Kathy and Calvin's Home Page

lt's unfortunate to see how few people in the schools are qualified to deal with autism when so many children are being diagnosed.

A mand is a terrible thing to waste.

You ought to meet MY mind. Scary place indeed. Big dark rooms withoverflowing file cabinets all over the place. Can't find a damn thing.

If everyone spreads the word about verbal behavior "then perhaps effective methods like those taught by Dr. Carbone will become the standard and not the exception."

As part of an individualized program, the role of parents and family members will be viewed as critical and an intensive home component will be seen to be the vital glue that enables the entire program to work. Parents will be encouraged to be co-leaders with therapistsand educators in mobilizing a comprehensive, intensive, relationship-based, individualized approach for their children with special needs.

To implement these principles (which are described in some detail inour new Interdisciplinary Council on Developmental and Learning Disorders 'Clinical Practice Guidelines) will require significant improvements to services for children with special needs in most parts of the country. Even the best educational systems and most enlightened communities fall far short of providing sufficiently intensive, relationship-based, individualized approaches that work with the child's underlying individual differences and developmental capacities. Consequently the vast majority of children with special needs are not reaching their potential.

"The first step to changing student behavior is changing teacher behavior"

Eclecticism is such a popular term in the field of education. It has such a worldly cosmopolitan ring, doesn't it? When I hear someone say they have an "eclectic" approach to a problem they either (a) do not understand the problem, (b) do not have a solution, or (c) both.

The present polarization is not productive. "ABA is the only way" is just as bad as "No intervention is needed because I never needed any..." What is needed is adequate support and respect for families so that they can learn of the diversity of interventions and use one or a mix, depending on their child's needs.

Remember, never attribute to malice what can easily be explained by incompetence.

Outcomes observed for Principals and District Superintends who have faithfully implemented DI:

1. All the parents will love him because their kids are reading, but the scores won’t change, and he’ll get such bad press from the newspapers that the school board will fire him anyway.

2. All the parents will love him because their kids are reading, and the scores will go up, so he’ll be accused of cheating and the school board will fire him anyway.

3. All the parents will love him because their kids are reading, but the scores will go down because the Whole Language tests aren’t aligned with sane instructional sequences, so he’ll be accused of failing and the school board will fire him.

4. All the parents will love him because their kids are reading, so he’ll leave the district to start a charter school.