The Autism News

The Autism News | English

Public board report finds drop overall

By Joanne Laucius | The Ottawa Citizen

Ottawa’s public schools are suspending a growing number of students with special needs from autism to learning disabilities, according to a newly released report obtained by the Citizen.

The report, which will be discussed tonight by the board of education’s Special Education Advisory Committee, shows that at the same time overall suspensions have dropped almost 38 per cent over the past five years.

But it is the increase related to the suspension of children with special needs that is raising concern.

“The kids who need help the most are the ones getting suspended,” said Dale Ford, a former special education resources teacher who acts as an advocate for the families of suspended children.

The number of suspensions among special needs students went up from 1,210 in 2006-2007 to 1,893 in 2008-2009, and represented 16 per cent of the 11,601 students who had special needs. That includes 698 students with behavioural issues; 5,185 that have an identified learning disability; 2,770 gifted students; 698 diagnosed with autism and 775 with mild intellectual disabilities.

The total number of suspensions dropped by 2,063 in the 2008-2009 academic year compared to the previous year, according to the report delivered to the Ottawa public board’s education committee.

Overall, there were 5,179 suspensions last year out of 72,565 students, representing just more than seven per cent of the total school population. That’s 32-per-cent fewer suspensions at the elementary level and more than 24-per-cent fewer suspensions in high schools compared to the previous year.

“It (the suspension of special needs children) concerns me. We really need to take a close look at students with exceptionalities,” said Dr. Petra Duschner, manager of safe schools for the school board.

Within the special-needs category, there are different suspension rates. Between 2006-2007 and 2008-2009, suspensions for students with mild intellectual disabilities increased from 18 to 33 per cent. But suspensions for students with autism were down from 7.6 per cent to 7.1 per cent.

“We really need to look at the specific cases and see what we can do to support these students effectively,” said Duschner.

Suspension rates were expected to drop after changes were made to the Safe Schools Act two years ago. Before, principals had a menu of infractions that would result in suspensions. Now, they have more latitude to choose in-school interventions instead.

Mitigating factors include the student’s inability to control behaviour or understand consequences, as well as the risks the student presents to others. If the student has an individualized learning plan, administrators also have to consider if the suspension will worsen the student’s conduct.

Duschner said any diagnosis is a mitigating factor when decisions are made, but educators are still familiarizing themselves with changes to the law.

Most suspensions are for one or two days, she said. “Time away can be good for a child.”

Nancy Gibson, who provides direction and support for the families of autistic children at the Ottawa chapter of Autism Ontario, said she is increasingly getting calls from parents who are asked if their child can take some time off school without formally being suspended. Other students are being asked to reduce the number of hours they spend in school.

Ford has about 50 clients now, all students with special needs.

“What I am seeing is basically children being suspended for being autistic,” said Ford. “They’re continuing to suspend and expel children for disability behaviour.”

Trustee Pam FitzGerald has heard complaints from parents whose children are suspended after they spiral into a meltdown.

While the number of education assistants hasn’t changed, demand has increased. For example, the number of students with autism has jumped from 394 students to 698 in just one year, an increase of over 77 per cent.

“We’re going to have more and more kids with autism in schools,” said FitzGerald. “It’s just growing in leaps and bounds and no one knows why.”

Meanwhile, there are fewer congregated classes, so the education assistants spend only a few minutes in each classroom before moving on to the next, said FitzGerald.

“A lot of kids have something that triggers them. An EA who knows that child can see it coming and whisk the child into a quiet corner.”

Linda Barbetta, executive director of the Learning Disabilities Association of Ottawa-Carleton, has noticed the numbers. There were 890 suspensions of students with learning disabilities, up from 672 the previous year.

“If you’re not successful at school, it manifests in anxiety, frustration and inattention,” said Barbetta. “When you have a number that spikes, you have to look at what you stopped doing and what you can do. And look at the schools that keep their numbers down.”

Source: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/Suspensions+rise+special+needs+students/2345723/story.html

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The Autism News | English

By MICHAEL MOORE | The Missoulian

It took Thomas Dzomba, the father of an autistic daughter, to put the discussion on school bullying at Hellgate Middle School perfectly on point Monday night.

“We are dealing with a child with autism,” Dzomba said, referring to Pat Fuglei, the autistic Hellgate eighth grader who was bullied out of school last month. “We have to make a better effort to deal with this.”

