Disability Law Society presents "The Social and Legal Ramifications of the Rise of Autism Spectrum Disorder"

This discussion, featuring Clinical Professor of Law Herschella Conyers, Brooke Whitted (Whitted, Cleary, and Takiff, LLC), and Lam Ho (Equip for Equality) was recorded on October 12, 2012 and sponsored by the Disability Law Society.

Transcript

Speaker 1: This audio file is a production of the University of Chicago law school. Visit us on the web at www.law.uchicago.edu

Host 0:20: Today we're talking about the social and legal ramifications of autism spectrum disorder and specifically what the explosion of autism diagnoses in the 1990s is going to mean for social and legal systems going forward. As, as many of you know, uh, there has been an incredible increase in diagnosis of a developmental disorders generally, and particularly autism and asperger's. Uh, the New York Times, a recent New York Times article estimates that about half a million children with autism spectrum disorder are going to be aging out and into the adult system where there are sort of less safeguards and not as clearly defined legal rules sometimes. Um, so we're just going to be talking about sort of what, what this is going to mean and as legal advocates and how we should understand this, uh, you know, sort of in our, in our lives and um, and also as advocates for children and adults potentially with, with disabilities and specifically with developmental disabilities. Um, our panelists, are Lam Ho from Equip for Equality, he is a former Skadden fellow, a Harvard Law School Graduate, and Equip for Equality is a great organization, it's right downtown in Chicago, um, he works specifically for the education clinic. So he does a lot of special ed type cases, Professor Conyers, hopefully some of you know, she's right here the law school. She works in the juvenile justice clinic. Um, and she's going to talk a little bit about, um, juveniles with developmental disabilities in the juvenile justice system. And Brooke Whitted is a partner downtown at Whitted, Cleary, and - Taketh. That's right. Um, uh, and, uh, he also works at the orthonogenic clinic or the orthonogenic school here, um, and represents a lot of kids with special needs and their families. So you guys can just start off, uh, I guess I'll just sort of generally, you know, maybe an opening question about some, some sort of special issues that you guys deal with, um, maybe sort of ethical issues. And, and you're sort of like legal responsibilities. I'm dealing with kids with special needs and trying to represent their interests, but also, um, you know, also dealing with their families and trying to understand sort of relationship. It's when the kids interests and their family's interests. Okay.

Brooke Whitted (3:04): Can I ask a question? Hello everybody. How many people here have had, have connection to through their family or through close friends with a person who has an autism spectrum disorder?Okay, that's good to know.

