Merry Christmas, Mr. President.

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Sitting here in my living room tonight, I watched the news of passage of historic healthcare legislation with a heavy heart. My son who has autism slept on the other end of the couch because today had been a bad day. How will we do this now? I thought.

You see, if we could, we'd have insurance now. The experience of Tricare was the "good old days", if you ignore the damage done by sending a father and husband off to war in order to get good insurance. Insurance companies deny us or price us out of coverage. Even reserve coverage was too high to manage with unemployment looming, so now we've gone without.

A mandate to buy insurance, I thought, looking at that obscenely bright Christmas tree in my tiny living room. If I had anything of value now, I'd sell it to get insurance, so Darrel could go back to speech therapy. If I had options, I'd go hungry to get him occupational therapy, just like I choose between good food and perscription refills now. Now, that we're to be mandated to pay the rates demanded for insurance. How will we go on? I just can't see it.

And there sits that damned Christmas tree. Oh, the things it took to make Christmas happen this year! Barely making layaway payments with my heart in my toes. Family pitching in to help with the big things. Keeping the big things to a minimum. Then this news. It's just an early present, sir.

It's not that I don't get it. Some will be helped by this plan, I'm sure. Somebody will get dental care that wouldn't have, but why do I have the suspicion that it's not my sons and daughter? Why do I have this sinking feeling that all this reform means to us is yet another bill we can't pay? All because some insurance company had the pull that the people lack, we're looking at another long year and wondering if this is the one we don't get through.

Then Leiberman says you never pressured him for a public option. That broke my hope, Sir.  A few weeks ago, I toughed out a kidney stone at home and remembered my father doing the same. He was always insured, by the way. He wanted to save the money, if he could, but our family didn't even have it. I missed work at a part-time job we couldn't afford to miss and endured pain you couldn't imagine. Do you know how many of our friends are doing the same? People who, in my father's day, would have been considered to be doing okay are reduced to home remedies and hope.

There's something fundamentally wrong with this country if nothing above this paragraph matters. It matters that someone tried to change things, I suppose. Merry Christmas!

Our family video

Extended School Year Services

It's a touchy subject, ESY. Still, parents and teachers and administrators are supposed to sit down once a year and discuss it. Really discuss it. Not dismiss it off-hand and sweep the subject under the carpet. Istart 7 makes that more likely, but we still have a long way to go.

When does a kid need extended school year? When they will not retain over long breaks the information or skills they got in the school year. When they get "stuck" at break time with a burgeoning skill that should be cultivated. When students have "special considerations" like a degenerative condition or seizure disorder. Unfortunately, I encounter lots of educators who think of ESY as some kind of hand out and not the useful, invaluable service that it is.  Don't ask me why. I don't get it.

Parents can advocate for their children with data. Make sure you collect as much data on your child as possible.  A trend of regression can usually be spotted in the patterns found in constant record keeping. It's imperative that you collect your own and insist on collection at school. Another important note to remember is that there should ALWAYS be a discussion, a serious, lengthy discussion, on every individual child's needs. This is covered in the guidelines for ESY provided by the state of Indiana.

Case conference committees are supposed to be a collaborative effort. That requires more work than typically observed. Teachers get in a hurry because they are genuinely swamped with work. Parents don't always know what should be discussed and how much is left out on any particular subject. The guidelines (based on case law by the way) are extremely important.  When we follow the law and the data, it removes the emotion of the decision. By analyzing our evidence, schools and parents can leave their own baggage at the door and truly focus only on the child, not the cost or fear of failure or anything else.

A Club is Born!

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RISE Learning Center will have LEGO therapy, or at least a club! The LEGOs are due in January, and today I sold the idea of trying to get colleges involved as facilitators. It's only a matter of time now.

We did it last year, but it was a disorganized, understaffed mess. The kids loved it. There's something about being with people who get you. In my opinion, it's a piece that's being lost in educating our autistic children.

For them, it was like walking into Cheers. Everybody knew their names, and everyone in that room knew autism. Sometimes, we forget how hard it is to be different. Special needs kids have that issue without ceasing. How great is it that this club can be good for them too?

I got the study from a teacher, and it blew my mind. LEGO therapy worked better than a commonly used social skills program. The results are preliminary, but it's looking good for LEGOs.  Extra-curricular activities are so hard to find for special needs students that I'd have done it for that alone, but when you add the bottom line, I'm sold.

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