By this, he didn’t simply mean kids with autism being bullied. He meant all kids, but particularly kids with special needs.

“We have to do better,” Dzomba said.

Dzomba was one of about 10 parents who voiced concerns at a special board meeting of the Hellgate Elementary School District board.

Board member Diane Beck asked for the special meeting after an Oct. 25 story in the Missoulian detailed the taunts and harassment Pat Fuglei endured during his middle school years.

In that story, Pat’s parents, Bruce and Bridget, said their son had been repeatedly hazed during the first five weeks of the current school year. Finally, the Fugleis took Pat out of school and enrolled him in a school in Arizona that specializes in education for autistic children.

Although Pat is considered a high-functioning autistic child, he is also gullible and easily tricked. Some of his classmates took advantage of that and repeatedly told Pat to say sexually coarse things to girls in his class. Another student bullied Pat into exposing himself.

Students also taunted Pat, calling him a “retard.”

Despite that treatment, school superintendent Doug Reisig said he had no idea about the mistreatment until Pat was taken out of school.

“I’ve never spoken with the Fuglei family,” Reisig said.

One by one, the district’s three principals said they’d never heard anything about Pat being bullied. And yet Bruce Fuglei said problems were repeatedly brought to the attention of Pat’s special education teacher.

In explaining the district’s response to the Fugleis and the Missoulian story, Reisig noted that the Fugleis had never filed a formal complaint.

That explanation didn’t sit too well with Bruce Fuglei, nor did many of the 50 or so parents present Monday night appear to be swayed.

The meeting got a bit heated when Bruce Fuglei spoke and turned the tables on Reisig’s remark that he hadn’t spoken to the family.

“Is it my responsibility to track you down?” Fuglei asked Reisig. “You should have called me. We got no calls after the incident, not any. No calls from you, no calls from teachers.”

A steady stream of parents took to the microphone after Fuglei, and their concerns varied from the acute situation with Pat to the broader issue of bullying across the school.

“I’m very disappointed in the way you’ve handled this,” said Mary Jo Fanning.

Parents were particularly unhappy that the issues – both Pat leaving school and the bullying problem – haven’t been talked over with students yet.

“This has been the elephant in the room,” said parent Denise Zimmer. “All the kids are talking about it, wondering why no one will say anything.”

Reisig said a school counselor will start talking with students this week about bullying.

That, said Big Sky High School teacher and Hellgate parent Kim Lucostic said, won’t be enough.

“It’s not going to solve the problem,” said Lucostic. “The message does not reach them the first time. You’ve got to do more.”

Lucostic recommended a more extensive anti-bullying program rather than reliance on a handbook and a talk from a counselor.

“Why couldn’t this be a more teachable moment, right after this happened?” said Zimmer. “That’s when you needed to be talking about this.”

By meeting’s end, several board members said the problem was firmly entrenched on their radar screens.

“This is something that we are going to spend a lot more time on in the future,” said board member Paula Sheridan. “We’ve got to do a better job for these kids.”

Source: http://www.missoulian.com/news/local/article_0db93d3a-c846-11de-b226-001cc4c03286.html

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Seeing her son come home from school in tears after classmates called him “Retard” and placed a “Kick Me” sign on his back marked the turning point for Mary Calhoun Brown.

By Eric Fossell | WSAZ 3

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) – Seeing her son come home from school in tears after classmates called him “Retard” and placed a “Kick Me” sign on his back marked the turning point for Mary Calhoun Brown.

Likewise, Kim Scott pulled her son out of Cabell County Schools after a diagnosis of bipolar disorder failed to bring him the educational attention she said he needed.

Both mothers decided to home school their sons, and they’re on a mission to educate parents and educators about the lack of resources in public and private schools for kids with behavioral and mood disorders.

Throughout our region – in West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky – suicide ranks as one of the top three leading causes of death for 11- to 18-year-old youths, according to the latest statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Furthermore, 90 percent of youth suicide victims had a major psychiatric disorder – typically bipolar disorder or depression.

Scott, whose 13-year-old son suffers from bipolar disorder, said a lack of knowledge and trained staff in private and public schools makes the issue even more traumatic, especially during the middle school years.

“There’s absolutely no training, even though people have been talking about this for years,” she said. “It’s the worst statistics of any disability group,” she added, referring to youths with behavioral and mood disorders.

