RE: Educational peak/Sara

[Guest guest]

Hi Sara,

Personally I dislike the work retarded. We do not use the word ever. My choice

is to use people first language. I respect your opinion. I use cognitive

disability or intellectual disability. It may help in writing your proposal.

Using the word retarded immediately will give the reader lower expectations of

Elie's ability. It automatically comes with the label. You could easily wrap

reading and math around community supports. Elie will loose opportunities within

the community if he is not able to read. Simply going to a grocery store,

restaurant or movie will create difficulty. Elie will be unable to read his

paycheck, bank book or enjoy many things that we take for granted in our day

lives and in the community. We never stop learning in our adult life so why

would Elie be any different. He may learn and think differently but age has

nothing to do with our brains ceasing to process information. I am in an

infinate reading war ( yes it has progressed beyond battle) with

Zeb's school to teach him to read. It is every child's right to be taught to

read. Ask these teacher's to go through one leisurely day without reading

anything. The thought of not being able to read is life limiting. Thanks for

letting me vent about reading.

Charlyne

Mom to Zeb 14 DS/OCD/ASD?

sara cohen wrote:

This is EXACTLY why I like to use the term RETARDED when describing myy son's

educational projectory. IF it took him 4 years to print his name and 14 years to

be toilet trained, who is to say that he won't learn to read comfortably when he

is 30?? If his learning curve is retarded, then he needs a longer time to learn.

Makes sense to me .

Now I am trying to figure out how to word my request for waiver funding to

continue to work on academics. So far, I can hide it under " habilitation " -

teaching him to be in the community. But I really want a targeted reading

approach that is backed by research.Sara - Choose to make lemonade, not complain

about the lemons.> > **************The educational consultant that we use who

has worked with people all > over the autism spectrum says that in her

experience people with autism > sometimes don't really have a learning surge

until the teen years, and > that they continue learning new skills well into

their 20's and beyond. > Our former ABA consultant told stories of going into

" institutional " > settings and teaching a 40 year old man with no communication

skills at > all to communicate using PECS. So I think it is very limiting for

the > educational system to operate from the context that our kids reach a >

peak by the time they are 14 years old. I certainly don't intend

to > operate that way.> > Lynda> > >

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