Comments regarding previous post...

My name is Michelle Guppy, and I facilitate an online network for parents and professionals in Texas. To join that group to learn more about autism and the educational issues, you can join by going to www.TexasAutismAdvocacy.org. Special Education in Texas is an issue that is not well defined in a brief article. I welcome any questions about the autism supplement and what it means for students with autism.

MichelleMGuppy@TexasAutismAdvocacy.org

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Most districts try very hard to do the right thing for Au kiddos and are very high functioning. As for having a " mandate " for social skills we shall see , the emphasis right now and in the near future is for TAKS test taking and it's success at all levels w/wo disabilities. TAKS and the NCLB is already out of control. And that is an unfunded mandate.

The real krux of the matter is that these AU students must pass TAKS to graduate, and if they are not on a state recommmended plan they will have a tough time getting into college, despite their grades. AU kiddos are usually do poorly on standardized tests.

So while an ABA is fine and districts will do it if told to do so.The emphasis will still be TAKS testing and an ABA would only take away from an already rigorous TAKS preperation .

Thus, this article should have been written about NCLB and how it is not leaving children behind but pushing Special Education children into the cracks of an abyss that no one has thought of , or the mess of a generation of Special Education children who have been put into the TAKS accountability meatgrinder.

Good luck to the autistic parents and especially their kids, but they are unaware of what is really going on.

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The key is awareness. My own parents were aware of my own rights for my own disabilities.

But we met other parents who hadn't the faintest idea of what they were getting into--instead prefering to leave things to 'the experts'.

BIG MISTAKE!

It is how some of my former classmates ended up as burger flippers despite being able to go on and successfully perform college level work. They were 'disabled'!