Kathy McCoy, special education director for Cabell County Schools, confirmed that not every middle school is equipped to deal with some mood and behavioral disorders.

“We do not have a self-contained classroom at every middle school for students with severe behavioral difficulties,” she said. “We do have such a classroom at both high schools (Huntington and Cabell Midland). Everything depends on the needs of the student. We try to keep kids in their home schools if at all possible.”

Both Scott and Brown, whose 14-year-old son was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome (commonly known as a mild form of autism), said they’re fortunate to have the resources and time to home school their sons.

“We struggled all through 6th grade,” Brown said. “My son cried ever day. I told him, ‘I’ll give you two years at home.’ ”

While home schooling is a personal choice with obvious benefits, it has isolation drawbacks – even for kids with special needs, said Cabell County Schools Superintendent Bill Smith.

“It may be a parent’s choice and they certainly know best, but we need to accommodate students in the public school system as best we can,” he said. “You hurt for (students struggling with behavioral, emotional and physical issues) every day … Sometimes you want to rescue them, but that’s not always the best thing. If a child can be in public school and if we get the environment right, they have to work with people.”

Diane Mufson, a licensed psychologist who practices in Huntington, said it’s easy to forget that school – especially middle school – is a difficult time for all youngsters.

“Whether or not they have a disability or problem, middle school kids are not known for being accepting,” she said. They’re going through their own development and insecurities. Insecure people are not known for being the most understanding. While you want to protect your child from being hurt, basically, if you ask adults, very few would say they would like to be back in middle school.”

Brown has written a novel, “There Are No Words,” based on characters living with autism. She said its main purpose is to “demystify these odd behaviors,” explaining that discrimination against youths with hidden challenges such as Asperger’s syndrome or bipolar disorder is more sinister than against youths struggling with physical challenges.

“Students intuitively know it’s bad form to make fun of the blind guy or the guy in the wheelchair,” she said. “But the autistic guy looks exactly like they do. He just acts differently.”

Smith said behavioral disorders have posed some of the greatest challenges for educators, especially with bipolar kids.

“We have kids with all disabilities, but I think the most troublesome is bipolar disorder,” he said. “Some bipolar kids are extremely aggressive, and others are passive.”

McCoy said educators with Cabell County Schools are making every effort to accommodate the needs of as many youngsters as possible, adding that services may differ according to the severity of a child’s disability.

“We have a continuum of services at our middle and high schools for students with disabilities,” she said. “Students with mild disabilities can attend their home middle school in all cases. Students with moderate to severe disabilities sometimes have to be transported to an alternate middle school as we do not have every program for these students in every middle school. High school age students can attend their home high school because we do have every program available at both high schools.”

McCoy said not having programs at each middle school for children with conditions such as bipolar disorder and Asperger’s syndrome is not based on the budget. She explained that bipolar disorder is not considered a category under special education.

“Most students with the disorder would fall into the categories of ‘other health impaired” or, depending on the level of their behavior problems, ‘emotional/behavior disorder,’ ” she said. “Asperger syndrome students fall under the umbrella of autism, and their placement is dependent on the level of need also. The main reason we don’t have a self-contained classroom at every middle school is because there are not enough students with that level of need to support a classroom at every school. Students who are placed in a self-contained classroom generally have very intense needs that cannot be supported in the regular class.”

Brown and Scott emphasized they’re not critical toward Cabell County Schools, saying that the school system does a fine job with kids with physical and mental challenges – especially during the elementary and high school years.

Middle school students, however, are largely overlooked, both women said. They said special resource rooms for kids with behavioral and mood disorders, as well as trained staff to work with them, are nonexistent in middle school.

“If you can give these sorts of services in elementary and high school, why not in middle school?” Brown said.

Smith said educators are doing the best they can with the knowledge and resources available, adding that tremendous advances in special education issues have occurred since the early 1970s.

“It’s something we’re constantly learning as we go, especially regarding the proliferation of some personality disorders as it impacts the school system,” he said. “I think we have a process (of the best way to educate) students based on how they behave. There are a variety of ways those students learn. It’s not an easy process. It would be nice to have a prescription, but it’s not that way.

“The main thing we do in Cabell County is to be accepting and work toward that with the parent. Medical recommendations are not always in tune with what works best educationally.”

