May 14, 2010
Autistic Boy Charged with Making Terroristic Threats Over Stick Figure
There’s a story about a school disciplinary action from Sandy Springs, Georgia about an autistic student drew an objectionable sketch. The story is notable for the school’s excessive, over-reaching reaction. In Autistic Boy Charged With Making Terrorist Threats Over Stick-Figure Sketch, one learns that a fourteen-year old boy is
facing terrorist charges after a sketch he made in school.
The sketch shows two stick-figures. One of them is labeled ‘Me’ and is shown shooting a gun at another with a teacher’s name above it. Karen Finn says that her son, 8th grader Shane Finn, doesn’t understand why he is in trouble. She says the boy is autistic and has the mental capacity of a 3rd grader.
Officials at Ridgeview Charter School say the student will face a tribunal and is being charged with making terrorist threats.
Finn says she plans to fight the charges.
There’s also a news clip from a Fox television station that that describes Shane Finn’s actions. Absent additional information about the student’s conduct previous to drawing the sketch, this is just thin gruel.
Such cases often come about through the poor exercise of administrative discretion, and in its place the imposition of a rough-hewn, one-size-fits-all approach to student behavior. The teacher, or administrators decide that rules are rules, and that those rules must be applied the same way, each and every time.
This amounts to an over-reliance on the need for consistency at the expense of sound judgment through the application of rules to specific conditions.
If one had a dollar for every settle time an administrator worried excessively about assuring that everything was consistent, he or she could fund a good part of a school district’s budget.
May 13, 2010
Oakstone Academy Promotional Video
On Tuesday, I posted an Associated Press story about Oakstone Academy, an elementary and middle school with a mixture of autistic and non-autistic students. The story did not describe the proportion of each group, and neither does a promotional video from the school.
Still, the video is suggestive of a large number of autistic students.
Here it is, just under four minutes long:
May 11, 2010
Ohio School Mixes Autistics and Non-Autistics Together
There’s a very brief story from the Associated Press about Oakstone Academy in central Ohio. The school has reportedly become popular for its approach of mixing autistics and non-autistics in classrooms, with a significant portion of autistics.
Well worth learning more.
The story is available at Ohio School Mixes Autistics and Non-Autistics Together.
May 10, 2010
Autism Pioneer Stanley Greenspan Dies
CNN reports that autism pioneer and child psychologist Dr. Stanley Greenspan died last Tuesday at the age of sixty-eight.
Greenspan was known for his “floor-time approach,” in which parents were encouraged to seek a relationship based approach with autistics rather than a behavioral approach.
Countless children were helped in this way, and the importance of this approach to advocacy on behalf of autistics as neurodiverse persons cannot be ignored.
The CNN story is available at Autism Pioneer Stanley Greenspan Dies.
January 18, 2010
California: Families Sue Over Discontinued Autism Therapy
Families Sue Over Discontinued Autism Therapy
Sent from my BlackBerry
January 20, 2008
Autism, WiFi, and Law
Some months ago, there were any number of reports that there was a correlation between increased use of Wi-Fi, and other communications technologies, and incidence of autism. An example of such a report can be found from Business Wire, entitled, “Research on Correlation Between Autism, Cell Phones, and Wireless Computers by Tamara Mariea.”
That’s correlation, not causation, by the way.
For a thorough debunking of the Wi-Fi and autism correlation, see the solid analysis at Ars Technica, entitled, “Autism and WiFi, a Detailed Debunking.”
This is one of the times that, concerns about the excessive creativity of the plaintiff’s bar notwithstanding, one can be sanguine about the legal value of work like Mariea’s. The cost of undertaking a case is high, in analysis and money, and is a barrier to crackpot theories. Could be, might be, perhaps, etc. are just not enough to justify a case against any number of tech companies with the means to mount a thorough, compelling defense.
The cost for a press release of a shoddy study is low, but fortunately, law sets the cost of a lawsuit far higher.
November 11, 2007
Lead in Toys
Over at AutismVox, there’s a justifiably skeptical post about a letter to the editor suggesting that lead in toys might be responsible for the supposed ‘autism epidemic.’
I know of no solid medicine supporting a lead-toy-to-autism hypothesis, but the plaintiff’s bar may find a reputed expert, somewhere. It’s likely that there will be lawsuits over these lead-containing toys, but I am not sure if they’ll implicate autism.
In any event, mere implication is neither evidence nor proof of causation.
June 17, 2007
Happy Father’s Day
Best wishes to dads everywhere for a great Father’s Day. Here’s a picture of my late father, when he was only three years old, from Wyoming.
May 29, 2007
Parents Have Independent, Substantive Rights Under IDEA: Winkleman v. Parma City School District (Part 3 of 3).
On May 21st, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision in Winkelman v. Parma City School District. The court held that IDEA grants parents independent, enforceable rights (beyond mere procedural matters) regarding entitlement to a free appropriate public education for their children. (Readers may find the syllabus, opinion, and concurring opinion of the case at the website of my alma mater. The syllabus is not part of the opinion, but merely a summary for readers’ convenience.) In this post, I will analyze the minority (both concurring and dissenting) opinion.
The Court faces two issues in Winkelman:
1. Does IDEA grant parents independent, enforceable rights, which are not limited to procedural and reimbursement-related matters but encompass the entitlement to a free appropriate public education for their children?
2: Does IDEA entitle parents to litigate their child’s claims pro se?
The majority, in an opinion from Justice Kennedy, concludes that “Petitioners construe these various provisions to accord parents independent, enforceable rights under IDEA. We agree. The parents enjoy enforceable rights at the administrative stage, and it would be inconsistent with the statutory scheme to bar them from continuing to assert these rights in federal court.†Because the majority finds that parents have independent rights entitling them to proceed pro se, they do not address the second issue (can parents litigate their children’s claims pro se).
Justices Scalia and Thomas conclude that (1) IDEA grants parents only independent procedural rights at the administrative stage, (2) but that those independent procedural rights would enable parents to proceed pro se in federal court for reimbursement of private tuition and for violations of administrative rights. For this reason, Justice Scalia’s opinion is both a dissent and a concurrence: Scalia and Thomas reject the means by which the majority allows parents to recover, but would recognize some right of recovery on more limited means.
Justice Scalia sees in IDEA a clear limit on how parents may proceed on their own behalf, with procedural and administrative rights for parents, but substantive rights – that is, whether the child received a free appropriate public education – residing with the child only.
It’s hard not to read this opinion and see how out-of-touch Scalia has become. Most parents – far more than merely parents of autistic children – would be surprised that Scalia thinks that parents would not have a direct, substantive interest in a free, appropriate public education for a child. When Scalia writes that keeping pro se cases from clogging the federal docket is a positive consequence of his analysis, he ignores the kind of cases he would be keeping out: parents trying to assert rights regarding their disabled children’s education. Scalia contends that there is a difference between interests and rights, but here his argument will fall on deaf ears; a parental right so closely allied to a child’s is one the majority of this country will recognize. The majority’s interpretation of the statute is likely closer to that of most Americans from across the political s spectrum.
Although Scalia still has some rhetorical fire (“The Court’s spraying statutory sections about like buckshot cannot create a substantive parental right to education where none existsâ€), his opinion in Winkelman is narrow, unsympathetic, and unlikely to be remembered. Scalia, himself, will be remembered as a consequential associate justice, but not for this minority opinion.
May 28, 2007
Memorial Day 2007
Happy Memorial Day. My late father served with distinction with the Ninth Infantry Division in the Second World War, and he and countless others have earned the thanks of our nation.
