Autism Education Reform!

A Call to Everyone to Push for Autism Education Reform

Hello I am Brad, a father of an Autistic child. Arek is 4 and in his second year of Early Childhood Education. He was diagnosed with Autism at 18 months and received a vast amount of services until he went to school. Now he is receiving some of the services through school but not to the level that they should be. Case and point, We live in small town America where schools are important to the people but things like sports seem to get most of the attention and funding. Special Education is broken in many regards. It is not just Autistics that are being let down but all children with special needs. My 8 year old daughter Lauren is also in Special Ed. She has learning disabilities. Her services are also OK but not great. We used to live in the Burbs of Chicago. They had an actual public Autism Spectrum School setup. Great if you live in the area. Unfortunately, we could no longer afford to live there.

Arek is moving along OK for now but at what point does he stop getting Autism specific education? It depends on where you live. Here it seems the level of services dramatically drops down every year older the child gets. I have spoke with parents of junior high students as well as high school students. The system stinks flat out is what I have been told. I know it is the same across the country. If every parent of every child was educated on the current boundaries to adequate education then they would do something as a majority. Our daughter is in Special Olympics which is a great program. It is funded by the state as well as by the individual teams. Our teams have recycled uniforms and outfits. Personal fund-raising has brought in some money but not enough even after a few years. If it were not for the parents that started the fund-raisers then there would be significantly less money available.