Connors: (3:38) I hesitate to talk first because of (indistinguishable). So jump in, uh, at any point. I hope that this will be a discussion by everybody in this room and I'm what I, in answer to your question, and also in response to this swell of diagnoses, I've been representing kids, I guess for 20 years now. And what's clear to me is that in the juvenile justice system, we have sort of winked at kids with special needs, um, because if they've got special needs, we shouldn't punish them as severely as we do. So we just pretend they don't have special needs. And call them bad. And then we get to do what we want to with them. So, that's sort of my baseline experience and I just want to. I'm going to give you one case and you can take it for what it is. As I was preparing for this, I was looking over my client's IEP. An IEP is an individual educational plan, it is mandatory by state law for kids with special needs. Um, it is, uh, conducted depending on what's recommended. They're done I think every three years. Is that right, Michelle? And so every year they look at it and reassess it and it's supposed to articulate what the needs of the child are, what they're going to do to address those needs, and they set goals and benchmark dates and it's about an 11, at a minimum, there may be 11 different sections on it and several of the sections can be duplicated over and over. So we can go from anywhere from like 11 to a 20 page document. It's supposed to be done with some specificity. The student is involved, a student's parent. Families are involved, um, the Chicago public school or school district personnel are also involved and there are, at least in Chicago, only a handful of lawyers who actually show up at IEP meetings. The good news about lawyers is that we scare people. And so when we show up, - We do? - Well maybe not you, but when my social work calls up and says I'd like to attend the IEP, that's fine. Or the staffing, that's fine. Then when she says my client's lawyers also coming, there is a shift, there is a shift and I don't mind telling her, you know, let these people know, "don't make me call my lawyer." Um, but the IEP is a particular piece out I want to allude to was in March of last year. My client was 14 years old and 10 months and at that time he was in eighth grade at an elementary school in Chicago. And I'm just gonna read you this. Uh, as then we can talk about why, what cause I think it gives you an idea about the educational system and then it feeds right into the criminal and juvenile justice system. Okay. So listen to this, the student will be able to give his hypotheses in regards to a science experiment dealing with solar energy. He will form a hypothesis and prove or disprove it using data collected from the experiment. Now that's a goal for my client. Alrighty. Here's the other one of the other goals for my client. He is able to rope count to 30 and he is able to write all of the numbers independently as long as he is able to copy them. He can verbally add and subtract single digit numbers. I'm assuming that means from one to nine, I'm orally. He is able to use a multiplication chart to find answers. As long as the operations are written for him, he can write the answer. Now, here's the kicker for me, unfortunately he is unable to tell you what any of the numbers are. And finally their quarterly benchmark for a 14 year, that 14 year old, 10 months a young man is the student will be able to read the following words in isolation. I kid you not, they are. "For" "our" "had" "not" "who" "his" "how" "one", "her" "and" "she" "use" "was" "But" "can" "you" "all" and "out" and he gets three chances to try to pull this off right. Is anybody as confused as I am? So let me tell you why I'm representing this young man. I am representing him because he is charged as an adult in the county of Cook, State of Illinois, with aggravated criminal sexual assault. So he is, he was being held at the detention center and once a month they would cuff him and drive him over to the criminal courts building and call him by his last name, Mr. So, and so, And they actually informed him of his right to have the, uh, trial in absentia, uh, and they asked him did he understand about his rights, about trial in absentia and what did my client say? He said, uh-huh, yeah. You know, so the criminal juvenile justice system has really not addressed this with any degree of seriousness. And to address, I guess the biggest ethical issues that I have. And then I'll shut up and open it up is I've represented kids not as severely handicapped as my client, he's now in a residential facility but still awaiting trial on adult charges because he was just found unfit to stand trial. We had a hearing on it, uh, in the state insistent that we go to a hearing, uh. His Iq ranges from 42 to 47. Um, and the problem is that I am actually had adults who allegedly have higher IQs suggest to me that I plead the client to something lesser. I can't figure out what to plead the client to because the client doesn't get it. It is just plain wrong. Um, and if it, for me, if, if I keep the client, I have to plead either his mother or his sister or someone who's going to be able to take him to the probation department who is going to, uh, you know, we were joking yesterday and you got to have a sense of humor about this, you know, do you pin a note when the client saying, please register him as a sex offender and make sure he gets back on the right bus? I mean, um, so that's the dilemma for me is how to get these kids out of this system. Uh, and not winking at, they really don't get it because obviously I could probably have my client plead to anything. Um, you know, I could probably get him to copy his name even on a piece of paper

Brooke Whitted: (12:12) You could probably get him to enter an admission in the criminal proceeding.

Connors: (12:14) Oh, I could, yeah, just like that. Yeah. And you know, um, but I, I, I can't. And so the struggle is then what is the fight and where should the fight be for these types of kids.

