EBD Blog

Danielle Deaver of the of the Winston-Salem (NC) Journal has a detailed and compelling pair of articles about Autism and the struggles of families to find and pay for effective treatment. Under the headlines “A Costly Search for Help, Answers” and “Effective Help is Out of Reach for Most Families,” Ms. Deaver proivdes an unusually good treatment of the difficult choices that families face and the constraints under which state and local education agencies operate.

Sadly, schools in some places may use policies favoring inclusion, generic labeling, and narrow interpretations of the Rowley principle in ways that preclude children and their families from receiving needed services. Ms. Deaver describes the case of Debbie and Michael Wittenberg’s son as an illustration of these sort of policies; the case is currently in legal review.

ABA therapy has become a sensitive topic for the school system. A local couple, Debbie and Michael Wittenberg, filed a lawsuit that was first heard in 2004, claiming that the school system had denied their son, who is autistic, the services that he needed - specifically ABA.

The Wittenbergs claimed that school officials deliberately mislabeled their child to make sure that he wouldn’t qualify for ABA services. The school system denied the claims.
The lawsuit was first heard in the Office of Administrative Hearings in Raleigh, where an administrative law judge found in favor of the family. The judge wrote that the school system should have labeled the Wittenberg’s son as autistic instead of developmentally delayed, and given him home-based ABA therapy.

The school system appealed, and a state review officer found in its favor. The review officer wrote that the developmentally delayed label was appropriate, and that ABA services are not a necessary part of a free and appropriate public education.

The Wittenbergs, who declined to comment about the case, have since appealed to the U.S. District Court of the Middle District of North Carolina. The case is still pending.

The Wittenbergs and other families described in Ms. Deaver’s articles have sought the services of the ABC of North Carolina Development Center. ABC of NC is a private, not-for-profit facility that employs many evidence-based practices.

As is sometimes the case, there is a little confusion between “applied behavior analysis” as a method of instruction for individuals with Autism vs a form of scientific inquiry. Ms. Deaver kept the nuance of the difference pretty clear. People interested in the former often draw from work conducted by the latter, but applied behavior analysis applies to many other areas as well as Autism. To learn more, follow the links to the Association for Behavior Analysis here or to ABA under “resources” at the right.

Ms. Deaver’s articles illustrate how journalism can provide valuable coverage of issues in education of students with Autism. When the press publishes pieces such as these, the authors deserve a flash of the electrons. Thank you, Ms. Deaver.

Links:

1. “Costly search….“
2. “Effective help….“
3. “Autistic Spectrum” multimedia section
4. “Living with Autism” video
5. ABC of NC: ABC of North Carolina Development Center
6. Association for Behavior Analysis International, the leading proponents of applied behavior analysis.