People often ask what s the problem, what s going on with the schools, why aren t parents happy, or why are parents fighting with the school systems. I do not necessarily see this as the parent fighting the school or the school fighting the parents, but rather it is a lack of understanding. It is a lack of understanding of what autism is and the fact that when special education teachers attend college, there are no courses on autism. Because the field of autism is such a wide spectrum and there are many different ways and different methods of teaching a child with autism, it is very difficult for the teachers to keep up with the releases of what is going on in the world of autism. When parents first find out their child has autism, they begin doing research on their own.
Parents stay up late at night.
They spend their days working to find out what is best for their child. They do not want to watch their child drift away and become withdrawn and revert back into himself. So, they go to the school system and make suggestions on how to teach the child. When they have data and videos and graphs that show the progress of the child, they would like for the school to listen with an open mind. When the parents come in and ask for assistance, they are asking someone to listen and to offer help in seeking an appropriate education for their child.