Brooke Whitted: (12:30) Can I ask another question? How many people don't know much about autism spectrum kids or adults? You don't know much about the characteristics. Can I, I'm sorry, I'm not used to sitting down and talking, so can I just take a few minutes? And so those of you who have personal contact with, with autism spectrum individuals, this is kind of a duplicate too for you, but I think just out of kind of deference to the people who don't know about this, this is a very unique and complex disorder. I'm just from the Mayo Clinic website and by the way, I'm here in two capacities. One is I'm the chair of the board or the president or the orthogenic school, which is just four blocks down there. Your neighbor and we'd been there for, I dunno, about 60 years and it's a residential school. Uh, right now there are 47 kids living there. It's that church building at the end right next to the UC press and the theological seminary. That's the orthogenic school and the Hyde Park Day school, which is a separate school and the orthogenic school developed a reputation many years ago as, as one that there was a guy named Bruno Bettelheim who had some interesting ideas about kids. Some of them kind of broad, like cold mothers cause autism. In fact we have the famous cold mother as a sculpture reclining, kind of questionably clothed in our back courtyard. But she's made of concrete and she's very cold and that's the way (indistinguishable name) had her commissioned. Clearly that's not the thinking anymore. But he also had some, some good ideas about kids and one of the things that he said was, if you're going to have kids at an institution, make it non institutional and make it like your living room and have nice stuff around. And this professor -- confirmed to me, she's been over there and we have the best antiques on campus. So, uh, but the population, of the orthogenic school his gift as we do not have any kids there with a 42 IQ, the median IQ is 120. There's lots of asperger's kids there. They're no different from many University of Chicago Faculty members. So, especially the faculty working with a nuclear accelerators and things like that. So as a matter of fact, I got this really cool thing from the New York Times that I. I'm certain that you would like, which is don't. No, it's not from New York Times, I'm sorry. It's from biomedical ethics. And what it says is that even the grandchildren of engineers have a higher probability of developing autism. Um, hotspots of autism have been reported in major centers of engineering including Silicon Valley, Austin, Texas and Boston, route 128 technology. Bring what this theory is, according to an author named Professor Cohen and also Temple Grandin granted the world's most famous autistic person is that we're self selecting. So colleges of engineers with pocket protectors have the highest incident of populations with autism. Why? Because they're finding other rainy but socially inept people to breed with an increasing the percentage of autistic individuals. Twenty years ago, autistic people used to be one in 20,000. Now they are depending on the research study that you look at our one in 90 to one in 110 with three times as many boys as girls. So that's the statistic. And if you want to know what an autistic person is like to be with, um, actually if you, if you Google Jason Mckelway, m, c e l w a y basketball player, you'll get a wonderful, very positive portrayal on a news program of a kid who's autistic but his was on a basketball team and got like six baskets from, uh, you know, what do they call those? I don't know about sports, but the three point line. Yeah. Okay, so they shoot it in and it goes. And he did it six times. They went crazy and the e, the interview, Jason, you know something is off about this kid. He. He's off. You know right away that he's off so early in life, kids, little kids, toddlers failed to respond to their name. They have poor eye contact. They appear not to hear you at times the and they're not deaf, they resist cuddling and holding. They appear unaware of others' feelings. I don't know - it's starting to sound like the faculty is. Steve's been dealing with university 20 years.

Connors: (17:09) They're taping this. They all know that.

