Ball State University: Adjusting to autism
Aug 17
New professor to focus teaching special, autism education
The executive director of the National Autism Center left her post in order to join Ball State’s Teachers College.
Susan Wilcynski became the first Ball State Plassman Family distinguished professor of special education with a focus on autism this semester. . . . .
Wilcynski said her goals at Ball State are similar to the goals of other faculty members at the university. She hopes to deliver a high-quality teaching style so her students have a greater understanding of the need in treating autism, especially in a classroom setting.
Wilcynski’s pupils will learn how to structure their classroom environments differently so autistic students can develop skills and participate more fully in school, how to reduce the chances of behavioral problems, how to evaluate students’ skill levels and how to gauge appropriate consequences.
“In the last 15 years, the rate of autism has gone up dramatically,” she said. “One in every 110 kids is being diagnosed.
“Every teacher is likely to teach someone with autism. Every parent is likely to be affected by autism. If it’s not their child, it’s someone who goes to school with their child.
My comment:
What is most troubling to parents of autistic children like myself is the blanket acceptance of autism. Twenty years ago, most people never heard of autism, now we’re being told that it could be our child, it could be the another student. No one knows why one percent of children have autism, including almost two percent of boys. The education community seems to be adjusting to autism–no questions asked.
The important sentence in this article is “One in every 110 kids is being diagnosed [with autism].” No one has ever found a comparable rate among adults. Where are the 30, 50, and 70 year olds with autism at rates even remotely close to what we see in our children? Where especially are the adults with classic autism, whose signs are undeniable?
The one in 110 rate is from studies of children who were born in 1998. Those kids are teenagers now. We don’t really know what the true current rate is since the numbers haven’t been updated.
Dr. Thomas Insel, head of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) created by Congress to deal with autism, has said that 80 percent of Americans with autism are under the age of 18 and he warned that we need “to prepare for a million people who may be in need of significant services.” Nothing is being done to handle with the approaching tsunami of dependent adults that will descend on social services in the coming years. The IACC now calls autism “a national health emergency.”
Anne Dachel, Media editor: Age of Autism
