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Daria

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Everything posted by Daria

  1. I'm not quite sure why people think a teenager can't activate a phone. You go to the store, buy a pay as you go phone, buy a gift card for a service and activate online. There is no requirement to prove your are an adult. You might need to provide a birthdate but that's easy to do.
  2. My bff gives directions like this “as you’re driving you’ll see this daycare center on the left that is called Kandace’s Kiddie Korner “ spelled with K’s which makes me wonder two things one is Did they write that down and not notice the initials and two even if you didn’t who wants a preschool teacher who can’t spell corner? Anyway other than the sign it’s very cute they have these paper plate flowers on the big window that they made with tissue paper and I was thinking we could make some of those at home with Mary, wouldn’t that be fun? Anyway when you see the window just keep driving, you don’t need to turn there or anything.” So I end end up stopping like every two blocks because I recognize some landmark and I think I need to do something but nope.
  3. I agree that it’s hot pot. However as someone who likes to go out to eat alone, can I just say that I would be mortified if someone decided I needed a teddy bear date?
  4. We crate trained in a similar situation. My son did most of it, so I don't have all the details, but we had the crate up in the living room for years and he wouldn't go in. He basically started putting treats closer and closer to the crate, and then throwing the treats in so he'd go in eat them and come out, and then throwing the treats in, letting him go in and closing the door just long enough for him to gobble the treat and then opening it. Then once we had that, we started feeding him in the crate with the door closed, and letting him out right away, and then gradually built up time from there. Now, he gets up in the a.m., eats, goes back in the crate and lies down like he knows that's his place when I go to work. I don't close the door on work days, but I do if a workman in coming in or something, but even when I don't, I don't see any evidence that he comes out. He's always in there when I get home.
  5. Alice is exactly the kind of pet name I tend to chose, so I'd leave it, but since you don't like it I'll say that I also like North. It makes me think of Suri's Burn Book, in which "Suri" repeatedly refers to the Kardashian/West child as "North West The Person". I think I'd want to call the kitten "North East The Kitten" as their full name. On the other hand, some people might not see a Kardashian connection as a plus in naming. In which case, I'll add that I think Dagny is adorable. It's very spunky, which is perfect for a kitten.
  6. Legally, the classes my students want to attend are open to any area resident who is at least 16. That is clearly stated in their documents. So, legally my students are as entitled to attend these classes as anyone else. There are other classes that they don't meet the requirement for, but they definitely meet the requirements for the classes they are hoping to attend. They met with disability services, and were approved for accommodations. The school was asked, by multiple people, to put together a "program", that would provide more comprehensive supports, including supports that are not available to nondisabled students such as job coaching. They declined to do so. That doesn't prevent students from bringing their own supports to campus.
  7. I asked about putting kids on a wait list, and was told that there are only wait lists and add/drop on the credit side. Apparently, once you're registered for noncredit there's no going back. I just looked up the numbers to see if I remembered. Last year, over the whole year, they served 55K students in credit and noncredit combined. In an average fall or spring term, they have about 24K credit students taking classes, and over the course of the year about 32K credit students taking classes.
  8. It's a community college that serves about 30K students. If I said "university" then I mistyped. Community colleges have a different goal. They're designed to be community facing and welcome the community in in a way that schools don't. I have no idea if allowing people taking noncredit classes to use the facilities is common, but it's definitely allowed there. I don't want to go into the specifics of why the gym is an important part of the plan. I'd need to talk about specific students, and specific needs, and it's just off topic. I'm just going to say that I have my reasons.
  9. It's not a university, it's a community college. And yes, I'm very sure that it works. I've talked to the disability services office when the original plan was to actually take the noncredit class. I've talked to the manager of the gym. I've talked to the registrar's office. The gym is small, and the hours are limited except that they happen to work for us. There are local gyms you can join that are much nicer that cost less than even the ballroom dancing class, which is the cheapest class they offer. All those things probably keep the numbers manageable.
  10. I think that if I got closed out of ballroom dancing, and a student with a disability had a more successful transition to adulthood because of it, I'd think "good for them". I don't see someone's "need" to take ballroom dancing as more important than my student's "need" to use the gym. I would feel different it was a credit class, or something like CPR or a childcare credential that someone might need to get a degree or a job. You have to swipe your card to use the gym or the pool, but not to eat in the cafeteria. The library says the library is just for college students, but to be honest, I haven't checked if they actually check the ID's. We had to show ID to get in the library of both the college where I went to undergrad and the one where I went to grad school, so I assumed it was the same way. The gym is the thing I'd most like for them to use. The campus isn't closed, just specific places on campus that we'd like to access, with the gym on the top of the list.