Despite some inherent problems with mainstreaming, it has helped children with special needs and disabilities relate to their peers, according to Mufson.

“Essentially, what’s happened is schools have changed dramatically in the last 20 years,” she said. “In general, those who work with kids with special needs — a lot of that has improved. What they’ve tried to do is recognize all kinds of abilities that are different from kids’ peers – things that make kids special … It’s probably difficult to give every kid with special needs opportunities that would be viable.”

Despite the argument for or against educational mainstreaming, Scott said addressing educational issues early is important — not only for youngsters but for our entire society. The state of Illinois, for example, saved more than $44 million because of early screening and support of children with mental health issues, according to information from the Illinois Children’s Mental Health Partnership.

Mufson said parents can help by being as honest and supportive with their children as possible.

“We have media and influences that reach out from all over, most notably the Internet,” she said. “Some of that is very good, and some of it can distress youngsters. One of the things parents can do is give their kids encouragement such as, ‘This is a rough age. I’ve been there. Things won’t be easy, but things will get better.’ ”

Things already are looking up for Brown’s and Scott’s children. Brown’s son has since returned to the public school setting for high school. Academically, he’s ranked second in his class. Scott said she plans to reintroduce her son to Cabell County Schools when he starts high school.

Source: http://www.wsaz.com/huntington/headlines/56209242.html

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By SHARON ASCHAIEK| The Observer | SPECIAL TO SUN MEDIA

Finishing homework, making friends and dealing with bullying are what typically preoccupy parents as help their children succeed at school.

But when it comes to special needs kids, there’s much more to handle: ensuring customized instruction, securing access to appropriate learning tools, ensuring sufficient supervision, and more.

“Parents really need to understand the school system, and they have to know what their children are entitled to,” says special education advocate Lindsay Moir.

Moir is a former Ministry of Education special education specialist who now runs Comhnadh Consulting, which helps parents, agencies and associations obtain appropriate special education for exceptional pupils in Ontario. He offers parents of schoolchildren with special needs such as autism, ADD, ADHD or fetal alcohol syndrome the following tips:

Focus on needs, not services When meeting with school administrators and teachers, Moir says, parents should focus on their children’s needs, and let the school worry about how to meet them.

“Parents will often say, my child needs an EA (educational assistant). You need to say, my child needs close adult supervision to keep him safe, or needs to be taught social skills on a one-to-one basis, and your child is entitled to have their needs met,” Moir says.

“If you say you need an EA, they start talking money and budget. When you say, they need adult supervision to ensure their safety, their thinking goes in a different direction.”

Talk about the how

Once you’ve established your child’s needs, he says, discuss the steps involved to best meet them. Explain to them the strategies you’re using to help your child function and achieve success, and how they could be implemented in the classroom.

“You’re going to show them what needs to be done. You’re not moving your child’s therapy into school and asking the teachers to be therapists, so much as making them better observers of your child and facilitators of strategies,” he says.

Be cooperative

Having a collaborative approach will help you achieve better services for your child, he says, even, in some cases, ones typically not typically accepted in school settings.

Many kids with autism, for instance, require a certain amount of one-on-one instruction and support of an applied behaviour analyst (ABA) therapist to help them perform in and integrate into a classroom of typical children.

While schools won’t allow these therapists into schools–a controversial matter in many provinces–parents may be able to work out their own arrangements with their school principals.

“This is happening in individual cases, and those success stories spawn other people to other try it,” he says.

Write it down

When discussing your child’s special education needs and services with school personnel, be sure to get everything in writing, Moir says. The more detailed your notes, he says, the better you’ll be able to access the services that were promised to your child.

“I can always say I misunderstood you, but if you give me something in writing, it’s less open to misunderstanding,” he says.

Be persistent and well informed

You are your child’s best advocate who most fully understands their needs, Moir says, so it’s up to you to educate yourself about what the school system owes your child, and to be dogged in your pursuit of sufficient and personalized services for him or her.

“No is just a barrier to get around. You need to say to them, if you have helped me as much as you can, who do I need to go to next,” he says. “The ability to be well informed and persistent is the key to success.”

Source: http://www.theobserver.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1707936

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The Autism News English aba, add, ADHD, autism, autistic, Bullying, fetal alcohol syndrome, homework, special-needs students

The Autism News | English

By Nicole Lee

PITTSFORD — It’s evident when sitting in teacher David Wikiera’s class at Allen Creek Elementary School that students are required to be active participants in their education.

