"Disabled (Aspergers) student takes state to court"

Post Reply New Topic

http://www.theage.com.au/national/disab ... tml?page=1

A VICTORIAN teenager with multiple disabilities is suing the Education Department for discrimination, claiming it failed to provide him with a full-time education...

...Alex, who lives with his family in the west Victorian town of Branxholme, has a number of disabilities, including Asperger's syndrome — an autism spectrum disorder — dyslexia and attention deficit disorder...

I can't wait to hear their explanation for that one. One of the teachers beat him over the head?

I wouldn't be surprised.

I was an extremely bright student in 3rd grade and was tested to be put into a gifted school run by Michigan State University. The public school system was not challenging for me.

By 7th grade after being unchallenged, getting bored of classes and the social stresses - i became the receiver of the habitual F on the report card. I see if you don't excessive areas of the brain they tend to weaken.

I don't know, he may have a case. There are elements of truth to it, even if some parts of their claims are worded a little clumsily.

1.) "His mother said teachers unfamiliar with the disability could misconstrue this as bullying or controlling behaviour" --how many times have people here experienced others misinterpreting their actions in this way?

2.)As messygeek points out, people with Aspergers can do poorly in school if not properly stimulated--while discrimination may not have caused his IQ to drop, conventional tests of intelligence often don't display aspie intelligence well.

3.)Most importantly, the charges are specific and tangible--Things like not being allowed to attend school full-time,banned from school excursions, and not allowed to travel on the school bus, forcing his mum to drive excessive distances each week. (400 meters/ 248.54 miles)

The only things I can see working against them are those bits of wording(I.E the IQ bit) and the fact that school systems are notoriously underfunded and understaffed.Perhaps Anti-discrimination consultant Julie Phillips said it best, "Victoria has a long way to go in offering equal access to education for students with disabilities" I think that would hold true for education for students with disabilities in general.

I totally read that first post wrong. I thought someone from the Victorian times was sueing for their education!

My parents could have done the same with my elementary school except it wasn't this bad. They have threatened to sue before but never did. They did the same with my other elementary school too.

Something is wrong with the math... not sure if this is from the article or your doing but 400m is only about 0.2 miles. Maybe you mean 400km?

I don't believe this is accurate. All people will languish in school if not challeneged appropriately. Not just people on the spectrum.

But the system is designed to educate NT children, and staff will try to engage and stimulate children as if they were all NT. "Challenging" an AS student is a different matter to challenging an NT one, and the results are liable to be quite different. Many AS students are labelled (incorrectly) from an early age, and treated differently because of it, often as not because of their reactions to being "engaged and stimulated" or "challenged" by their peers and teachers. It is the inappropriate nature of the challenge at work, and most regular educational staff are not trained to do so in an appropriate fashion.

Same here Are you in England by any chance?

...

*slaps forehead*
Nice catch! It is kilometers--and there's quite a difference between kilometers and meters!
but then, I suppose that's why I was an English major instead of mathematics.

Hmm, reminds me of how the teachers at my elementary school didn't know how to deal with Aspergers and such, so they just sent me and similar children to detention or suspension rooms every day. Detention was just an hour or so in the cafeteria after school, and suspension (not home suspension) was to spend the rest of the day in the copy room with an old woman who yells at you if you're not working on anything. And if you have nothing to work on, she gives you something out of the copy pile.