  11. At our school, preferential registration is limited to students working towards a degree. It's for situations where someone's disability impacts what classes they can take -- e.g. I need the a.m. session because I have dialysis in the p.m., or I need the section that meets on the first floor because the building has no elevator. Being unavailable because you're still in high school and can't do day time classes isn't a reason for preferential enrollment. In this particular case, our kids (who btw are paying the same tuition as kids taking it for credit) aren't impacting anyone's degree path. Two of the three classes in question are "concurrent enrollment", so there are both credit and noncredit students together. The one that was cancelled for underenrollment is a degree requirement, but obviously our kids didn't cost anyone a space there. The one that closed due to overenrollment is one of many P.E. class options. The third class, ballroom, is just a community class. It's not a credit option, and can't be applied towards any degree. There are lots of other classes, they just don't work time wise. A lot of them meet during the school day, or too soon after the school day for us to get there. Or they meet at campus B or C, and we need A because it's the one on the bus route from school. Or they're just on the wrong day. We waited to schedule other things, like job coaching or sports practices until we thought we knew what day the classes were going to be, but now those things are set, so there are certain weekdays that aren't options either. None of that is the college's fault. When kids graduate and the can spend time on campus during the day, then they'll have lots of options. Yes, there are lots of exciting things going on in the field of post secondary education for students with ID! Cincy is a great example, and I could give you many more. Unfortunately, this particular school has been approached many times, by many people about opening a more inclusive program. It's not that it hasn't been tried. They do have some very segregated programs, but that's not what my students are looking for.
  12. So, the college is like your top example, except that community education classes for adults that don't carry credit are included. They don't actually say "you don't really have to attend", but they are definitely not kicking people out for non attendance. There's nothing like the underlined in their policies for non credit classes. Credit classes are different in that they take attendance, and will remove you from the roster. I have no idea if the ID would still work in that case or not.
  13. They are busy kids, and there's just a time conflict with the ballroom class. It's not that I don't think they'd love the class and do well with the class, it's just that something else is already happening at that time on that day of the week, and that other thing is also important. Gate keeping and low expectations for people with ID is a huge problem in this area. Our public school system, and the community college both run very segregated programs for students with ID, and are invested in the idea that that is where they belong. So asking for help would be more likely to lead to having doors shut them open. The fact that we asked for help could easily become an excuse to exclude. We're not hiding what we're doing. If we need an accommodation, then we ask the people who can grant the permission, but we're also not trying to gain the attention of the people at the top. Vocational Rehab is a different thing. The office here, or at least the counselor assigned to my students, is great, and our kids will get job coaching and internships after graduation, but they only provide support for students in classes that are either for credit, or directly connected to their identified employment goal, and neither student has identified ballroom dancing as an employment goal. That was already taken into account when their graduation dates were set.
  14. I want to ask this another way. Because there are lots of complexities to working with a large government agencies, and pros and cons and barriers to forming a more formal relationship that I won't go into. Suffice it to say that whether or not a formal relationship is a good idea, with the new semester starting on Monday, it's not going to happen in time for this year's seniors. Let's say I was a person, without a disability, who lived in the area. My husband and I wanted to work out in the gym on campus, or swim in the pool, since it was close and cheap. So, we registered for the very cheapest noncredit class, but didn't go because it was the same night one kid had soccer practice, and the other had ballet and we both needed to drive. There's no way the college would make anything of it. They have 30K students, they're not going to do anything about the fact that someone didn't show up for ballroom dancing. Do people see that as unethical? I don't think I'd think twice about doing it. But I wonder what other people would think? To me, the way that disability comes into it is twofold. One is that I know that more people will be watching them, and eventually someone might decide that they don't think people with intellectual disability should be in X class. So they'll complain and someone will notice that hey this person didn't even show up last time, and it will be used as evidence that they don't belong there. Because that's how people think. On the other hand, I think that learning to use the college campus, and make a gradual transition is a much more compelling reason to sign up for ballroom and not go, than wanting a cheap gym, and frankly is a more compelling reason for signing up for ballroom than you want to take ballroom. If the class does fill up, and 2 people have to wait another semester to learn to dance, well I'm not heartbroken. It's not like they're signing up for a graduation requirement and delaying someone's degree. It's non credit swing dancing. I'm going to call our DSS counselor and see what she thinks.
  15. No, they don't have a clue. There is no malice in this. My kids weren't targeted. It's just the way the cookie crumbled so to speak.
  16. Unfortunately, our college won't waive testing requirements for auditors, making it not an option for my students. They do have certain classes that are designated as combined "credit" and "community education", with the latter being community members like my students who don't need to take the class and don't get credit. The options are actually quite varied, it's just that at this point in the school semester, when things are set, we'd need to replace the classes we have with classes that meet at almost exactly the same times.
