A School District That Takes the Isolation Out of Autism
August 15, 2010 by Leslie E. Packer PhD
Filed under Advocacy
Michael Winerip had a really up-beat story about Wisconsin schools and autistic students in the New York Times a few weeks ago. It begins:
Garner Moss has autism and when he was finishing fifth grade, his classmates made a video about him, so the new students he would meet in the bigger middle school would know what to expect. His friend Sef Vankan summed up Garner this way: “He puts a little twist in our lives we don’t usually have without him.”
People with autism are often socially isolated, but the Madison public schools are nationally known for including children with disabilities in regular classes. Now, as a high school junior, Garner, 17, has added his little twist to many lives.
He likes to memorize plane, train and bus routes, and in middle school during a citywide scavenger hunt, he was so good that classmates nicknamed him “GPS-man.” He is not one of the fastest on the high school cross-country team, but he runs like no other. “Garner enjoys running with other kids, as opposed to past them,” said Casey Hopp, his coach.
Read more in the New York Times. Then ask yourself why, if Wisconsin can do this so successfully, other states haven’t.
