Slashdot Mirror
School Putting Autistic Children in Fenced Enclosure
In an attempt to deal with autistic children who "have no sense of boundaries and do not respond to staff asking them to stop," a Sydney primary school has created pens which hold the disabled children during play time. As you might expect, parents have expressed outrage that their kids are forced to stand inside a fenced enclosure that has one tree, a bench and a dirt floor. The Department of Education said in a statement: "The school is located on a busy road. Without this area, the students may leave the school grounds and could potentially be injured. Some of these children have no sense of boundaries and do not respond to staff asking them to stop. Once the school is satisfied a student will listen to directions from staff members and is also aware of playground boundaries, the child can use the playground."
The article doesn't say how big the area is. Growing up as a kid, I went to several different schools and they all had fenced playgrounds. This doesn't really seem alarming unless the fenced areas are exremely small. I would like to find out the size of this "enclosure".
This is yellow journalism and blue-faced agitation at its worst. These are special needs kids who are prone to wandering, at a school near a busy road. The fence was installed at the request of their parents. The article clearly states this (as does the summary); the coalition is complaining about it merely because it's an opportunity to cause a pernicious backlash against the school board. Frankly, they should be ashamed of themselves - it's like arguing that installing ramps at a school it singles out people in wheelchairs.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
Keeping them indoors wouldn't be an option? Wire fencing them is a pragmatic solution, but besides sending a really, really wrong message to the other children (and the autistic kids themselves, if they are able to reflect upon their social standing towards other people, which might not be the case) it seems very boring.
Emotions! In your brain!
Isn't this a glaring sign that these children shouldn't be in that environment at all? I have a severely autistic (ie tantrumming pre-schooler in adult's body) brother. Growing up he attended a special needs school where the whole playground was well fenced, and where there were specialist teachers. This school was government-funded, and we were lucky that such facilities were available. Often they aren't, and due to shortage of money (usual story) these kids get shoe-horned in to regular schools where they don't get the care they need (teachers are usually already way too over-burdened as it is just dealing with the regular kids).
Obviously, autistic kids who are clearly going to gain from the social environment should go to a normal school. Clearly these fenced kids aren't able to fit in. It's a really sad situation. Their families should be withdrawing them, but maybe without this school they don't have adequate support to look after them (which is sad) or just don't give a shit and don't care where they get sent (also very sad).