School Has Autistic Child Arrested
Posted by JeanneSager at 12:45 PM on January 20, 2009
Charges of battery against an eight-year-old with Asperger’s syndrome have been dropped, and her parents are now pursuing legal action against the Idaho school district that called law enforcement.
What’s wrong with this picture?
Evelyn Towry was told she couldn’t wear her special jacket in class last week, prompting the little girl (whose diagnosis of Asperger’s falls on the autism spectrum) to become resistant and act out in the classroom. But instead of telling the child she could just wear her jacket, school officials said they called the cops, alleging she assaulted school staff during the incident.
She’s eight. And autistic.
Shouldn’t school officials, of all people, understand that?
While Asperger’s syndrome falls on the milder end of the autism spectrum, its symptoms are akin to what many people identify with autism – a need for structure, difficulty identifying and expressing feelings. It’s also classified as a disability, allowing children who have been diagnosed to qualify for special services from their local school district, including special consideration for their special needs.
So why should a jacket on a child with Asperger’s syndrome become an issue? Even if this child were to have become violent, the details of the case would indicate that school officials set this child – who they knew had a difficulty expressing feelings – off. They caused the problem. That would seem a direct violation of civil rights section 504, which protects kids in schools from discrimination for their developmental disabilities.
Should autistic child bear some responsibility for their actions? By calling the cops and pressing battery charges, that’s what the school district was suggesting – that Evelyn Towry was responsible for battery. But who’s to blame? Should a school district be held liable for the action that caused the equal and opposite reaction?
Image: salem news
Excellent point! It seems ludicrouse but these actions happen everyday in schools. In fact school staff is encourage to call the police. With budget cuts these days, schools have stuped to new levels. Lisa
My daughter has Asperger’s Syndrome, is 12 years old now, always wore a jacket in grade school and always wears a gray sweatshirt (different ones) in middle school. Her relatively wonderful grade school (compared to the one before it) made a big deal about her wearing a coat (but never called the cops!) An article of clothing that’s heavy, like a coat, can help a child like my daughter (and this little girl) feel comforted and more centered in an environment that’s uncomfortable and scary. Her coat should be written into her IEP if school officials have a problem determining if it’s something the cops need called about. And then we could make them, the school officials – not the 8 year old, a picture chart. Gun = call police. Coat = not call police. Autistic children do learn and do need to learn to be responsible for their behavior, but they have to go through different steps to learning than neurotypical kids. Some of those steps take much longer, some take less, it helps to understand.
This is ridiculous. Not what happened, but what you wrote about it. Aspergers=usually misdiagnosed. We all know that there are many parents that just don’t want to deal with that their child misbehaves, so the get a universal excuse for why they can’t behave themselves. I’m not saying that this is definitely the case, but really, how many people had Aspergers’ 100 years ago? Not many. This was because people learned that the world was not fair and didn’t feel the need to have excuses. And how many peoples’ parents sued because of a minor incident at school that the child will forget in a week? Not many. People need to grow thicker skins and learn that their child may be below average. That does not mean that he/she is mentally disabled, but that they are not as good as others at certain things. That is why it is called an average.
commment for kirsten: i have three children.. One who has been diagnosed with aspergers since 8th grade.Now a senior in high school. Its been a long tough battle getting him here. If you had a disabled child you might not be so flippant to say those things. Yes theres more cases diagnosed now then in the past. Could i be from the environment that we have created for our children? You need to do some research before telling a mother of a mentally disabled child that she should grow a thicker skin..You have no idea how thick our skin has to be to deal with knowing our babies are different.. So please get off your soap box and realize whats really going on.
Julie, I invite you to live with my 12 yr old aspergic grandson with an IQ of 144 who has spent most of his school life outside the headmaster’s office because he is bored, nobody will intellectually stimulate him and more importantly nobody understands that in classroom he only has 37% hearing – they say he is disruptive. In addition he has what the majority of boys in schools have, certainly in WA, auditory processing problems. My husband is 63 and he has it so don’t say these things weren’t around 100 yrs ago. Technology wasn’t around 100 years ago that all diagnosed peculiarities, social structure was different, there were countless wars and children didn’t live so long – hence big families to ensure the line ensued. My 40 yr old son is spina bifida with hydrocephalus – 100 yrs ago he would have died. Technology found a valve to keep him alive but nobody in the education dept in Aus or NZ knew how to handle these kids either and again he has high IQ so got himself through school on his own because his short term memory was a problem to the teachers. In UK he had so much help – but there they do have as the system of special needs is so different. Get a life and don’t be so full of platitudes try helping out a family sometime then commenting from a background of knowing your subject.