Autism and the Inclusion Illusion on the Isle of Wight

In Anger Over Autistic Students' Move to Mainstream School isle of wight radio 107 & 102 reports that parents of children with autism on the Isle of Wight, the UK island county in the English Channel,  are facing a challenge that we have faced in New Brunswick, Canada  for many years - the Inclusion Illusion, the non evidence based, philosophical belief that if you dump kids with special, even severe challenges,  into a mainstream classroom or other generic setting the children will prosper and grow.  On the Isle of Wight parents are being told that their children will be moved out of a special needs school into  a  mainstream school. 

My son Conor, now 15,  was removed from the mainstream classroom at our request. Local school and district officials responded to our request, and to the realities of Conor's severe autism challenges, with compassion, open mindedness and intelligence.  As a  result Conor who is severely autistic with profound developmental delays has received most of his direct, ABA based, instruction in separate quieter areas of the school. He is able to, and does, visit other areas such as gyms, swimming pools etc where he mixes with other students.  Conor has always been well received by other students and several over the years, from grade school to high school,  have gone out of their way to greet him with big smiles, at school, and in the community.  But on a provincial level the highly influential  Gordon Porter has insisted on setting  policies concerning education of children with special needs for decades, never budging from his non evidence based, inclusion philosophies.  Still parents have made some progress on behalf of our autistic children. 

On the Isle of Wight parents are now facing the Inclusion Illusion head on.  Some autistic children are being removed  from a special needs school and  "integrated" into a mainstream classroom setting. The parents are frightened, angry and concerned about the possible harmful impact on their children:

Joanne Wight's son Ben is among those affected. He has already been taken out of mainstream education because he couldn't cope. Joanne told IW Radio: "You can't describe that sinking feeling, when you think your children are just going to be pushed back into mainstream, where he's already been and hasn't coped. How's he going to cope in that setting of, what 1300 children? He can't even cope walking down into Newport."

Meanwhile, Cathy Gibbs told us that if her son Corey has to move to mainstream schooling, it will have a major impact on his wellbeing and possibly other students. She told us of one incident involving his teenage sister: "One of them was doing some craftwork and he just picked up the nearest thing to his sister and threw it at her. He wasn't meaning to hurt, he was just angry and threw. It was a pair of scissors that stuck in the back of her head and we had her at the doctors. My other daughter's got a scar on her elbow where he's thrown a car at her. I've been to the doctors with suspected broken ribs. In a mainstream school, who's going to get into trouble if he lashes out at other children?"

And Cathy added: "We're still in shock, because nothing has actually been offered to us properly. We don't know what's coming next. We know what high schools are like and we know that's not suitable for our children, but we feel as if we've been thrown headfirst into this educational black hole because there's nothing in place. They're too bright for a special school, but there is nothing in between."

Trudie Sheath told Isle of Wight Radio why mainstream schooling is unsuitable for her son. "He is not able to cope in large class situations. He is working at curriculum level two, which is age seven - he will be eleven by the time he moves schools. Anton, socially and emotionally is further behind than that. He can't cope with change, whatsoever. You have to word things in a certain way, you have to prepare him for things. And his way of not coping is to run, hide, throw things, and at his worst level, have thoughts of trying to kill himself."

All five parents are concerned about the lack of information over where their children might eventually be placed, and say that there is a black hole on the Isle of Wight for educational support for children with autism. They want the Isle of Wight Council to invest in an entirely separate new unit, to specifically cater for their children's unique needs, possibly using one of the middle schools closed because of the two-tier reorgnisation.

The article indicates that local education officials will be providing psychological assessments for the children and suggests that individualized accommodations will be made as part of the "integration" process.  Hopefully this is not just spin and adjustments will be made to help the individual children as required.  Hopefully too the concerns of these parents on the Isle of Wight will be taken seriously and their input given substantial weight in making the important  decisions that will have such a huge impact on the lives of their children.

Autism and the Inclusion Illusion on the Isle of Wight