One of the first things Wikiera asks the 18 second-graders sitting before him is what they will do to help their own learning process.

During story time, Wikiera reads from The Boxcar Children book series and requires the students to read along with him. They answer questions about the story and interpret the significance of certain passages. The point is to make reading an engaged activity for students, not just a passive listening exercise.

All the children are expected to focus and positively support each other, including a special-needs child aided in Wikiera’s class by a sign-language interpreter.

Wikiera stressed that collaborating with the additional staff that a special-needs child may require and communicating with other Allen Creek educators are critical to ensure that a student — regardless of his or her ability — will learn.

“The focus is, what are the student’s needs and how do we design an instructional environment for that?” he said. “Learning happens on my end, too.”

Wikiera’s commitment to students earned him the inaugural 2008-09 “Inclusive Teacher of the Year” award created by the Pittsford Parent Advocates for Special Students group.

The recognition honors general education teachers who make extraordinary efforts to involve special-needs students within a general education classroom. Teachers must be nominated for the honor, and Wikiera was selected from a total of 16 nominees. His name appears on the award plaque hanging in the school district’s special education office, and he was publicly recognized by the Pittsford school board.

“It’s wonderful when a teacher like Mr. Wikiera takes that extra effort to work with a family and child to ensure a successful (school) year,” said Jane Moore of Pittsford, a former PASS chair. “We’re really happy to start this program.”

Wikiera, 51, of Webster, has been an educator for 27 years, including time spent as a special education and deaf education teacher. He was nominated for the PASS award by Lisa Visca, whose son Matthew was taught by Wikiera in the third grade.

Matthew, now a Calkins Road Middle School student, has mild autism and Asberger’s syndrome but takes some courses in a general education classroom.

Visca, of Pittsford, said her son blossomed both academically and socially under Wikiera’s tutelage, and she remembers the joy of seeing her son’s work displayed with his third-grade peers outside Wikiera’s classroom for a student project on the Iditarod, the annual dog sled race in Alaska.

Wikiera “hones in on teaching kids how to be good readers,” Visca said. “Personality-wise, I couldn’t have asked for a better match between the two; that was refreshing.”

Children at Allen Creek are very comfortable interacting with fellow students who have developmental and/or physical disabilities, said Wikiera, who credits the staff for creating an inclusive environment at the elementary school.

“David conveys a love for teaching and encourages his students to set high expectations for the quality of their work,” said Allen Creek principal Michael Biondi. “His … willingness to put out tremendous energy for each child in his class is evident every day.”

Source: http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20090705/NEWS01/907050371/1002/NEWS/Pittsford+teacher+honored+for+work+with+special-needs+students

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By Alisha A. Pina | The Providence Journal | Rhode Island news

EAST PROVIDENCE Meet 4-year-old David Stevens.

A ball of energy, he loves the Red Sox and tells everyone he meets, “Yankees drool, Red Sox rule.”

David also dislikes loud noises and big crowds and he worries a lot. Another child’s meltdown can wreck his day. His teachers at the Providence Center have shown him alternatives to screaming and running away — music from his iPod helps, as well as talking about it and taking deep breaths.

His mother, Rose Stevens, says the “great strides” he has made are because of the Providence Center and its teachers.

Yet she didn’t hesitate to call East Providence school officials when the district announced it had teamed up with Bradley Hospital, off Veterans Memorial Parkway — the country’s oldest hospital for children with mental illness — to bring “home” dozens of special-needs students who are taught outside the community.“Right now, he’s on a two-hour bus trip and he’s not even five,” Stevens said, referring to a circuitous route of pickups. “It’s just too long for the little guy.”

David will start kindergarten at Silver Spring Elementary School this fall. School officials say the new partnership with Bradley brings a “world class” program to some of the city children with the most difficult educational problems.

And they say it will save about a half-million dollars in out-of-district tuitions in a school budget that’s already more than $5 million in the red. East Providence has roughly 185 special-needs students taught outside the city at a total annual cost of $8.7 million, or 11.2 percent of the department’s operating budget. Ten years ago, those costs were $6 million less. There are a total of 5,542 children covered by the city school budget. Of those, 1,301 special-needs students are educated in city schools, in addition to those placed outside the district.

