Autistic student allegedly hit by teacher
October 12, 2006 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
…we as parents of children with disabilities are going to take the responsibility to ensure that when we do send our children to the public schools that our children should not only be in a productive environment but a safe environment as well.
So wrote Debbie Laughter, who has an autistic child, in a letter in today’s Daily Southerner (NC). She is writing in response to an “incident” at Tarboro High School in which a teacher, Carter Ray Suggs, is alleged to have hit a student on the arm with a ruler. The student is autistic. In response to the suggestion that the “incident” may have been due to a misinterpretation, Laughter writes that she is “outraged” that it has been suggested that “perhaps there may have been contributing factors that would have been beyond Mr. Suggs’ control”—such as that a student with such a disability should not have been placed in Suggs’ classroom in the first place.
As Laughter writes,
Autistic students did not just start coming through the school system last week. Therefore, passing the blame regarding whose responsibility it should have been just seems irrelevant to me, as well.
And to me, too.
I have taught three students with Autism in the last four years alone. That’s not counting the one I wanted to refer for testing but couldn’t because of parental denial. All teachers need to know autism.
Many of the college students who have worked with Charlie in his home program have gone on to become autism therapists, special ed teachers, or elementary school teachers. One young woman is now teaching 4th grade and told me she has some ASD students who are mainstreamed and has been to IEP meetings—-autism is everywhere and we all need to be educated.