[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

[David Chan]

Wow, what a thread you've started. Kinda
gives us parents a swift kick in the pants, and
just when you think there's a light at the end of
the tunnel, it turns out to be a runaway train.

Ya know, our dear maligned Anon poster just
might be yanking our chain and enjoying the
fun. Cruel you say; not bad for a dog trick.

Heck, Anon might not even be for real or–
even a more frightening possiblity–IS for real.

At the end of the day we will carry on, in spite
of the vitriol,cause "getting better, a little better
all the time" is a GOOD thing.

Thank you again to this much maligned Anon,
cause no matter how hard you try to yank my
chain, this dog ain't gonna jump.

By the way, I too ,am grammatically
challenged, but my dear wife proofreads,
before she lets me push the post button.

Been around too long to be jerked around.

Dave,
Mr. P's Dad

[Deleted User]

Re: SEA Discussion + Scary Union Postings

I do not hear anyone advocating special education for children with diabetes – they get appropriate medical treatment for their medical condition.

Autism is a medical condition, not a learning disability. We are not after union dollars for medical treatment or "dog training". We just want our children to be able to access their right to education, without jeapordizing their medical treatment.

To: anonymous poster -> what school district are you in?

[Jenny Obando]

I wanted to add my two cents. Please no grammar corrections.

To anonymous SEA.

I find it disgusting that you put priority in who is loyal to who , instead of the child and what the child needs. That is where the loyalty should be.
As far as going private, why don't you go private where you won't have an union to hide behind .

As for the "therapist". Would changing their title put you at ease, where are your priorities ?

We have opted for private school for our son, because of the threat of having ignorant,arrogant people as your self.
Let me tell you my son's "therapist"or as the government calls them Behavioral interventionist for school, has a Bachelor's in psychology and has been with our team for two years.
You say: this therapist work for one child one. Obviously you are not as informed as you claimmed. Most therapist work with more than one child, under different Qualified consultants.

You also mentioned your 2 years of training. Can you tell me how many years of practicum did you had to do before being so qualified to work with children with autism ? And who supervises you ?

Our therapist get trained by qualified Consultants with Master's degrees in different related areas, plus the Consultant monitors what the therapist are doing.

The so called training you said you receive,consist of a 9-5 workshop on autism .And how to keep our children in routines so that don't disturb the class , this seems to be the main objective and not how the child is doing, how to help our autistic children develop new skills. And do you truly believe a 2 year program qualifies you to deal with ALL the different and unique disabilities out there ?
If you do. You are truly ingnorant.

One point you mentioned about the therapist being pay $8 an hour. I truly wish I could afford to pay them more but I cannot and believe me they are worth 100 times more than you !

You suggest that we parents are perhaps taken advantage of the SEA funds. I think you are taken advantage of our children and the fact that you belong to an union.
If you think we parents are after the mighty dollar think again. Many of us have lost our homes, savings and retirement plans so that we can do this therapy for our children.

It is obvious you are only informed about you and what affects your cushy job, and not what is best for our children.

I wanted to thank you for opening the eyes of many parents to the reality of what awaits us at the school level.

Jenny ( Tristen's mom)

Add-on(by Tristen's father…)
What is truely saddening to me is that emotions are yet again ruling the day and once again it is the children who are being forgotten.
On the SEA & public schools we are dealing with many roadblocks; CUPE & the union environment that will fight any percieved threat to it's members.
Egos. an obvious issue with the SEA who made this disturbing post, fealing threatened? Your two year diploma makes you licensed but obviously not professional.
Misconceptions. Real information about the facts of ABA Lovaas therapy seem to be either completely unknown to frontline educators or at best their knowledge appears second or third hand. This therapy isn't some made up nonsense. ABA IS teaching, just in a different form. I don't know of a single parent who has endured this horrible diagnosis for one or more of their children who would say that this current meathod of delivery of therapy is the ideal. Far from it. We are stuck with this hand that has been delt to us. There is no "school" available in Canada for therapist certification, we can't start this treatment through a local healthcare as it should be. We are families struggling with a crappy situation.
And back again this brings us to emotions. We parents are angry. Unfortunatly, it is this anger that seems to have marked groups such as FEAT as radicals. We have a right to be angry. We have an awful lot to be angry about. It's hard enough just to get treatment for our children, now our kids have yet more roadblocks to hurtle with closed shop public education system .

Todd

[Maureen St. Cyr]

I don't think Richard was referring to your post, Ms. Anon
11 pm. :-) Richard, perhaps you could clarify – I think I get
you, but I don't want to speak for you.

Avery

[Deleted User]

I'm sorry, I was just posting the poem as inspiration to show how important the job is of working in the best interest of our children. How what we do today can make a huge difference in their lives. How is that bad? I thought it would show that not everyone working in schools is as blatantly narrow-minded as the anon. SEA.

[Richard Wiklo]

I am reminded of the chilling fact
of the banality and horror of evil
tonight after reading that last post.

