized the profession of the few people in this world who provide her some relief.

I think these parents know very much the capabilities of their children and when the instructor “lies” to them about their kids they “lie” right back in appreciation for the time and patience the instructor gives their child.

I’m right there with IndyGrrl.
These parents need to be cut some slack even if they are delusional. Ever think maybe these “delusions” are a way of coping with the harsh reality of the situation. What would you suggest? Putting your handicapped child in a corner and dusting them once in a while? Why not, they won’t know the difference.

Unless you’ve been there please spare the judgements on it being considered a scam. Any activity that can bring a sense of normalcy to the life of the parents in a situation that probably turned their lives upside down, wasn’t asked for, and they have to cope with for years on end is a good thing in my book. Nothing close to a scam.

What is sad is your lack of empathy for the parents, you fucking dumbshit. You have to be pretty judgmental (and clueless) to look down on people, without ever going through such a thing, and decide that it’s not alright for them to think, if only for a moment, that the kid had some part in making a card for them. Naive is the LAST word you should be using to describe these parents. Trust me, they know more than you can ever imagine.

Sad, yes, that’s the right word for all of it. Find me a parent with a handicapped child and I’ll show you someone who cries when no one can see them, who mourns but puts a smile on when you talk about what your kid did in school, how smart they are, what kind of sports they like. We watch and listen and try as hard as we can to be happy for you, but for some of us it just drives the knife in that much further. We blink the tears away and save them to be cried in privacy. Yeah, it is fucking sad.

How do you know the letters on the wall were from parents of the particular kids you saw so briefly?

I’m glad there are teachers who spend time with kids who need so much help. Even if the results aren’t “art.”

So the painting represents the teacher spending time pushing the kid’s hand around, not the kid’s own work? That’s fair; it shows that someone spent time with him that day?

I wish the staff members I met during my brief afternoon of volunteering had been able to enjoy the artistry, the creativity that they DID express, rather than trying to make the art look “normal”. Because the individual cards were different, and not “cookie-cutter”. That was what made them cool, in my view.

Your post intrigued me, Triskademus; maybe it was just the time that mattered anyway.

This OP is one of the most callous things I’ve read on this board

Honestly, man, do you have no soul? What else would you do with these kids? Store them alone and out of sight in the pantry with the other “vegetables”?

I want to know in what possible capacity was the OP allowed to sit in these classes?

Checking him out as a potential student?

Produce merchant.

Amen.

My friends up the street cannot hold jobs that pays over x amount of dollars (something ridiculous like $20k) because it would threaten their daughter’s Medicaid. Without Medicaid they couldn’t afford the neurologists and tests and surgeries and physical and mental therapy that their daughter needs. S is getting older, and heavier, and they cannot afford to put up a handicapped ramp. They haven’t been on a vacation in years and, even if they could, where could they go to take a severely handicapped child? Children who suffer from life threatening conditions have support networks and MakeAWish programs and their friends throw fundraisers to help them. Children who suffer from ongoing devastating illnesses… get ignored.

Can Handle the Truth, I don’t think you meant to be insensitive, but I think the learnings you can take away from the class you observed can be so much more profound than what you took away.

While I do agree with the rest of your post, I find that your child being subjected to such a “waiting list” is outrageous. There is virtually a crime being committed by politicians and bureaucracy in the state of Indiana. May I suggest that you move out of Indiana to a state that can do something NOW. California is one of those states. I’m not saying we are the best, but at least I know that you can move here, schedule an intake for your daughter through the Regional Center System (contracted with the CA Dept. of Developmental Services), and start getting services in weeks or months instead of years.

CA DDS

We are contracted with one of those regional centers to provide services for adults with many levels of mental retardation, CP, autism, etc. Other programs work with school-age children, and still others, with infants and/or toddlers. Many parents come to us and tell us that we are a godsend to them as well as for their adult children. They also tell us that we help them provide a sense of “normalcy” in their lives. Whatever you do, thoughts and prayers for you and your child.

Such a hasty jump to conclusions from a single class session. At this level, progress is noted when there are tiny steps (goals) being reached and documented over a long period of time…neither of which you did not afford to them.

I can see why you only posted here once so far… :dubious: