By Kim Stagliano
Age of Autism
Dailey Web Newspaper of the Autism Epidemic
May 17, 2010
A teen with Asperger's named John Odgren was convicted earlier this month of first degree murder for stabbing a schoolmate to death in Sudbury, Massachusetts. Their local online news site ran an article, Parent Worry Odgren Conviction Could Cast Shadow on Asperger's. The comments there are frankly chilling, with a good deal of anger and bitterness toward the special education population. When Cho went on a shooting spree at Virginia Tech, the whispers of his perhaps having Asperger's made me so angry I wrote a Huffington Post piece to scream, Autism does not mean violent!If your child (special needs or typical) was sitting in class with the boy in Georgia who drew a threatening picture (see story below), would you want him charged and removed from the class or would his diagnosis make you pause and help work toward teaching him smarter choices? I've had these conversations with friends who sons have autism and Asperger's; it's a source of real worry. We need to have these tough conversations, even though they are heart wrenching. How do we protect and teach our kids on the spectrum? David Knowles, AOL News
(May 14) -- A 14-year-old autistic boy in Georgia faces possible felony charges of making terroristic threats after he drew a stick-figure version of himself firing a gun at his teacher.
After discovering the crudely rendered drawing that Shane Finn had made on his classwork, officials at Atlanta's Ridgeview Charter School suspended the eighth-grader and decided to pursue charges against him, Fox News in Atlanta reported...
Read the full article and watch the video on Fox Atlanta HERE. Kim Stagliano is Managing Editor
of Age of Autism.
Her book, All I Can Handle; I'm No Mother Teresa is available for pre-order and will be published in November
To go to story please tap on link: http://www.ageofautism.com/2010/05/should-zero-tolerance-apply-to-those-with-autism-ga-boy-faces-charges-for-threatening-drawing.html?cid=6a00d8357f3f2969e20133edbc6b5f970b
All About Developmental Disabilities (AADD) is Atlanta's preeminent resource on developmental disabilities, providing support services to families for more than 55 years. We are often the one place where people with developmental disabilities can go to achieve personal empowerment, family stability and community participation. AADD provides family support; public policy and advocacy; and community engagement.
1 comment:
I'm Shane's mom. The follow up to Shane's ordeal was we were forced to move out of the state by the school district and signed a document stating we would not enroll him in a GA public school. When the County DAs office found out (9 months after the incident) that Shane had Autism they declined to move forward with the felony charges.
The school "officials" insisted they would include my son's IEP with the charging instrument, which they ultimately failed to do.
I watched the Odgren trial on television and it was frightening to watch. That child although diagnosed with Aspergers also suffered from (more importantly in my opinion) psychosis. It appeared the pyschosis was the underlying reason for his carrying out such a heinous act.
On the contrary, many children whom suffer with Autism have no psychological disorders that fall into the category of psychotic.
My fear as a parent and fellow advocate is this parallel will be drawn.
Ultimately, in my son's case he uses writing and drawing as a form of an outlet for frustration. This can unfortunately result in school suspensions. He is encouraged to write and express himself yet typically Autistic children lack the capacity to self regulate what we in society deem as appropriate behavior. Shane is 16 now and I still encourage him to write and draw. My feeling is he needs to express himself somehow. Until these schools put an end to what is paramount to torture of these children by their peers and untrained and misinformed teachers and administrators, I fear we will be left fighting this zero tolerance policy. I just don't know why we as a society have moved so far away from common sense and looking at situations on a case by case situation? I've written about it in my blog at http://aroadtorecovery.org/blog.html
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