Assume that I am a nonverbal low functioning autistic child, I can't speak, can't understand english, and don't recognize you as a person.
A child in that position has ZERO business in a regular classroom, or even a standard public school.
And did the article describe the child in question as such?
No, I was responding to a My child knows better than to ... post.
I was pointing out the difficulty in teaching Autistic children which is why a Competent Adult is responsible for what happened, not the child. He's six for crying out loud! He is not the one who decides if he's ready for main streaming, he is not the one who decides what interventions will be taken, he is not he one who assigned an incompetent TA to watch over him.
Let's cover some basics.
- The TA should have been trained on the type of child she was assigned to assist, if not, it's not the kids fault she was not trained.
- The TA might have violated her training and not been paying attention to the very visible signs that an autistic child was about to act out. It's not his fault she was incompetent at her JOB.
- The child might not have been ready to be main streamed, it was not his decision, it's not his fault.
are you seeing a pattern here? There are people who are not allowed knives because they are a danger to themselves and others. If i give them a knife and let them attack you, it's my fault, if I give them the knife and they attack me, it's not their fault it is mine for I gave them the knife.
Some on this forum will want to deny every one a knife and have us all use our hands to eat because cutlery is "Dangerous" Some will blame the person with the knife.
What I am saying is that someone (besides the child) messed up here, Autistic children can be taught how to behave in public. Part of that training comes from being in public with someone trained to help them, in this case, either an adult messed up in his/her assessment of his progress, and or the aide messed up and didn't recognized signs of an impending outbreak.
It cannot be an incompetent person's fault for they are by definition not competent!
So, to sum up your post - Autistic children cannot be held accountable for their actions, including acts of violence against others. It will always be the adult’s fault because they either were negligent or not trained correctly.
No blame on the attacker.
Are we on DemocraticUnderground? I could have sworn this was FreeRepublic...
My mistake...