“That’s a driver in the budget,” Supt. Mario Cirillo says of out-of-district special-education costs. “One of my purposes in doing this is not only to stop the out-of-district tuitions, but reverse it.”

Bradley officials are excited about the new initiative.

“We’ve always felt like together, with the right combination, there was an opportunity for success here,” Bradley president Daniel J. Wall says. “The goal of the whole program is to try to bring these kids home, bring them home to the East Providence public schools, then as quickly and appropriately as possible, reintegrate these youngsters into regular education classrooms,” says Kevin Myers, Bradley’s director of education. “We feel that by having these programs embedded in the schools, we are maximizing our chances of getting the youngsters into the regular classrooms.”

The first step in the new system was to identify students who would fit the new program.

Then, they will be educated in separate classrooms within city schools. Each classroom will have fewer than 10 students who are similar in age and cognitive skills. If they make enough progress, the final step is to integrate them back fully into regular classrooms.

The partnership, said Wall, is “the middle step” and the chosen students will “get our highest quality of expertise.”

There will be three classrooms each at Silver Spring Elementary School, Riverside Middle School and Martin Middle School. The district’s goal is to bring back more than a third of the out-placed students, most of whom have emotional or behavioral disabilities –– such as 4-year-old David, who was diagnosed with anxiety disorder last year –– or who are developmentally delayed.

The Silver Spring and Riverside classes will be for students with emotional or behavioral disabilities. There will be one teacher and one assistant in each class as well as two floating assistants and a clinician on site. Additional support –– nurses or occupational, physical or speech/language therapists –– will be provided if necessary.

Martin’s classrooms are for returning students with developmental disabilities, such as autism. Each Martin classroom will have one teacher and two teacher assistants. And as in the other two schools, there will be two floating assistants and a clinician on site with the opportunity to get additional support.

The new program is modeled on smaller partnership Bradley currently has with the Middletown school district. For the last 12 years, a Bradley teacher, paraprofessional and clinician have taught an average of six to eight children each school year in one classroom at the Gaudet Middle School. The hospital has a second program at Newport’s career and technical center and also previously staffed a classroom in Newport “that was so successful we went out of business, which is really a great thing,” Myers said.

In all, there will be 30 Bradley staff and as many as 5 district employees used for the East Providence program. The district plans to have everyone hired by Aug. 30.

“I think these kids deserve to be in the mainstream,” Cirillo said. “… I will always be a strong advocate for inclusion, but it’s hard. It demands training and professional development, especially in the regular education arena. I’ve seen it work very well, but it takes a lot of planning and we’re doing that.”

“This will be a world-class program where we will have the support that these kids need to be successful. The beauty of this is not only the partnership and support, but it also has a very fluid flexibility to it. If our kids are having a difficult time adjusting” to public school settings, they can move to classrooms at Bradley.

A total of 66 students –– who represent $3.4 million of this year’s tuition costs –– will come back to their home city in September and the district is likely to identify 10 to 15 more.

The average per-pupil cost for the designated students is $51,500 a year. Bradley will charge the district $40,000 per student and the additional district staff will cost about $340,000, Cirillo said. In the end, the program will save the city $525,000 a year.

Although the savings estimate doesn’t include the cost of building “quiet rooms” at the three schools, Bradley will provide as much as $200,000 in capital improvement money as well as pay for the architect, plans and construction materials. The district will provide the labor for the construction that is planned to be finished by Aug. 15, Cirillo told the School Committee earlier this month.

Public forums at the three schools have also begun. Concerned parents of current students and other residents came out to ask questions at Silver Spring May 19. Some parents of Silver Spring students have also contacted The Journal with their concerns.

They worry that there should be more teachers or aides for the 10 students in each classroom, that the district is “moving too fast” with the program and that the safety of the current public school students might be compromised.

“It’s going to be an adjustment and I have concerns as well,” Rose Stevens said. “My son can have tough days and I worry because people, parents and students, can be cruel sometimes. I just want people to recognize that these guys deserve to be in the district as much as anyone else and at the end of the day, tough or not, my son is a really good boy.”

Source: http://www.projo.com/news/content/EAST_PROVIDENCE_SPECIAL_NEEDS_05-26-09_SFEF95_v89.3cda9a2.html

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The Autism News English autism, autistic, Bradley Hospital, David Stevens, East Providence, East Providence schools, English, Rhode Island, Rose Stevens, special-needs students