[FEAT BC Admin]

In this discussion area, please feel free to share your experience in implementing A.B.A. programs in the school system. We would particularly like to hear from those parents who converted their school teams to A.B.A. We’d like to hear the nightmares as well as the success stories.

Any insight that can be shared by school-based special education assistants to help parents would also be very meaningful.

Topic

[Deleted User]

Froc:

If you manage do it without getting lynched, you can point
out that for an aide of a child with ASD receiving proper
medically necessary treatment, the primary condition of
employment must be the knowledge and expertise of that
child's medical program as determined by the medical
experts running the program, and that no union
regulations can trump those medical needs. Ergo, unless
the union is willing to set aside bumping and posting and
training and other so-called rules for these SEAs for our
children, perhaps it would be better for the category to
become exempt staff.

And good luck — you'll need it.

[Froc]

Hi All

I am considering a request to go to CUPE 1260, or their provincial equivilant as a delegate at their next exec meeting. I wish to ask them to consider in their negotiations this fall with the ministry, in the best interests of the child, to allow two year postings for children with specific medical dx. I think that I would add that it wopuld have to be with the consent of the entire IEP team.

I'm not even sure if they'll allow me an opportunity to speak, but have learned that if you work within the system collarboratively it's far more effective than yelling. Perhaps this has been done already…perhaps a letter will suffice, but I think a personal appearance is best. Any thoughts?

[Hisham Khalifa]

Hello everyone , can anyone recommend a good pre school for my mild-modrate autistic son in surrey area .we are also looking for a qualified therapist to work with us till we hire a consaltant .please email me at hisham@telus.net…thank you

[Deleted User]

Tune in to CKNW radio (AM 980) at 10 a.m. Tuesday June 24 to hear a half hour interview on inclusive education and why the Ministry of Education's allocation of $250,000 to a private segregated school for children with special needs is not a good idea. The interview will be conducted by Peter Warren . They may open the show to calls from listeners.

[Nancy Walton]

During Monday's feat meeting some important discussions took place around successful integration of ABA treatment in the classooom. We felt this issue was extremely important for everyone doing a home based ABA program. I am therefore going to have a special ASBC/feat meeting in Surrey for those people who were unable to attend the Monday feat meeting.

I would like to extend this invitation to families with young children (not yet in school) as this will soon enough be one of your prime concerns. Sabrina Freeman and Jean Lewis will be there to speak.

The meeting will be Monday June 23 7-9pm at 7525 King George Hwy (next to Cosco). Please call me or e-mail me if you plan to attend so I can make sure we have enough space.

Nancy Walton
604-538-8021
wiklo@shaw.ca

[Froc]

Have been following this board as a lurker regularly. I have a son going into grade 4 next year. His TA is one of 17 layoffs in the district his June. She is almost at the VERY bottom of that list of layoffs regarding seniority. She is admittedly, a new TA, but she has made good strides with my son, who really respnds well with her. We won't need anpther person to go through a learning curve with him again if we can keep her.

For those of you who have had yourTA's bumped, and I realize there are lot's of you…what's my next (perhaps futile, but nevertheless neccessary) step to insisting on keeping her? So far, I have collected the following notes…Ask for a Dr. recommendation, ask for delegation to Cupe board, I'm in SD#35.

dfroc@shaw.ca

[Deleted User]

OK dang it, it's not working, so never mind. And it was
really gonna be cute too — trust me!

Sabrina, you said it all, for all of us, even if the Chat
Board won't accept my sound effects ;-)

Thank you !

[Deleted User]

Sabrina, what can I say, except:

(Note this will probably only work on the web site — if
you're reading this in email, go to the chat board :-)

[Deleted User]

Sabrina, what can I say, except:

(Note this will probably only work on the web site — if
you're reading this in email, go to the chat board :-)

[Sabrina Freeman]

Hello everyone,

I’ve been following the SEA thread closely on the Chat over the past few days and would like to contribute some thoughts.

First, I have to say it’s wonderful to be part of a discussion group with so many eloquent people who are passionate about this cause and willing to take time to share views on such an important topic.

Regarding Anon 5:13 (06/12/03), here we clearly have a prime example of what happens when a grossly inadequate Special Education status quo is challenged and powerful organizations that constitute the special education system perceive an exogenous threat to the stability and continuity of this system. Anon 5:13 speaks to several issues. I’ve roughly broken these down into eight main points and addressed each below.

MYTH 1: We want all your SEA jobs and you to be “booted out!”

FACT: FEAT BC has had a longstanding, open invitation in place for public school SEAs, both through their SEA association (PENBC) and individually, to join this discussion group so as to afford an opportunity to post in the Classifieds area of the board to advertise availability to work as a junior therapist on a Lovaas–ABA team. This is how an SEA can learn to be a therapist, under the direction and guidance of a qualified Lovaas-ABA consultant. In fact, this is likely how Anon 5:13 signed on for a Chat account to be part of THIS discussion. The trouble is many public school SEAs have little incentive — nor desire — to do the work necessary to ‘retool’ for effective in-school support of the child who’s in a Lovaas program.

