Julie Delegal
Florida’s public schools may be educating up to 30,000 students with autism, given the figures that Autism Speaks has provided. That group puts the autism diagnosis rate at one in 88 children.
Some of these children will one day be able to go to college. So far, science hasn’t been able to tell us why certain children benefit greatly from early intervention while others do not.
At one extreme there is the 15-year-old physics prodigy whose family moved to Canada, where there’s a master’s program that can accommodate him. At the other extreme, there is my friend’s 21-year-old son, who still wears diapers. He hurts himself so badly that he’s been rushed to the emergency room four times over the past 12 months.
While we know that B.F. Skinner’s behaviorism and its offspring sciences can be a lifesaver for many children on the autism spectrum — as it was for our child — we also know that many families have mortgaged their lives to provide Applied Behavior Analysis therapy and more, with very different results.
A recent Associated Press article about colleges that are working to serve high-functioning autistic students gave me pangs of survivor’s guilt.
The article traces the journey of a college student who “spent two miserable years” in a high-priced college program designed to cater to students on the spectrum before he discovered that his sister’s public college offered a program, too.
Specialized college packages are being marketed to people with “autism,” a term the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual now says includes those with Asperger’s Syndrome. These supplemental services include the College Internship Program in Brevard County, which provides students with academic assistance and helps with chores such as shopping and monitoring their bank accounts.
Next fall Nova Southeastern University is starting a similar program. The downside is that the programs are expensive. Nova Southeastern’s package costs $16,000 per academic year, while the College Internship Program costs $50,000 — and that’s on top of tuition, books and living expenses.
Fortunately, there is at least one public university in Florida that is trying to accommodate academically able students with autism. The University of North Florida’s Disabilities Resource Center recognizes the challenges autistic students face in the socially demanding college campus environment.
Former Jacksonville Mayor and current University of North Florida President John Delaney saw an opportunity to expand the college’s disabilities center as veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan returned home. Parents like me are glad that the expansion not only serves veterans, but also our kids.
The AP article correctly states that the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) only protects K-12 students, so there’s no “right” to a free and appropriate college education. Legal experts assert, however, that college students retain important rights to accommodations under two other federal anti-discrimination laws, Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
Just as a student in a wheelchair is entitled to ramp access and a blind student to recorded or Braille instructional materials, so too may college-capable autistic students be entitled to accommodations that ease their access to the college curriculum. Why should any student’s family have to fork over an extra $50,000 for a ramp that the law says should already be provided?
Autism is a disorder that interferes with the perception of and reaction to the puzzling world of human social interaction. Think about a 2-year-old who has a temper tantrum because she doesn’t have the language skills to express herself and you’ll have an idea about why my friend’s nonverbal, 200-pound son is occasionally aggressive.
While I applaud any university that tries to help autistic students, make no mistake: The covenant to serve autistic college students has already been codified into federal law. We’ve already agreed that we must build ramps for people whose minds are wired differently.
