Police: Teacher’s aide attacks autistic student. A Coconut Creek, Florida, teacher’s aide is under investigation after an autistic student was attacked with a metal chair at school earlier this month, police said. From NBC6-TV in South Florida.

Phila. mom angered over treatment of son with autism. A mother says her son’s school did not properly care for him when it took the rest of his classmates on a field trip and left him in the care of an untrained bus assistant. From CBS3-TV in Philadelphia.

Autistic man labelled ‘mental retard’. The UK’s Boots pharmacy chain apologized to a man after one of its store clerks said he didn’t deserve service because he was a “mental retard.” From the Bath Chronicle.

Earlier posts here and here.

Stephen Kuusisto, professor, University of Iowa: Letter to the principal ‘On being Alex Barton’

I still carry deep under my skin the barbs and taunts of mean spirited public school classmates who found ways to bully me simply because of my disability … Like many “baby boomers” with disabilities who helped to pioneer the concept of mainstreaming for disabled kids I keep hoping that the vicious and ignorant behavior that I experienced in public schools will at last become a thing of the past.

… I hope it’s not too much to ask that your school district will now take this opportunity to think hard about disability with a renewed sense that kids with disabilities are real citizens too.

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Scripps Howard News Service in the Chicago Sun-Times:

A kindergarten teacher in Port St. Lucie, Florida, defended her actions to police, saying that she wanted a five-year-old boy to hear from his peers how his behavior affected them. Morningside Elementary teacher Wendy Portillo acknowledged that she did have the students vote, but said the vote was only to eject Alex Barton from class for the day — not for good.

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From CBS News, Scripps Howard News Service in the Chicago Sun-Times, the Palm Beach Post, USA Today and elsewhere:

A Florida mother is considering legal action and a kindergarten teacher has been removed from the classroom after the teacher led her students in voting to eject a boy with behavior problems from class.

Melissa Barton said her son Alex (above) is in the process of being evaluated for an autism spectrum disorder at the recommendation of the principal of Morningside Elementary School in Port Lucie, Florida. She said her son’s behavioral difficulties are caused by a disability, and that she has met with school and district representatives to create an individual education plan for her son.

Port Lucie police said Morningside teacher Wendy Portillo told the boy to stand in front of the classroom while she polled his classmates, who voted 14-2 to send him away.

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Caryn Sullivan, a Catholic mother of a teenage son with autism spectrum disorder, writes in the St. Paul Pioneer Press that she is troubled by Carol Race’s insistence that her son be allowed to attend church. St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Bertha, Minnesota, banned Race’s son Adam from attending, saying that his behavior had become “extremely disruptive and dangerous.” Earlier posts here.

Although I empathize with Race, as one mother to another, I don’t believe this case involves discrimination against a person with ASD. Moreover, I’m deeply concerned that framing her crusade that way has served to further polarize people within and outside of the autism world. Most of all, I’m unhappy that someone whose situation is so different from mine has declared herself the leader of people like me.

I don’t think the church responded the way it did because Adam has autism. I think that the response had to do with extreme behaviors that were understandably worrisome to the church leaders and parishioners.

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The ABC News site had drawn more than 700 comments at last count to its Associated Press story about the church in Minnesota that took legal action to prevent Carol and John Race from bringing their 13-year-old son, Adam, to services. Adam has autism.

Here are a few recent ones:

• Which of Adam’s rights is more important here: his ‘right’ to attend a church service in which he may or may not get the ‘message’ over top of the other sensory input; or his right to be in a situation that is not overwhelming to his senses. I am under the impression that this is not so much about Adam’s rights, as this is about Carol Race’s demands to have her own way.
• I don’t see autism as a major problem for those not directly affected. Violent behavior is a major problem for everyone within reach. The fact that young Mr Race is autistic is a secondary or even tertiary consideration. The fact that he is violent is the primary consideration. He is not denied attendance to the church because of his autism. He is being kept out because of violence. He has rights to attend church. Others have a right to attend church without physical pain inflicted by Mr. Race.
• I have experienced discrimination against my son because of behaviors he cannot control. It’s true that some people are very ignorant and do not want to deal with reality. They think children with autism should be locked away. In Minnesota, 1 in 81 children have an ASD diagnosis. So maybe over 1 in 40 families have a child with autism. We will not stand to be treated as second class citizens.

Earlier posts here and here.

From the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

A Minnesota church’s efforts to bar a severely autistic 13-year-old boy from its Roman Catholic mass, saying he’s a danger to others, illustrates the difficulties that surface when institutions and parents of autistic children intersect. As the number of children diagnosed with autism climbs, it’s likely disputes over disruptive vs. dangerous behavior will also flare.

… Minneapolis attorney Joe Schmitt, who has represented employers and businesses in disability cases, pointed out that under federal law there’s a legal distinction between distracting and dangerous.

“Is he doing something in the church that we think is annoying or that we would prefer not be done in church? That is not the standard,” he said. “You can’t exclude someone from that public entity merely because you don’t like what they’re doing.”

The church filed a temporary restraining order barring a couple from bringing their 225-pound son to church, alleging that he struck a child during mass, fought efforts to restrain him, pulled a teenaged girl onto his lap and revved the engine of someone else’s car.

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