Sherri R. Tucker
1200 SE London Way
Lee’s Summit, MO 64081
816-554-3017
autism@kc.rr.com
Mr. Jerry Semsch
Acting Director
Herndon Career Center
11501 E. 350 Highway
Raytown, MO 64138
Mr. Semsch,
My son attended Lee’s Summit High School and he was referred to your center for vocational testing. My son has a diagnosis of Early Infantile Autism/Kanner’s Syndrome, Inattentive and Impulsive ADHD, Dysgraphia, and Anxiety Disorder. These diagnoses are documented in his IEP.
I have never allowed my son to attend an IEP meeting because the environment is negative and can do nothing but harm him and as his mother I have carefully avoided that. He has always disliked school and I was trying very hard to avoid giving him further reason to hate it.
I was under the impression that attending the meeting to discuss his evaluation at your center would be harmless and might even be helpful for him. Therefore, I allowed him to attend. It was worse than any IEP meeting that I have ever attended.
The woman that represented your center was very negative toward my son and obviously did not understand his disabilities. She berated him during the entire meeting and he kept telling her that he was sorry and that he had not meant to offend her. The issues that she had with my son were behaviors that are due to his disability. I kept trying to explain that to her, but she kept telling me that I better straighten him out.
Following are examples of her evaluation and the inappropriateness of her demeanor and her evaluation of my son:
Although Jacob has the motor visual skills to complete this basic assembly type of work, his results were not encouraging. This was due to failure to follow his instructions and lack of attention to detail. He did not seem to follow videotaped instructions well. He work style reflected the issues with his work behaviors. Jacob was consistently very impulsive, very impatient with instructions (and demonstrations) and often inappropriate in the way he interacted with his supervisors and his task. He often cut his supervisors off in the middle of instructions, once even grabbing materials out of the supervisor’s hands. Clearly Jacob has some understanding of his problematic behaviors. At one juncture he was asked if could do a required task, even if he did not want to. His answer: “I can. But, will I?”
Jacob was so confused that he didn’t even know what he was doing there. They asked him what area he wanted to work in and he didn’t know which to pick. He picked electronics assembly because his uncle is an electrician and it was the only thing that seemed remotely familiar.
Jacob was asked to pretend that he was an employee and the instructor was his supervisor. Children with autism do not know how to pretend play. He had no idea what that relationship would look like and he was asked to do something that he is incapable of doing.
A quick glance at Jake’s IEP would have let the instructor know that Jake cannot follow instructions that are more than two steps and that they have to be written down for him. Repeatedly going over the instructions will only overwhelm him and cause him great anxiety. This is common with children with autism and should be known by someone that is trying to evaluate children with autism.
Social concerns are also an issue for children with autism. They have no idea how to interact with other people in an appropriate manner. That is not a problematic behavior. It is a disability.
Jacob likes to think that he can be a comedian. He often tries, unsuccessfully, to be funny. One of his favorite things to say is, “I can. But will I?” Of course he then complies. Once again this is not an acknowledgement by him of knowing that he has problematic behavior. It was a child that has no social skills trying to be social.
To say that this meeting was less than productive would be an understatement. My child was berated and treated like he had committed some major crime. He was so concerned that he had offended this woman and in reality she had offended me. Clearly, she had no knowledge of the disabilities that my son has and the behaviors that come with them. She just kept saying that he would never have a job and that he needed to work on these issues.
I was going to just let this go. I removed my son from school the following week. He has now joined the ranks of high school dropouts. It was clear to me that children with disabilities are not going to get the services that they need or the respect that they deserve and it was time to remove him from the care of these type of people. But, the more I have thought about this the more I felt that it was my duty to bring this to your attention. I would be just as responsible for letting happen to other children if I didn’t notify those that were in a position to remedy this situation.
I hope that you take the time to read this and address this. I would hate to see other disabled children be forced to endure this same treatment.
Sincerely,
Sherri R. Tucker
"It is often easier to become outraged by injustice half a world away than by oppression and discrimination half a block from home." Carl T. Rowan
Sherri R. Tucker
President, SER (Special Education Reform)
President, Lee's Summit Autism Support Group
autism@kc.rr.com
http://www.lsautism.org/
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