Some of the issues involved in the education dispute for kids with autism:
1) It takes time to retool and learn the new skills required to effectively support the Lovaas-treated child.
2) Many SEAs have families themselves, need to be home for their own kids and may not be sufficiently flexible for autism treatment shifts.
3) Some SEAs believe that what children with autism receive in school today for their specific health care need is good enough, despite what four BC Superior Court judges have ruled regarding medically necessary autism treatment and government’s obligations regarding this neglected health issue.
4) Other SEAs “will be damned” if parents or a child’s Lovaas Treatment consultant have any meaningful role in producing an IEP that “tells SEAs what to do.”

That said, some SEAs do indeed join home-based treatment teams, stick it out and go on to become excellent therapists and SEAs.

MYTH 2: SEAs are highly educated professionals with 2 years of university caliber training.

FACT: The SEA course is a 2-year, part-time diploma that isn’t even of sufficient quality to be transferable towards a university degree i.e., a BA or BSC. Moreover, the SEA diploma course teaches nothing substantive about autism and certainly nothing meaningful for the specialized work necessary for bona fide behavioural intervention. If an SEA is fortunate, he or she may receive a one-week introduction to autism, but little else. After the course, it is clearly beyond debate that the SEA is NOT sufficiently qualified for front-line support of a child who’s in a Lovaas Treatment program. The system that churns out generic SEAs in this province is hopelessly inadequate for children receiving Lovaas Treatment. Anon 5:13’s ignorance in this respect does not make the fact less valid.

One thing we know the purportedly “respected” union college diploma program does teach SEAs is how to RESTRAIN a child with autism (ironically, this is the ONE skill an SEA never needs for the child who is in a genuine Lovaas-ABA program). Along that line of thinking, school district hiring policies (according to job postings we monitor) very much favour those candidates with an ability to “lift” i.e., euphemism for the physical size and strength necessary to restrain “problem kids”. This “asset” is written into the job posting. Disturbing as it sounds, this IS the reality of BC school district SEA hiring criteria for the child with autism — the honest reflection of the harmful, outmoded special-ed system we’re up against.

MYTH 3: Therapists are “scab” labour at $8.00 per hour

FACT: The vast majority of therapists who work with our children are very well educated and studying for their undergraduate degrees, or already hold a B.A. degree or are M.A. students working and studying concurrently. Most Lovaas-ABA therapists are high caliber people on their way to being top-tier autism treatment professionals who will likely be the next generation of Lovaas-ABA consultants. Any comparison with past and current crops of public education SEAs is really not a fair contest.

This talented group of young people rightly understands that working as a Lovaas-ABA therapist is a valuable stepping-stone opportunity for a student; they receive considerable autism treatment training as they get paid. In contrast, public school autism education opportunities for SEAs are typically comprised of one-day, two-day or five-day workshops given by people who wouldn’t know bona fide autism treatment if they stepped on it. Home-based treatment teams are the way therapists prepare the way for graduate school; this is valuable experience that is gained with flexible hours. Any Lovaas-ABA therapist who may not wish to continue with academic studies knows the only conceivable reason to waste time and money with the SETA course is simply for a piece of perfunctory parchment that will pave the way to being hired by a school district. Aside from this, they already have more knowledge and capability in medically necessary autism treatment than the entire SEA staff combined.

In terms of student remuneration, every last parent wishes they could pay more, but it’s vitally important to focus in on the following key point in any discussion surrounding pay for a home-based autism treatment team: government historically hasn’t given parents a single penny for autism treatment until the recent history of FEAT BC lobbying efforts and the Auton legal struggles in BC’s Supreme Court and Court of Appeal. Things are better now for parents; there is partial funding available for some, but most many families still go it alone. This means the need to hire a team of four or five people, plus the services of a qualified consultant. In many respects, the daunting task of putting a treatment team together is not unlike the cost and complexity of running a small business, except that the books are decidedly lopsided — all numbers are exclusively on the EXPENSE side of the ledger. Anon 5:13 surely must know there’s no revenue side to the “business” of saving one’s child from the ravages of autism.

Stated simply, even $8 dollars an hour is a HUGE burden when scaled up to 40 hours a week, 52 weeks per year, plus consulting costs and supplies. Even now, with some government help for a few, most parents still have to come up with approximately $30,000 to $40,000 per year to provide sufficient autism therapy. Clearly most Canadians can’t hope to sacrifice enough to pay for that kind of necessary health care. The student rate, therefore, is all most can afford until such time as the autism treatment dispute with government is finally resolved. Every intelligent therapist understands the catastrophic nature of the health care burden shouldered by the family that has chosen to save their child from this debilitating disorder.