Casey's Dad
Richard Wiklo

[Richard Wiklo]

To Anonymous June 12 2003- 05:13 whoever you are

You are well aware and very informed! Indeed!
I would hazard to guess that your opinions about the science and research basis of ABA behavioural therapy is founded on some study and observation of the phenomena. Such provocative language from so eloquent an employee of a school district, "train like a dog to do tricks with your child". Is anyone else's therapists doing assisted tricks for their child? Mine for the most part are studying at the undergraduate level in psychology as well as busy being supervised and trained by a registered psychologist with specialized certification in a behavioural psychological specialty. We have had the odd good trainee who wasn't in college. They have done quite well inspite of their lack of training because of three things, empathy, openmindedness, and some natural cognitve ability to grasp the concepts. The person(s) I had in mind from our team (for a SEA)would be going for a undergraduate degree and I would stack his/her credentials, experience, and training against a SEA who appears to be well-intentioned, misguided, and yes angry. Angry because they have been mislead, misled, and yes lied to by the old guard autism industry in various government ministeries about the evolving nature of autism interventions and research.

As for your remarks about the unions and school districts. Defending the unions and suggesting that the underlying reason is the school districts are in some kind of conspiracy to prevent change from happening in education. That's rich! You have insider knowledge of the politics of autism in the schools and the unions.

As for the sex offenders working with children. For the record does anyone know of a parent who has not done their homework? Does anyone know of a consultant, therapist, or trainee that has be suspected of and/or charged with any criminal charges? From a sociological perspective, the rate of pedophilia is probably fairly wel-distributed in society. Your accusation of the potential for a parent hiring a sex offender and contaminating a school is deplorable.
Finally, Anonymous, choice in our pluralistic, democratic society is about envisioning a future which is inclusive, openminded, and intelligent. Our children deserve a right to be in the public or private schools. They are entitled to a fair shot at an education with the best evolving science/research based therapy as it stands now.
To continue to ignore, prevaricate, stamp your feet, hurl unfounded accusations is really beside the point. Take some time to reflect, ask around and try to get obtain some knowledge about ABA therapy and what professional body of evolving knowledge and practice it comes out of.
As for the corporate conspiracy. Well, one day there will be more Canadian trained psychologists and educators as well as informed physicians who will have more influence in health care and education. Big Corporate America will be stopped at last from training therapists " like dogs to do tricks with 'our' children"

Casey's Dad
Richard Wiklo

[Deleted User]

There's a poem that goes something like this…..

One Hundred Years From Now…
It will not matter
what kind of car I drove,
What kind of house I lived in,
how much money was in my bank account
nor what my clothes looked like.
But the world may be a better place because
I was important in the life of a child.

Wouldn't this be a wonderful motto for everyone who worked with children to live by? I am an ABA therapist and have witnessed AMAZING growth in these children. Shouldn't everyone's goal be to help make each child's life the best it could be and help them reach their full potential?

Just my thoughts……

P.S. ~ I'm a school district employee too, as well as an ABA therapist.

[Debra Antifaev]

Wow!
I'm with Jean, you can see now why we are fighting so hard to have properly trained people with our children.
To the anon school distict person, I would suggest you find other employment suiting your very cruel and obviously uneducated manner. Perhaps you could work in accounts receivable at Revenue Canada.
You are the very reason we are committed to properly "vetting" our SEA's. We would like to have people who actually have a little knowledge about Lovaas and Autism. I would prefer not to have someone who seems to dislike children altogether.
Just as an aside, all of the people working on my son's team either have a degree or are working towards one and are dedicated to a career in Special Needs. The woman working as my son's SEA has a BA AND her Special ED Teachers Asst (SETA) WITH HONOURS. She has worked with Autistic children for over three years, learning the Lovaas method of intervention.
I don't think you would quite measure up

Debra Antifaev

[Maureen St. Cyr]

I don't see that there's anything substantial I can add to this
discussion, as it has all been said already — thank you Jean
and David and the anonymouses who count (you know
which ones I mean). I will merely add this thought:

I am proud to have been able to find over the years all of
the fine, capable, professional, caring, loving therapists,
past and present, who have been a part of Ariel's team. You
know who you are, you know how much you have been
appreciated, and how underpaid you are, and how truly
wonderful you are. Ariel loves you all, and so do Maureen
and I, and forever you will have a huge place in our hearts.
That includes all of the stellar aides who have gone to
school with her as part of her medical treatment team.

I am sad to be witness to the kinds of attacks being
perpetrated against our therapists, our consultants and our
children by these anonymous, malicious, arrogant,
uneducated, incompetent fools. You may hide behind your
anonymous postings, but you cannot hide from our expert
teams. We will sniff your foul stench out, and make sure
you never darken our children's lives.

My beautiful child has autism, a medical condition. Thanks
to the people who matter, to quote a favorite songwriter of
mine, she is getting better, a little better all the time. And
the people who matter include all of you, my friends. Thank
you all.

Avery
Ariel's Dad

[Author]

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