I don’t know of any family with an autistic child who hasn’t, at some time or other, had some kind of financial difficulty, whether in the form of paying for therapies and treatments, or scrambling to live on one income, if one spouse has to quit his or her job to take care of a child. Living in a time of economic crisis means that families may well have fewer resources but just as many hopes to provide for their children. In yesterday’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Paul Nyhan focuses on the Otts, whose 6-year-old son, Aaron, is autistic: The Otts’s income fell from $120,000 to $38,000 last year as the credit freeze and the collapsing housing market took a severe toll on the income of Robert Ott, a “veteran real estate broker.” The family is no longer able to pay for behavior therapy for Aaron, who’s been struggling much more in his first grade classroom.

In one of the stark realities of the credit squeeze, [the Otts] can’t even free up cash by selling their home and downsizing.

“We can’t sell this place to make a profit,” Robert Ott said.

Plus, they probably wouldn’t qualify for a new home loan.

Looking back, he wonders what they could have done differently. Maybe held onto more savings? Skipped unproven therapies?

But like many parents dealing with a special-needs diagnosis, they felt pressure to do as much as they could as quickly as possible.

“We just moved forward doing everything,” Robert Ott said.

Ott notes that there’ll find a way to manage and provide for Aaron “‘because there is no other choice.’” But surely there’s a better way, a way to provide for families and their children: Families in Wisconsin, in Washington (as Nyhan notes), in Virginia, and around the country are hopeful for the passage of legislation requiring insurance coverage for treatment for autistic children.

Not that that will be the end of their efforts—-then there’s the need to get therapists and start teaching…………

A South Seattle man allegedly threatened to burn down the bedroom of a 13-year-old autistic boy; the man is now in jail on $25,000 bail. From today’s KOMO News:

[The boy's family, the Engens say Mark] Levison, 48, apparently couldn’t stand seeing their 13-year-old severely autistic son in the front yard.

“Didn’t want Anthony out there,” said the boy’s father, Craig Engen. “He didn’t want to see him spinning around.”

Seattle police say one evening earlier this month Levison came across the street.

Engen says, “That’s when he became threatening, and that’s when he threatened to burn down his bedroom … my son’s bedroom, if he didn’t go inside.”

The boy’s mother called police. When officers arrested Levison for the threat they say he smelled of booze.

The police report says he kept ranting about the boy.

“I pay $1,000 a month rent and shouldn’t have to see that idiot spinning around and staring at my house,” Levison said, according to the police report.

The boy’s parents have no idea why the sight of their son made Levison so angry.

We’re not world’s best (quietest) neighbors, but it’s never come to that.

While traveling from Detroit to Seattle on Southwest Airlines, a mother with four children, one who has autism and another who has cerebral palsy, and her five-month pregnant sister were stranded in Phoenix after being told they were “too disruptive” to continue on a connecting flight to Seattle. Wendy Slaughter acknowledged that her children were “loud and kept getting up and walking around the plane.” KIRO reports about what happened on Friday:

When the family landed in Phoenix they were met at the gate by police officers, detained and told they were too disruptive to get on their connecting flight to Seattle, Slaughter said.

Slaughter said they were left stranded at the Phoenix airport with no money and no lodging.

This was the first flight for the children. Slaughter admitted the children were loud and kept getting up and walking around the plane.

“The children were out of control on the flight you know, they were restless, excited and worked up and they are kids,” said Slaughter.

The family said flight attendants asked them to quiet the children twice, but they didn’t expect to be booted off the flight

“I am furious about it. I can’t believe they could do something like that and then leave us completely stranded with no money no way to get anywhere,” Slaughter said.

Southwest Airlines spokeswoman Christi Day told KIRO-7:

“They were being disruptive and unruly on the plane, and for the safety of our customers and the flight crew, we decided to not allow them to travel on to Seattle at that time. Typically if it’s a threatening behavior, it’s not safe to travel 30,000 feet in the air in a contained environment.”

Police officers brought the family food and Motel 6 donated a room for the night. The children’s grandmother paid $2000 to book the family on an Alaska Airlines flight, on which they had no trouble. The family is asking Southwest Airlines for compensation, and an apology.

It was just a few weeks ago that an autistic toddler, Jarret Farrell, and his mother were removed from an American Eagle airplane—looks like the very unfriendly skies are even not getting any friendlier. And the summer traveling season is not even halfway through—a little more kindness, a lot less exclusion, would be (at the very least) nice, though not looking too likely any time soon.

Not “a school for kids with autism,” but “a school that accepts kids with autism”—so Alison Moors, director of the Academy for Precision Learning says in an article in the June 27th Seattle Post-Intelligencer by Paul Nyhan. The school is just finishing its first year, with four teachers and five students. It was started by six parents of children with autism only ten months ago; next year, its enrollment will double and the school will move to the University District in Seattle. Currently, families pay tuition ($36,000 for one-on-one teaching, $21,000 for some support, and $14,000 for general education)

The teaching style at the school is what Nyhan describes as “Montessori on steroids”:

Based on the “Precision Teaching” method, which tailors instruction to each student, teachers meticulously document a student’s progress on pale-blue graphs. For their part, students move between highly structured sessions and looser child-directed time.

On a recent afternoon, Kauvel Mohazzabfar was watching a YouTube clip of “Dumbo” before sitting down to draw 70 strokes in consecutive boxes for two minutes. On his first try, the 8-year-old, who has autism, drew 66 lines, then he drew 57 lines and on his third attempt hit 72, which meant he could visit the class guinea pigs.

A few feet away, Jeremy, 11, and Neal, 8, ripped through their own vocabulary and reading exercises, two grade levels ahead.

“Oh, my favorite class is math,” Neal said. “I’m in second grade, but I’m doing third-grade work.”

The idea is that students repeatedly work on small skills, such as lines, sounds and words, until they are comfortable and ready for more complex work.

Plans are for the school to span six grades with 90 students, both those with special needs and those without and this is where director Moors’ comment about the Academy for Precision Learning being a school that “accepts kids with autism”—a school for all kids that is more than open to having autistic students—-comes in. The academy is for autistic students “who can function, with support, in classrooms with typical children” and would not be the right sort of school for my son, who so far does best in a classroom with autistic children being taught in highly structured and specific ways (Charlie has done well with lots of ABA).

Nonetheless, knowing that there are more educational options for autistic students is more than encouraging: Imagine a school that’s originally for autistic students that can also accept those who don’t have autism.

(Very small analogy: Years ago Charlie was very fond of those latex squishy balls, some of which you can turn inside-out, or that have little spikes, or that glow in the dark; we ordered a lot from places like Abilitations. Then a few years ago, we started to see squishy inside-out balls at Target, Toys ‘R’ Us, random toys stores—-the squishy ball’d gone mainstream. I guess we all could use a little sensory break.)