Parents, Schools in New Jersey Battle Against Autistic Student Segregation (NJ)

May 10, 2011

The number of students in New Jersey public schools diagnosed with autism has almost doubled in the past five years, to more than 13,000 in 2010. More of these children are now being educated in their hometown schools.

But as their number has grown, so has the debate about how and where to best educate children with autism.

A review of special education placement data by The Press of Atlantic City shows the percentage of autistic students ages 6 to 21 sent to specialized schools dropped from 40 percent in 2005 to 28 percent in 2010.

While advocates and experts support keeping the children in their hometown districts, they say many schools are still not equipped to offer the specialized programs autistic children need to learn to interact with others.

“A high number of students are still going to out-of-district placements,” said Diana Autin, co-director of the Statewide Parent Advocacy Network, or SPAN. “And even if they are kept in district, they are often placed in programs that are still very segregated.”

About one in four autistic students spends most of the school day in a regular class, Department of Education data show, an improvement from 2005 when the ratio was less than one in five. But almost half are spending at least half of their day in a separate special educ ation class.

 A 2010 report in the International Journal of Special Education indicates that autistic students placed in regular classrooms performed better academically than those placed in special programs. But research on the issue is new and limited, and advocates warn there is no one-size-fits-all placement.

“We want children to be included (in regular programs), but not if they won’t benefit from it,” said Linda Meyer, executive director of AutismNJ.

In January, the DOE approved a charter school just for autistic students; the governor has said he supports such schools. But some parents are concerned that autistic children will become more segregated under the guise of getting better services.

“I don’t want my son to just hang around people with autism,” said Isabelle Mosca, whose autistic son Kyle, 12, is a sixth-grader at the Ventnor Community School with his twin sister Isabelle, who is not autistic. “He needs peer modeling to want to be like everyone else. “

Advocates say the nature of autism, a developmental disorder characterized by a lack of communication and social skills, makes it imperative that autistic students interact with regular students to learn appropriate behaviors by watching and mimicking others. Placing them with other autistic or disabled students will teach them only how to act more disabled.

“If they stay in their own district, they can interact with their peers,” Autin said. “But the decision often seems to be based more on individual school philosophy than the child’s diagnosis.”

In southern New Jersey, only Egg Harbor Township, Millville, Northfield, Stafford Township and Southern Regional reported keeping all of their autistic children in district schools this year.

Meyer said there are pockets of excellent programs throughout the state, but that’s not enough. A state law and education code requires all te achers to get training in autism education, but there is no tracking of whether districts are in compliance. State DOE officials said districts should include the training in required professional development plans and parents should complain if their child’s teacher has not been trained.

Local districts respond

More than 80 students participate in the autism program at the Egg Harbor Township Schools. The district began a preschool autism program at the Davenport School in 2002 to give autistic children early interventions so they might integrate into regular classrooms as they got older. So far, progress has been good, with more than half of students now in elementary and middle school placed in regular classes with extra help.

 “Some of them are nonverbal, and will never be mainstreamed into regular classrooms,” said Bonnie Sebastian, EHT autism supervisor. “But they can have lunch and go to music, art, gym, and other specials with the other students.”

The preschool classrooms have a maximum of eight students with a teacher and typically three aides. Almost all are boys. The district uses Applied Behavior Analysis, a rewards system, to promote cooperative behavior. Nonverbal students have picture books or Dynavox computers to help them communicate what they want or how they feel. Students may go to lunch and the playground with regular students. A few spend some of their day in a regular class.

“You can’t just throw them out into the playground because they’d just stay isolated,” Sebastian said. “We have to teach them to play with others.”

“They don’t do so many things we take for granted,” teacher Rachel Prakash said. “Sometimes progress is a little thing, like sitting together in a group, or not taking each other’s snacks.”

High school is more challenging, and many districts still send their autistic students to county special services schools which focu s on teaching life and career skills. But some are developing their own programs.

Southern Regional’s program includes 17 students with moderate to severe disabilities who used to be sent out of district, program director Joe DiPietro said.

“It’s a full comprehensive program,” he said. “And we can still do all kinds of inclusionary activities.”

Vineland just debuted a Life Skills suite at the high school with a small bedroom, bathroom and kitchen, plus an office setting and a small retail store to teach basic work skills. About 100 students with various disabilities will use the room, Special Education Director Ruth Polof said. It should also allow them to bring back some students who have been sent out of the district.

“They are a big part of the school,” she said of the students. “One student was so popular he was named Mr. Vineland.”

Special schools costly

As more students remain in their hometown schools, special services schools become even more specialized.

“In general, the pattern is that we get the students with the more moderate to severe disabilities,” said Lisabeth Buoro, superintendent of the Atlantic County Special Services School District in Mays Landing. The school focuses on life skills and also has a career education program that can train students for supervised jobs. The school has partnered with the casinos, local nursing homes and businesses.

The Cape May Special Services School offers autism consulting services to districts. Autism specialist Susan Elmer said cost is one reason more students are now educated in their hometown school.

The annual cost for an out-of-district placement can reach $100,000 including transportation, tuition and private aides as needed.

 “Inclusion is important,” Elmer said. “But the students and the teachers have to be prepared for it.  Autistic students need repetition and structure.”

She recalls feeling badly for some of her own autistic son’s teachers because they didn’t have the training to help him.

“The regular education teachers still are not getting all the training they need,” she said. “You can’t just train the special education teachers.”

Colleges are responding. Richard Stockton College held a workshop in March for speech therapists. Rowan University offers a post-graduate certificate, Georgian Court has a master’s degree and Caldwell College has begun the state’s first doctoral program in autism studies.

Elmer said autistic students want what every student wants, to be accepted for who they are.  Her autistic son attends regular high school, and mentors another disabled student. Peer support is invaluable to autistic students who often seem withdrawn.

“They understand a lot,” she said. “They know they are different. They know who they are. When we accept them, they accept themselves.”