From The Detroit News:

School districts across Michigan are raising special education class sizes above legal limits, drawing protests from parents.

[Child advocates] say the process for overriding state rules is too easy, making special education programs vulnerable to spending cuts as costs skyrocket and state funding is stagnant.

School officials say special education funding is limited, and some standards outlined in state law are outdated, expensive and unnecessary. They say the rising number of autistic children is taxing the system, and they can’t afford to keep classes small unless children really need it.

(Detroit News photo)

From ABC News, Chicago Tribune:

A two-year-old with autism and his mother were escorted off an American Eagle flight in Raleigh-Durham airport just as it was about to take off this week. Airline officials said the child was “screaming uncontrollably” and that the mother kept her carry-on bag on the floor in front of the seat.

Janice Farrell said she believed there was no reason for the airline to kick them off the plane, saying that the flight attendant made things worse by repeatedly tugging on her son’s seatbelt and reprimanding him.

From The Today Show:

Long-running NBC daytime drama “Days of Our Lives” introduces a story portraying the range of emotions a couple experiences when their son is diagnosed with autism. (The parents are portrayed by James Reynolds and Renee Jones, left.)

Head writer Dena Higley draws from her personal experience as the mother of an 18-year-old son with autism, and says she collaborated with Autism Speaks to ensure “realism and sensitivity.”

“We’re telling the profound and life-altering story of a child with autism from his parents’ point of view,” Higley explained. “Their pain, their struggle — and ultimately, their ability to find life-affirming hope in the midst of learning how to live day to day with this disability.”

With video. (MSNBC photo.)

Allen Shawn’s twin sister Mary has lived in an institution since she was 9, and for more than half a century visited her family each year for a ritual birthday lunch with an unchanging menu. (Shawn’s mother had feared that a change in the the menu or location of the lunch would upset Mary.)

Writing in the New York Times magazine, Shawn describes the last of the birthday lunches, shortly before his mother’s death. Mary adapts cheerfully to changes in the menu and location of the meal, causing Shawn to reexamine what he thought he knew about his sister and the meaning of her life.

These days children with the degree of autism, mental retardation and elements of schizophrenia from which she suffers are more likely to live in a group home than to be institutionalized. Indeed, even the notion of “suffering” that I just suggested has come to look a bit suspect, since it implies that it is “best” for a person not to have certain “deficits.” And I am no longer certain that she suffers more than others, only that (more…)

From the Detroit Free Press:

A team led by University of Michigan kinesiology professor Dale Ulrich is working with the charity Lose the Training Wheels to help teach kids with Down syndrome or autism in Ann Arbor how to ride bikes without training wheels.

At the same time, Ulrich is conducting a research study to learn how successful bike riding may affect these kids’ emotions and independence. Other training sessions, minus the research component, are going on across the country this summer.

Just 10 percent of kids with Down Syndrome can ride a bike, and autistic children have similar issues, said Laura Bailey at the University of Michigan News Service. By Wednesday this week, a quarter of the kids were up on two normal wheels. By the end of the five-day program before this one, 62 percent of the kids were riding.

(Free Press, U-M News Service photo)

From the Montreal Gazette, Toronto Star,

A Quebec coroner’s report into the case of 9-year-old Gabriel Poirer, who died in his classroom in the Montreal area, concluded that the boy had smothered when teachers tried to restrain him with a weighted blanket.

The boy was wrapped in a heavy blanket and left on his stomach, his head completely covered, for more than 20 minutes. The coroner’s report said teachers had received training in using weighted blankets, but had not followed the rules on the day the boy died.

The coroner recommended stiffer safety guidelines concerning the weighted blankets, which often contain ball bearings or buckwheat seeds.

(Montreal Gazette photo)

From the Orange County Register:

Robert Velasquez claims that a face-down restraint technique caused emotional and physical damage in his 8-year-old son. His formal complaint, seeking at least $25,000, alleges negligence, civil rights violations and false imprisonment. He said the teachers did not have proper training to use the technique, and that the boy’s nose was broken in the incident.

District officials declined to comment on the case, but said all special education teachers were adequately trained for their jobs.