Recently, I attended an IEP for a primary age Deaf child whose 'back to school' weeks have come from Hell. I'm both an adult with disAbilities and a long time teacher (both general and special education) - 44 years. It was as though the school knew nothing about trauma and even less about what it's like to live with trauma from having a disability.
Child had gotten a new teacher this year. This child, like other kids born deaf to hearing parents, lived thru several years without language because his birth parents denied he was deaf. Finally, the system intervened and he's now with good people who are Deaf. But one does not erase the trauma inflicted by years without language or support.
Within a few days, his behavior went from unremarkable to out of control. Staff "took him down" and he was placed in a 72 hour hold (no ASL interpreter - a trigger!) and given medication that only made things worse.
imagine looking at the psychologist's behavior report... Color coded by codes - "code yellow", "code orange" and "code red". Whole school on this "system" regardless of life experiences. I saw lots and LOTS of code red. Red graphs everywhere. I was, frankly, APPALLED. In ALL my years of teaching, I've NEVER given anyone a report like this. The school staff had this utterly blank look when I mentioned I had taught for 44 years and never would even consider sharing a report of this nature. The first year teacher's "approach" to behavior was for the child to go move a card indicating the emotion being felt, maybe jump 15 times on a trampoline (or breathe, or...) and then independently get back to work. I cannot imagine an angry child first calmly walking to board, moving a card saying he's angry, then maybe breathing for 15 breaths and coming back to work. Wouldn't work for me!!!
NOT good for a child who's just now linguistically starting to process half his life without language.
By the way... while they are hiring hearing/non ASL 'behavior aides' (unable to communicate with a Deaf child who's triggered by inability to communicate) who will use ABA... they balked at allowing a trained Deaf clinician to come in three times/week for in-class assistance/therapy.
SOOO.... ACEs peeps...
(1) When will the ACEs include ***something*** related to growing up WITH a disability, and WITHOUT support? This is HUGE. While parents of kids with disabilities get to go to all these support groups, write blogs, act as though they are Mother Theresa (often they are... BUT NOT ALWAYS)... kids with disabilities are still stuck in having to process the many many hard (!!!!) questions ("why was I born like this?"...) all on their own. And parents - even the 'good ones' oftentimes give answers that only make things worse sometimes. This... IS TRAUMA.
(2) What CLASSROOM based program/s exist? We can't change the entire school... but we CAN include something in this child's IEP (training for classroom teacher) that will help him/her understand how teachers can help kids sense they are safe within the classroom?