Anna Bullard tells a story that only a mother could tell. For those of us who had children who were fortunate enough to have developed normally, it is hard to imagine a toddler wrapped in silence 24 hours a day. Anna’s reward for a mother’s perseverance was hearing her daughter’s first word: Mama! But it came years after it should have.
If it is hard to comprehend that your child is different and needs help, it is harder still to hear Anna describe her struggle with doctors just to get an accurate diagnosis of her daughter’s problem. You get the idea that a lot of doctors have never heard of autism. A lot of them apparently don’t know it when they see it.
Anna tells of other battles as well, particularly of a parent fighting to get their child the special attention they need for their special needs. But Anna is a fighter and her story is one of victory over that amorphous beast that is Public Education’s Special Education. Anna learned the law, learned the rules and regulations and was not bluffed by bureaucrats into abandoning her child’s rights. Anna made sure her child got everything that she was entitled to–and it made all the difference!
Anna testifies to the benefits of behavior modification in breaking through the barriers of autism to establish communication with her daughter. The key: early diagnosis and intervention. A child who is not fortunate to have a parent as determined as Anna stands a real risk of being ignored during the early years, reducing the likelihood of a normal, productive life. With intensive therapy many of these children can attend school with their non-autistic peers.
The sad thing is that our society and our educational system is not attempting to identify these children early and initiate effective therapy. In many ways, this failure dooms many of these children to a non-productive, disabled, low-functioning life living off a government check.
This is not the only example where our desire for tax cuts and low budgets is counter productive, but it is one of the most shameful. Listen to the interview. It is well worth the time.
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