MYTH 4: Parents want to take over the classroom

FACT: Quite the opposite is true. We want teachers to teach in exactly the same way they teach children who do not struggle against autism. That’s why the in-class assistant needs to be up to speed on the specialized knowledge required to make sure the Lovaas-treated child has access to the same educational curriculum as all other children in the class. Without that kind of qualified SEA capability, the autistic child is quite simply blocked from learning. Moreover, without consistency between school and the home program, the child’s progress in the battle against autism – hard won — will quickly be undone in an incompetent classroom. No teacher, even one with exceptional skill and ability, can be expected to successfully teach a class that includes an autistic child who does not have an in-class assistant that is qualified in medically necessary autism treatment. The qualified SEA functions as both an interpreter for the child and also as the treatment professional who ensures that the child can remain in the classroom. Absent this type of qualified health care support in school, the child becomes effectively segregated in his or her own little world, learning nothing and, in the worst case scenario, possibly gets kicked out of the classroom due to entirely preventable aberrant behavior. The next step usually leads to an institutionalized setting at a residential school. In short, an untrained SEA in the classroom is far from innocuous but rather, serves as the gateway to ‘Gateway’ and eventual institutionalization.

MYTH 5: ABA is all about teaching a child to “do tricks like a dog”

FACT: Apart from the obvious fact that the Pavlovian allusion is offensive in the extreme, it could also not possibly be more ignorant about what constitutes the behavioural treatment protocol the U.S. Surgeon General, and other health authorities, put at the top of the list of recommended treatments for children with autism.

It’s important to stress that effectively treating a child’s autism so he or she can attain all the life skills required for independence can hardly be labeled a dog trick. In the same vein, the autism treatment knowledge therapists acquire about the theory, practice and nuances of bona fide Lovaas-ABA, is a valuable asset gained from working on a home-based team. Therapists are the front line troops in a very difficult, complex endeavour of saving children.

Why is it that when typically developing children amass skills, it is fine to be proud of them; however, when a child with autism builds through difficult developmental stages manually and ‘brick by brick,’ through intensive one-on-one work, that this is somehow illegitimate? The end result is an unquestionably desirable outcome of overcoming autism related hurdles toward the achievement of crucial developmental milestones. Why is a child with autism not treated with dignity and respect for having amassed self-help, pre-academic and academic skills, social and play skills, imitation and joint attention skills via the intervention of a Lovaas-ABA therapist, rather than naturalistically (which they simply can never do on their own)? And, why do apparently more than a few who work in the public education system insist on stigmatizing these children by calling their hard won skills “tricks?” The answer is disturbingly straightforward: ignorance — a total lack of knowledge regarding what constitutes Lovaas-ABA. Sadly, the knowledge vacuum in BC public schools seems to be filled only with hearsay harvested from insecurity, fear and suspicion.

MYTH 6: Children with autism do not regress, “blah, blah, blah,” with untrained people

FACT: Children who have had the benefit of Lovaas-ABA but are as yet not indistinguishable from their peers, regrettably do regress when their SEA is untrained in this specialized treatment protocol; this is no longer a matter for debate. It is well documented from data taken by many therapy teams. In addition, academic literature shows how special education has a long history of harming children with autism. These children may not lose ALL their skills but behaviourally they often regress to the point of being deemed “out of control,” at which point SEAs or others at school typically invoke government workplace safety clauses to force removal of the child from school. How can this be … simply because SEAs do not have the inclination or a requirement to retool? Of course this defense, and the system of neglect it hopes to protect, are harmful holdovers from an obsolete special needs era – anachronisms that simply will not stand under the rigour of any impartial enquiry.

MYTH 7: FEAT-BC is a large organization backed by big bucks “Corporate America,” has a huge staff pulling down six-digit salaries at the gleaming Langley Towers Plaza.

FACT: FEAT-BC has no paid professionals and membership is free. The organization receives no funding from any government or corporate sources. There are no outside funding sources for the operations of this self-help group. In other words, we’re talking 100% volunteer perspiration and a crew that runs on close to no money but truckloads of heart, dedication and a deep commitment to see that justice is done for children with autism. Understandably, this fact could be very disturbing and difficult for some to comprehend (Read: the legions of under-qualified SEAs, overpaid AND under-qualified government bureaucrats in the children’s ministry, and the overpaid and perplexingly overrated constitutional lawyers in the A/G’s office) but nevertheless, the fact stands.
I should mention that FEAT BC actually IS big in two ways: ideas and we have truth on our side. The truth, of course, is that every child with autism has a right to public funding for medically necessary autism treatment, regardless of ability to pay, and that necessary health service must not be blocked from the publicly funded classroom.

MYTH 8: Lovaas-ABA therapists in home-based programs could possibly be miscreants who may “put other children at risk.”

FACT: Oh, please… we all know better. In order to work with a school district the prospective employee must go through a police background check as standard procedure. Moreover, we parents are the case managers for our children’s home-based programs. That means we’re supervising therapy sessions and are not likely to have “sex offenders” working under our very noses and in our homes providing therapy … for non-verbal children. It’s best to dispense with this odious myth and not dignify it further.

I hope this discussion sheds more light on what underlies the deep, ongoing dispute with public education in this province. I’m sure we’ll all be hearing a lot more about this important topic in the weeks and months to come.

Sabrina Freeman, Ph.D.
Executive Director, FEAT BC
(A 100% volunteer, non-profit organization)

[Author]

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