  17. The class actually runs the last couple weeks of the semester. It's a 2 week class, and both meetings are in April. But since it's this semester they'd get an ID good for the whole semester. There is no option to purchase a gym card.
  18. The plan was that we'd be on campus twice a week for the 15 week semester. So 30 visits, maybe 2 - 3 hours each? I teach kids who benefit from a lot of repetition.
  19. Dance class at our school doesn't fill any need. We have a dance teacher at our school, and lots of dance classes available to kids in the community. The need that the kids have is to be on campus, learn how to walk around the campus, so that campus isn't scary when they graduate. But entrance to places on campus is dependent on the college ID. I don't care if they take dance or not, but the dance class, because it meets twice is far cheaper than signing up for most of the other classes. Basically, we'd be paying for the ID. They weren't discriminated against. The classes didn't close because of them. One was just so unpopular that it didn't get enough students to run, and the other was so popular that it filled. The limits on what they take aren't because of discrimination either. They can't take classes in the school day, because they are in school. They can't take classes on certain evenings, because they have internships or Special Olympics practice, or choir etc . . . . They can't take classes that require them to have graduated, because they're still in high school. They aren't looking for credit classes. So, the list of classes that are options is really short. When they graduate, and can take daytime classes, they'll have lots of options. But for them to be able to take those classes they'll need to know their way around, because they won't have an adult with them once they're out of school, hence the need to practice now. The suggestion to reach out is a good one. I'll ask parents if they're interested, and then call the school.
  20. I am a high school special ed teacher. I am working hard to establish a pathway where a couple of my students can transition smoothly from high school to non-credit classes at the local community college. We've set up our students with disability coordinators. We've planned field trips so we can work on skills like riding the bus to campus, finding their way between various places on campus (e.g. the gym, the library, the cafeteria). And we signed students up to auditing classes in subjects like arts and P.E.. This represents a significant amount of planning, and other things have been scheduled around these field trips and classes. And then the college cancelled one of the two classes that my students were signed up for, and the other one filled up so quickly that most of my students got closed out. Unfortunately, other options are limited, because our schedules for the semester are set, both for school and after school activities. Cancelling the class upsets the apple cart, so to speak, because if students aren't registered for classes, they don't have ID's so they can't go to the library or the gym. There is a ballroom dance class that is at a time that doesn't work for my students, but that is super cheap. If a student was signed up for the dance class, they'd have an ID which would mean we could do 1/2 of what we planned. This is a noncredit class, so there would be no transcript that would reflect the lack of attendance. But should I feel bad about taking spaces in a class that people aren't going to attend? Also, do you think this would burn bridges with the disability department or the school?
  21. I live in an equally bougie area of the county next to yours, and we have plenty of kids at our school who either live in areas that aren't served by public transportation, or who are too bougie to ride public transportation, and who therefore reach the age of 16 having never gone anywhere without mom or dad or a nanny acting as chauffeur. When we go on subway field trips, I am sometimes boggled by what 1/2 the kids don't know about how to figure out which way the train is going, etc . . .
  22. I think there are two ways that condom distribution can make a difference. One is that students might come in, get a condom, and then use it because they have it. I agree that there's no guarantee that it works that way. I suspect that there are students taking handful after handful of condoms that will expire unused, and other students who might have gotten them on Monday but aren't carrying them on Wednesday when the need arise. But there's another advantage of taking something that many people are embarrassed to talk about, and making it part of daily life. I grew up in a time when there were things that were just not discussed in public, among them tampons and condoms. I wasn't sexually active as a teen, but if I had been, it would have been very hard for me to ask "do you have a condom", or "can we stop at CVS and buy some condoms", because the message was so strong that these things were secret or shameful. Having the condoms in a bowl on the desk, where you can see them walking down the hallway, takes away a lot of that stigma. It makes them an ordinary thing. Saying "Hey, can we stop and buy condoms" becomes more like saying "Oooh, I cut my finger, can we stop and buy some bandaids". And that has the potential to change things for students both while they're in school, and later. I also agree that it is ironic that the nurse can give you a condom but not a tylenol, but I don't see the condom as the thing that needs to be changed.
