Central Pennsylvania schools try to better adapt programs to serve children with autism

From The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa.:

At Lawnton Elementary School, fourth-grader Philip Givler (pictured) receives individual and group speech and language therapy and spends half his time in an autism classroom.

He used to visit a sensory room daily and receive occupational therapy to help him master physical tasks, such as holding a pencil.

Philip, 10, of Lower Paxton Township, is one of a growing group of students with some form of autism.

Schools also have seen a huge growth in numbers. As of December, 18,879 Pennsylvania students with autism were eligible for special education. Much of the growth in numbers results from doctors becoming better at being able to diagnose autism.

“This significant increase has been a gradual curve upward since 1993,” said Mike Miklos, an educational consultant with the Pennsylvania Training and Technical Assistance Network. He calls the work of educating these students “never ending and very challenging.”

“If you’ve met one student with autism, you’ve met one student. Each individual can bring such unique patterns of performance,” Miklos said. “The challenge of educating a person with autism is just immense.”

There’s no one-size-fits-all educational or behavioral plan for students with autism, whether it’s a more severe form that leaves the student nonverbal and mentally impaired or Asperger’s syndrome, in which the child is intelligent and verbal, midstate experts said.

How does a school deal with an Asperger’s child who might have an IQ off the charts but can’t cope with someone jostling him in line? The student lacks a sense of what’s socially inappropriate and sometimes shows oppositional or aggressive behavior.

What works for one autistic student doesn’t work for the next. Sometimes what works one day doesn’t work the next. But as the population of students with autism has increased, educators have found several methods to be helpful.

In addition, some autistic students need speech classes to learn the social aspects of conversation: taking turns, smiling, and noticing and interpreting other people’s body language.

Some are much more sensitive to sounds or lights than other people or can’t cope in crowded situations, so it’s difficult for them to be in a classroom or a lunchroom with a lot of students, said Janet McCauslin, director of special education for Central Dauphin School District, which has six elementary, three middle school and three high school classes for students with autism.

Something as minor as where the student’s desk is in the classroom or how the room is lighted could be critical, said Luann Schaffer-Yeager, the director of special education for the Susquehanna Township School District.

People with autism spend so much time and energy trying to cope with an onslaught of auditory, visual and tactile input that there’s not much energy left for socializing, said Nina Wall-Cote, the director of the Bureau of Autism Services in the state Department of Public Welfare.

Christine Roesch, who teaches in an autism classroom at Central Dauphin High School, said, “The hope is to get them to tolerate more things so not so much of the world is overwhelming.”

Her students, aged 17 to 21, form the first group that was diagnosed early and received help from preschool on, she said. Because they were in the first wave, their educational experience was more trial and error than it is for children diagnosed today.

“This is a population that has such great talent and aptitude and gifts and abilities, and a recognition of that is so important,” Wall-Cote said. “While we focus on the deficits — and those are real — there has got to be a recognition of the incredible abilities people have.”

Pennsylvania conducted an autism census, which was released last fall. Before then, people didn’t know how many Pennsylvanians had autism, where they lived or how old they were.

“Pennsylvania is really the first state to have concrete numbers,” Wall-Cote said. “In 2005, we counted 20,000 individuals with a diagnosis. ... By this year, we’re already at 25,000.”

Officials say that’s an undercount, but it’s a starting point.

“We urge you to keep in mind the implications that these numbers will have on a service system wholly unprepared to meet the rapidly increasing population of children and adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders,” the report’s cover letter stated.

Children with autism bring something positive to the classroom, said Candis Chubb, the supervisor of special education for the Mechanicsburg Area School District.

“Their personalities tend to be so unique that it’s enjoyable getting to know that person,” she said. “They tend to teach us things. ... Some of them have really specific interests, and it’s great to use them as experts in the classroom.”

Mechanicsburg staffers are becoming better teachers because the methods that help children with autism help all students, such as letting students know what’s coming next and presenting information visually, Chubb said.

Teachers and support staffers can prepare the autistic or Asperger’s student the best they can. Still, “There might be things that upset a child in the classroom or in the hallway, but we can’t predict if someone jostles them in line or says a word that upsets them,” Chubb said. “There’s a lot of navigating, helping the student to understand what happened, helping them to cope and then get them back on track again.”

The school district can provide learning support and emotional support, Chubb said. “We have autism consultants that come into the district. They observe the student, help the staff understand how to make the student successful in the classroom.”

A team from the Susquehanna Township School District attended a summer boot camp to learn techniques for autistic students, Schaffer-Yeager said.

“Two years ago, we were really hit heavy,” she said. “That was our preschool population. That’s when we started searching that we wanted to build internal capacity and no longer send kids out of district.”

If the district has to contract with a service provider, it costs $34,000 to $142,000 per student per year, she said.

In the same way that an adult coping with a headache has trouble concentrating, children with autism have to put so much energy into navigating the bombardment of sights and sounds that it sometimes seems that they just want to be alone, but they need social interaction, educators said.

But because they can’t read the cues from eye-rolling, tone of voice and facial expression, they often don’t fit in. The social issues become more pronounced as they get older if they’re not given training early enough, Schaffer-Yeager said.

Some schools teach autism awareness to adults and students, Miklos said.

“I think it’s a good thing to do,” he said. Otherwise classmates might respond badly when a child with autism behaves in an unusual way.

“Stigmatizing is not a good thing, but explaining that we are all individuals and that we all bring individual skills and abilities is important.”

Adults, too, feel at a loss for how to respond when they see unusual or violent behaviors.

“Punishment typically should not be teachers’ first response to a problem,” Miklos said. “You need to look at why the student is engaging in behavior: for attention, to get out of something or because it feels good.

“There is no role for corporal punishment, but having clear consequences is important. It should never be punitive. Maintain the dignity of everyone involved, especially the student.”

McCauslin said, “You cannot discipline them for something related to their disability, but you need to make them aware. It is a very fine line.”

Central Dauphin’s sensitivity training for students focuses on treating other students nicely and accepting their differences. It is tied in with an anti-bullying program, McCauslin said.

“Zero tolerance cuts both ways,” Wall-Cote said. She sees children with autism who struggle to fit in at school and punished when they are aggressive but who are bullied a lot.

Experts predict the number of children with autism will keep climbing.

“I’m hoping we see a big transition in the community,” Chubb said.

“We can try our best to make sure students are prepared for college or work or independent living, but when the student is outside our doors, what’s out there for them? That’s what I worry about,” she said.