Brooke Whitted: (17:15) Yes, I think they're proud of it. They're proud of it. Just like the US business News Report, and you guys are not supposed to be having any fun around here. You're dead last as universities that are fun. Right? And the faculty passes that around every year and they clap. Okay, we're dead. We're dead last again, great, everybody applauds. Doesn't speak or has delayed speech, loses previously acquired ability to say words or sentences, doesn't make eye contact when making requests and you know, autistic people are very binary, unconscious, so they might sometimes invade your space, look at how uncomfortable she's getting, and she's a social worker. So one of the things that we learned was that's what I would do when we train the police. I would walk over and you know, Police are very boundary aware and I trained 30 police departments. One of the reasons that there is a law in Illinois now that requires every police officer to receive a block and construction on the characteristics of disabled of ADD people and especially autistic people is because they're seven times more likely to be arrested. For one thing, ADD individuals are four times more likely to be arrested, parenthetically. And so, the reason I asked that question too is every time I am in a room with 30 costs, I say, how many people have a contact with an autistic person? Two or three now always raised their hand. Many more in this crowd raised their hand, but among cops it's always two or three individuals. Then you start getting then being able to tell their story, but many times cops are trained to have a command presence. Okay. Everybody settle down, you know, higher voice kind of threatening and getting into people's space as well, and an autistic person. Fifty percent of the autistic people who have language, and by the way 50 percent don't when they are under stress, they lose the ability to use language. So what happens? Cop says stand up against the car, and the kid doesn't do it or the adult doesn't do it, and then the cop starts trying to force him and the autistic person will lash out when they can't otherwise communicate. What do you have? You have an aggravated battery of police officer and a criminal charges and somebody in the system, as a professor says, not constructed to accommodate an autistic person. We have to a criminal lawyers in my law firm and we are always. We don't take the pure criminal cases. We only take cases, criminal cases where disability is involved and the most frequent one is a misunderstanding between an autistic person and a cop resulting in an aggravated battery. And then the state's attorney wants to lynch the kid and we have to persuade the judge and persuade everybody in the system. This is not the way to go because it all is also going to do is is create more anguish. Autistic people also don't take well to transitions, they want everything to be predictable. Everything to remain the same and if there's a small transition down to - Actually my son didn't like food being rearranged on his plate either, but often they perseverate with a certain thing and they want everything to be the same so that that said, autistic people, whether they're really bright and they're phenomenally, it can be phenomenally bright. As a matter of fact, this article in Biomedical Medical Ethics, where is that thing? It's really fun language and it says that one of the problems is unfortunately in my case with fathers, age, old sperm creates more autistic people, but also there is this theory that says some psychologists wonder whether Asperger's should be considered a disorder at all. Given the many who suffer from it. It made such an extraordinary contributions in their field. One such person is Richard Orchards, uh, of Britain, who won in 1998, the Fields Medal, the preeminent honor in mathematics and treatingly, he had a brother who had been diagnosed with autism. And other person, uh, was allegedly Isaac Newton and possibly Einstein who was a loner for his whole life. And his high school teacher said, you're never going to make it. He doesn't, he doesn't get along with anybody, you know, Einstein. So it's, it's an interesting spectrum. And if there's some theory that it's, you know, it's our, our race of humans mutating into a, a different way of relating. But, um, it's open to debate. So one final thing, and then I'll let you talk because I think you and I probably might have a disagreement about placement and full continuum issues. Um, in Special Ed, um, there, there is a requirement that if a child has needs which are so severe, profound, complex, or otherwise unique, that if the public program can't meet them, then they have to go to the private sector and purchase the services. The orthogenic school is filled with kids who couldn't make it in the public district and who are being paid for by those districts, uh, to receive a free, appropriate public education under federal law. Um, they have a thing in this, if they have a thing in the special ed called full inclusion, which by the way is not a legal requirement. It is a social policy and full inclusion is really nowhere in the law, what is in the least restrictive environment. Least restricted environment means education to the maximum extent appropriate with nondisabled pupils, but appropriate is the operational word, not a blind adherence to education with nondisabled pupils if it's not appropriate. Um, so much of our practices in persuading school districts like Chicago and in Chicago, it's really easy to come up with a procedural violation. Uh, it's not that difficult in their files. And so when we find one, we just found one, uh, I attended an IEP in the detention center actually for Northwestern Bluhm clinic, sorry. And, uh, and they, we were able to get a, a residential placement at Devereaux, Pennsylvania. That's a $200,000 a year placement, paid for immediately by Chicago because the kid had been in detention and the educators, hasn't done anything for three years, three years, and hadn't even been to trial, so that's the way you get Chicago to pay. You find a major procedural violation. The Reiley Case was the first case to ever interpret this law and what it said is that the procedural violations are most important. There is a substantive violation rule too, but if a lawyer, if I find a big procedural violation like that, then I'm thinking, great. I pay off my house early and I get to place a kid at a residential location if it's appropriate. So that's kind of where it stands in the that Iep, by the way, strategically, I don't know what your philosophy is about, about IEP. I don't like to help school districts write Good IEP, because the IEP, if you go to hearing on an IAP, I have. There are other people who, some of whom have worked for me. We'll sit in an iep room in a, in a room with the school for hours and help them write a really great iep. Um, but then they'll say, gee, we can provide all this. How come you, you're going to hearing against us? We don't let them do it. The case law in five circuits, five, five of the federal circuit so far, I've got insight on this, is that if you go to hearing on a bad IEP, you're stuck with - the school is stuck with that Iep, not the IEP that they later pretty up to satisfy your complaints. So we always use that. I always sit there no, when, when, when, uh, I have a bad one like that. One of my professors is a federal criminal judge and he, he says when, when things are going your way, I know as lawyers you'd like to hear your own voice, but shut up. And usually when a iep is going like this, I'm thinking this is just my heart throbs I love this iep. You know, just like I love zero tolerance. Zero tolerance is great for lawyers are wonderful for lawyers it's full employment. You don't take a disciplinary approach with an autistic kid. It's inappropriate. And there is, by the way, and you probably could speak to this more than I can, an epidemic going on now of schools trying to keep kids out of Special Ed is, oh no, we can provide this in the mainstream. It's no problem. Mainstream is always the best. And uh, we can, we can provide for this violent striking out nonverbal autistic kid right in the main street, um, or a Rett Syndrome kid or whatever. And it, the fact is there's a bell curve. In fact, the University of Chicago professor talked about the bell curve and what it says is that, you know, in this little part of the bell curve, way over here, there's a need for residential placement. It's not a very big piece of that bell curve, but these kids are severely, severely, severely disabled. So here you go, take it away.

