9 Autism Bills in New Jersey
March 4, 2007 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
9 bills about autism will be voted on by the New Jersey Assembly Health and Senior Services Committee this coming Monday, March 5. Back on February 13th—just a few days after the CDC presented its new statistics about the higher prevalence rates for autism in the US (1 in 150) and in New Jersey in particular (1 in 94)—it was announced that 6 bills would be presented. Assembly Speaker Joseph J. Roberts, Jr., D-Camden, is quoted in today’s Asbury Park Press as saying that “‘What we are doing with the package is looking at this very complex issue in a holistic way.’”
Here is a complete list of the legislation:
- Senate Bill A-2306: Establishes Autism registry in DHSS; appropriates $500,000
- Senate Bill S-690: Establishes Asperger’s Syndrome Pilot Initiative
- Senate Bill 2567: Supplemental appropriation of $4 million for Governor’s Council for Medical Research and Treatment of Infantile Autism
- Senate Bill A-4054: Makes changes concerning Governor’s Council for Medical Research and Treatment of Autism
- Senate Bill A-4055: Requires candidates for teaching certificates and current teachers to receive instruction in autism awareness and methods of teaching students with autism.
- Senate Bill A-4056: Concerns Early Intervention Program services for children with autism
- Senate Bill A-4057: Establishes New Jersey Adults with Autism Task Force
- Senate Bill A-4058: Requires DHSS to establish autism awareness program for emergency medical technicians, police officers and firefighters.
- Senate Bill 4059: Extends funding for autism medical research and treatment
The Asbury Park Press directly links this “package” of nine bills to the high prevalence rate for autism in New Jersey (and uses a metaphor that recalls the language of the Combating Autism Act (CAA) ):
Both sides of the political aisle will be pushing forward a package of bills Monday aimed at tackling autism, less than a month after New Jersey topped a national study concerning the neurological disorder.
The Asperger’s Syndrome Pilot Initiative (S-690) was approved this past Monday, February 26th; testimony on the bill by Ari Ne’eman, President of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN), can be read here.
Senate Bill A-4055 on training teachers about autism and about teaching autistic students is of particular importance to me. One of my son’s former ABA therapists is now an elementary school teacher and has had autistic students and also been at IEP meetings, and has told me about how valuable the experience she had working with Charlie has been. Senate Bill A-4057 is also of particular importance to me: Charlie will be 10 years old in less than three months and it seems only yesterday that he was 3 years old in my arms—-and, before I know it, he will be 20 years old. More than a search for a cause of autism, these bills propose the kinds of changes that I think can hopefully make real improvements in the day to day lives of the many autistic children and adults in New Jersey—-in Charlie’s life and in the lives of all those kids who were swimming the YMCA pool with him this afternoon.
I hope I do not sound like I have a one track mind in the comments I have started to make here, but I sure hope that the ‘autism awareness instruction’ gets across one important point, that children with autism are children first, not a ’set of behaviors’ to be ‘diagnosed’. They require understanding and patience, and respect, like any child.
All children also need to feel loved and accepted. I have heard so many mothers speak disparagingly of other children – ‘he flaps’ ’she’s really low functioning’ ‘I dont want my child to mimic behaviors’ and many special education schools that a few short years ago accepted children with ‘behaviors’ now do not, in order to cater to these parents. Its all about money, and autism is big business. Children with special needs derserve to be part of their communities, with the right supports. Community for children is school. An atmosphere of understanding rather than judgement and prejudice is essential. Your teaching strategy about ‘attitude’ should be incorporated in the the ‘awareness instruction’.
Yes, autism is big, big busisness—–langauge like a “set of behaviors” indeed only dehumanizes a child and sees her or him as those “inappropriate” behaviors and not the whole person within. I’ve been writing about our past experience with our former school district regarding Charlie head-banging and have been thinking about how the behavior consultant indeed only looked at the head-banging, and not at why he might be doing it (communication needs, sensory overload). “Autism awareness” is the vaguest of terms and I am curious as to how this “awareness” might be characterized—-maybe some improved “autism attitude” might be helpful.
Thank you for responding to this, my mantra! Often therapists,special education teachers, and behavior consultants, while attempting to help a situation, are working from 15 year old models of how to work with kids with challenging ‘behaviors’. I look at it as all behavior is communication. A child might be ignored by teachers whose attention and understanding she/he craves, and bullied by the other children is subtle ways. This can cause a child with communication and sensory integration difficulties to act out. Everyone says ‘change the child not the environment’ and I do agree with that in many cases, but sometimes – very often in public school settings – its the attitude of teachers and other children that needs modification. Kids really want to help once they know what to do. And as I have commented before, a regular education teacher who does not use the robotic language( that some special ed professionals adopt because its what they were taught), can form better connections with a child because they are not scripted. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing though, I have heard regular education teachers attempting to put labels on kids – ‘we think he needs to be tested for ADHD’ instead of looking at how the classroom is organized, or how classroom discipline is maintained. a lot of times its blame the child and stamp a label on the problem. This prevelent attitude is very hard on children and their parents, increasing loneliness and desolation. Not everyone wants to OR CANNOT spend $150,000 year over year just to have a somewhat supportive school and theraputic environment for their children. In the end, the simple attitude adjustment will save pots of money!
While I strongly encourage the further study and awareness of Autism, I am actually panicking by the thought of these bills, which I don’t even know to the full extent. Why? “Awareness” they say? Well, autism awareness to the common people basically means checklists! Checklists that for practical reasons (or intentional serving other interests), are based mostly on secondary symptoms of Autism, and hardly ever tackle the core symptoms, the real and core issues of Autism, secondary symptoms that can reside among many developing children that are simply developing different or have other delays or impairments. When I hear more Awareness, I hear more hype and more potential misunderstandings about children. More such “awareness” actually means less awareness in my opinion. Real awareness is to be able to discriminate between real autism and all the rest, and not to just categorize in such a coarse manner all that are different. Failing to discriminate has serious negative consequences on our children and our families. The latest “Awareness” is discouraging us to accept the child as a human being who is an individual, and it is encouraging us to treat the child as broken or disabled. My experience is telling me that we are going all wrong about this Autism Spectrum condition. I feel we have been hijacked by special interest groups lobbying for more and more power and control over how to classify children that are simply different, and that some are only developing differently. I feel that this is being achieved by means of inserting feat into society about this “Autism Spectrum epidemic”. They are feeding us with a lot of misinformation with controversial facts and statistics, all synthesized to appear scientific, but really just to lead you on to panic, hysteria and early treatments that lack real science regarding not only their effectiveness of treating specific issues, but their influence on the child as a whole. Yes, there are children with real conditions out there for it may be appropriate to be classified under some common condition such as Autism or ASD. Unfortunately we are now on the verge of becoming a society of checklists and symptoms trying to point out “red flags” to every child that is atypical in behavior, or doesn’t talk yet, or maybe has receptive delays or sensory integration issues, or maybe just likes to align things in rows and is just not the expressive and social type. It is tragic because real people are victims here. Both the real autistic children and grown ups and their families, as well as all those many children that now fall into the current wide Autism spectrum, that in my opinion has become a spectrum of intolerance to people.