  23. Temple Grandin has built an emotionally and financially rewarding career around her passions, and in doing so has changed the lives of millions of animals, and the disability rights movement for the better. She'll leave a legacy in both fields that will last long after she's gone. I have trouble seeing passing as more of an achievement or pinnacle than that. Jean, I'm pretty sure that you didn't mean it that way, so please don't take this as a criticism of you or your son. But I felt that I had to reply to this, because I do think there are many people, including many parents of autistic children, who think less of Grandin because her speech patterns, routines and preferences are atypical; and who would rather their child pass than that they live a life like Grandin's. I was really pleased to see the language DSM 5 shift so that it now measures the severity of autism in terms of support needs, rather than in the terms of how atypical someone appears to others. When we look at Grandin through that lens, her need for support from others is low. That isn't because she isn't autistic, or she's less autistic. It's because she has the intellectual ability, the financial resources, and the attitude towards her own disability that allows her to identify and meet her own needs, rather than relying on others. If we're going to set a goal for young people with autism, it should be that they live lives like Grandin's. Lives in which they do things that are important and interesting to them; lives in which they receive recognition and respect for their accomplishments, and earn a living wage in the process; and lives in which their needs are consistently met, and they have control over how the needs are met, rather than constantly being at the mercy of others. Most of the students with autism who I work with have co-occurring intellectual disabilities. They will almost certainly never earn Ph.D.s, but that doesn't mean that they can't do what Grandin has done in terms of building a life around what is meaningful to them; or learning to understand and direct their own care. To me, those should be the goals we keep in mind as we decide how best to support and educate them.
  24. The way I imagine it is this. The autism spectrum is a multidimensional continuum. It includes all of us. It is a wonderful part of the diversity of the human race. ASD describes people who are in the portion of the spectrum where the support and accommodations they need are significant enough that we consider them to have a disability. You can't have autism without the need for support and accommodations that are different or more significant than the needs of other people who are otherwise similar. By this I mean, of course your kid has support needs, because 9 year olds with and without autism have support needs. What you're describing is behavior that people who work with autism describe as "stimming". It's seeking sensory input to help one self regulate. Everyone stims. When I was a toddler, I sucked my thumb to help me transition from wake to sleep, or from crying to calm. When I was a kid, and I had to walk somewhere, I'd focus on lines in my environment, walking along cracks or running my fingers along fences, as a way to control the impulse to run or to stop and play. When I go to boring faculty meetings, I fidget with my pencil to stay awake. But I don't have ASD. Stimming alone isn't a symptom of ASD. What is a symptom of ASD, is when that stimming translates into support needs or the need for accommodations. For example, if I'm a toddler, and my need to suck on my hands to stay calm is so intense that it interferes with eating, so that the parent needs to swaddle (supplying an alternative form of stim) to get the kid to eat? That would be an example of a stim that requires accommodations. If I'm a 10 year old, and I'm so focused on following lines that I'll follow one right into traffic, so someone needs to hold my hand on field trips? That's an example of a stim that leads to a support need. If I screech loudly instead of fidgeting with my pencil during faculty meetings, so that I need an ADA accommodation to watch remotely by camera from my classroom, well, you get the point. Put together with other symptoms, and other support or accommodation needs, any of those things might point to an ASD. I don't see anything in your post that says that your kid needs support or accommodation because he clenches his fists. I don't see that it's unsafe (e.g. he'll clench his fists, even if he's holding hands with his sister, so tightly that he hurts her), or disruptive (note: I don't consider looking different a disruption. People look different from one another. But if his vibrating so intensely that he's knocking old ladies down in the grocery store when he sees his favorite cereal on the shelf, that might be disruptive) or interfering with his development (he can't join the other kids in games, because he just stands and clenches and vibrates when ever the ball comes near him, he can't do art because he likes art class so much that he can't unclench his hand to hold a pencil)? Then that would a symptom that, if combined with other symptoms, could indicate an ASD. To be clear, that doesn't mean all stimming by people with ASD leads to the need for support or accommodation. There are plenty of people who have other symptoms of ASD, and other support/accommodation needs, whose stimming works well for them. That is, they've figured out ways either on or with help to use stimming to regulate their behavior very successfully. So, they might do exactly what you describe your son doing when they are excited, but because they also have significant rigidity, and/or challenges with communication, and/or difficulty regulating when they are upset, and those characteristics require support or accommodation. I will also say that I am a big believer in "respecting" stims. Stimming behavior represents high level problem solving, and it's usually a very effective way to meet someone's needs. It makes sense to me that the person who is stimming knows their body and it's needs better than anyone, so that their solution is quite likely the best one. To me, "it looks different" or "normal people don't do it" aren't reasons to redirect or change a stimming behavior. When a stim does need to change, such as my example above of a toddler who won't take hands out of his mouth long enough to eat; or a teenager I work with who likes to grab hair and pull when he's excited, it's important to understand what the student is doing, and what need the stim meets, and to find a solution that meets the same needs. That might include putting a weighted vest on the toddler at mealtime, to see if the extra proprioceptive input lessons the need for oral input, or in the case of my hair puller, I keep a soft puppet to hand, and redirect him to squeeze and pull on that. This is a very long way of saying -- don't worry about it! Don't redirect the stim, don't make him feel bad, and don't get him evaluated. Sorry to be so wordy.
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