Bribery! First Shave & Haircut for Conor THEN Back to So Called "Segregated" School

Conor Shows Off His New Shave and Haircut

Nothing wrong with bribery if it helps us get Conor to sit still for a shave and haircut! 

That's what happened this long weekend when I bribed Conor to accept a shave and haircut by indicating first shave and haircut then back to school, the school he loves so much. A school where he receives what the extreme, everybody in the mainstream classroom, ill informed inclusion ideologues deride as a segregated school. Conor accepted the shave and haircut. I handled the shave. Mom handled the haircut.

Conor loves his so called "segregated" school experience.  Every day, as I have pictured on this blog many times, Conor packs his back pack and lunch for school and parks them in front of the door  to get ready for school the next day.  

At school Conor starts his day in a Resource Centre with other students with challenges.  It is a wonderful environment for him to start the day, for breaks and for certain types of life skills activities.   There are adults with experience and skills for handling the unexpected challenges supervising and managing the Resource Centre.  It is a warm and welcoming environment and ensures security for students like our Conor.  Conor receives his primary ABA based instruction in a cubicle adjacent to other students also receiving such instruction.  His aide, who provides the instruction, was trained at the excellent UNB-CEL Autism Intervention Training program and his ABA based instruction is a critically important part of Conor's school day.

Conor does NOT like shaves and haircuts.  Sensory issues are long recognized by health authorities like the American Psychiatric Association as a condition that accompanies autism.  Challenges with sensory issues will now be expressly included as a diagnostic criterion, although not a mandatory criterion, in the DSM5's new Autism Spectrum Disorder.  Challenges with sensory issues, including flashing lights and loud sounds,  are recognized by major theatre chains that put on special autism friendly showings of some movies to accommodate those sensory challenges. Challenges with sensory issues are why we removed Conor from the mainstream classroom where he came home every day with self inflicted bite marks on his hands and wrists.  Challenges with sensory issues are why Conor receives his instruction in a quiet area outside the mainstream classroom.  

Conor loves his so called "segregated" schooling.  Conor's experience, the DSM autism criteria, the successful accommodation of his specific autism challenges, the accommodation of other autistic children by theatre chains will have no impact on the rigid, locked mindset of New Brunswick's extreme inclusion ideologues but it is reality.  If only the extreme inclusion ideologues were still capable of looking at the evidence and understanding that  alternative environments like Conor's Leo Hayes High School resource centre, and his individualized ABA instruction area are in fact an accommodation of his autism spectrum disorder challenges.

I have referred to authorities like the American Psychiatric Association.  The APA recognizes in its new Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnostic criteria (B.4.) that some, but not all, children with autism will have sensory challenges.  So too the Autism Society New Brunswick, during the MacKay Inclusion review informed Professor Wayne MacKay of its position that some autistic students can learn in the mainstream classroom and some can not. It is necessary to look at the evidence in each case and provide the appropriate learning environment based on that evidence. 

In Conor's case no one knows the evidence better than his Mom and Dad. If Education and Early Development Minister Jody Carr or Extreme Inclusion Icon Gordon Porter think differently then I ask them whether they think they could safely provide Conor with a shave and haircut?  I don't think they would try ... and in all fairness ... I wouldn't let them. 

Conor Misses His So-Called "Segregated" Autism Schooling BUT Summer Helps A Lot

Conor Doherty, enjoying a summer outing with Dad 

in Fredericton, the green city.

In New Brunswick advocates of extreme, everyone in the classroom, inclusion like to describe my son's accommodations as "segration" as though it could be equated with the racially segregated schools of the old American south.  Conor in fact attends a neighborhood school and has ample opportunity to mix with other students, both challenged students in his High School Resource Centre and throughout Leo Hayes High School.  He is well liked and has friends in both the Resource Centre and in the rest of the school. I have often, and I am mean often, seen kids approach Conor with big smiles and greet him.  His instruction, his ABA based instruction, is received in a separate quieter area and he absolutely loves going to school.  Anyone who has worked with Conor in his high school or previously in middle or grade school can confirm these facts.  

Conor does not receive a "segregated" schooling to use the pejorative terminology of NB's very influential full inclusion activists in the CACL and NBACL.  He receives an evidence based, flexible, inclusive education that accommodates his serious autistic disorder and developmental delay hallenges. Conor loves school. When school ends each year it is a difficult time for him. 

Summer heat and humidity can cause problems too but we do get outdoors, a lot,  in Fredericton, the green city, which we both love and it helps a lot.  The last couple of days we have done some bridge walking to Fredericton's south side for fresh air, exercise and of course ... treats.  (Conor has a new "walking" shirt, one of Dad's old loose fitting shirts to go over his T-shirts).

Conor would like to see September arrive quickly, and resume the "segregated" education that Conor loves and some misguided adults demean,  but he and his ol' Dad will enjoy the summer in Fredericton,  this very habitable green city.