Lam Ho: (27:03) So I should mention first that, um, at Equip for Equality. I actually run the Awesome Project. So 80 percent of my cases involve children who are on who actually on the spectrum. Brooke raised what I was going to speak about. I'm going to extend it a little bit further by viewing it first from both the educational perspective in terms of the work that I do, but also just the general discussion on how families with children on the spectrum deal with a very critical issue. Um, as Brooke mentioned, the least restrictive environment is something that is required by law in terms of whether or not students should be placed in a mainstream classroom, which is a classroom that will be with students without disabilities to a segregated classroom, which is a classroom that's will only have children with disabilities within a mainstream school or in a private placement such as Brooks school. So coming from a civil rights perspective, Equip for Equality is a civil rights organization, we generally think of people with disabilities as wanting to give them the opportunity to lead a life like everyone else. So in our initial thought is for a student with disability, we should do everything in our power to make sure that that student has the opportunity to experience education like every other student. That's our initial starting point. But then you and then you get to the point where the majority of our clients, because as a nonprofit are low income, a massive majority of our clients are in schools that suck. I am sure you are familiar. I'm sure all of you who have been in Chicago long enough to be exposed to really crappy schools. Schools where the teachers, for example, barely comprehend the English language and, and can't even construct in iep meetings a grammatically correct sentence. So you have that dilemma. And then particularly for children with autism, there are a lot of research that's emerged since the boom and in autism spectrum disorder, um, diagnoses. There's a lot of different research are a lot of different methodologies that have been shown to be really effective in addressing both early and longterm, The needs of children with autism, with autism spectrum disorder. As Brooke mentioned, there's a lot of extensive ramifications and issues that children with autism have to deal with. The reality is a lot of the research, a lot of the methodologies, a lot of the strategies cost money and some from an ethical perspective and also from political perspective, you have failing education systems with limited funds, expensive resources, so you have, so as an attorney you get a situation where you want the child to have an opportunity to be exposed. And I do honest, I personally do believe that being exposed to children without disabilities and being integrated is a really, it's a very, something that's really important and it's valuable to me. Um, and, but then you have children who have such extensive needs and you know that this crappy school, pardon my language, this sucky school. Is not, it's not gonna, be able to provide those who provide those services. For example, Chicago public schools unilaterally as a policy, refuses to use ABA, applied behavioral analysis, which has been shown with extensive research to be very successful with children with disabilities. Almost every single IEP I've attended where we've asked for it, they say they will not. They will not pay for it and I haven't found a memo yet, but I'm sure somewhere there's a memo that says it's too expensive. We can't do it.

Brooke Whitted: (31:11) Well, there's also lack of money.

Lam Ho: (31:13) Well that's. I mean there are a lot of different strategies. The point being there, Chicago public schools or not only Chicago public schools, but a lot of schools, they don't want to spend the resources. So then at that juncture, as an attorney, do you decide to pursue the civil rights perspective, which is let's keep this child in school so that child can do with students won't be segregated with students with disabilities or do you do what is necessary for their medical disability needs and which would may involve them being put in either a classroom or removed entirely to a school which only has children with disabilities. So that's the perspective that that's the ethical perspective that I have when I'm working as a lawyer. It extends not only to my legal decisions or my legal strategies. It also extends to the families who are living, who are dealing and trying to negotiate the needs of their children. I'm not sure how many of you have worked with families before with children with disabilities, but there a lot of families who will come to me and say, as an example, I don't want my kid to be with these freaks. I don't want my, my kid is not a retard. He shouldn't be with other retards. So it's a very, it's a very complex situation because you have a child with disability, but you view your child in a certain way and just, and it also doesn't mean that you were, you don't have your own set of biases and issues in terms of disability generally, but the perspective is really, and I'm using an extreme example, but the perspective is really what do I want my child with a disability to experience as a person? And so it's, uh, it's something that not only extends to the educational decisions that they make, but also bigger decisions, lifelong decisions as to do they pursue a vocational school or to they pushed the child towards a more traditional college path or decisions regarding the safety. Like how much independence should I provide my child, how much protection should I give my child in terms of going grocery shopping or going to movies or having friends. So, um, that's, it's, it's, it's a, it's a really critical issue that I think all families deal with and it's something that I'm exposed to from an educational perspective. And, and I think that it's broken. I will probably disagree, but I don't think as much as he made think in terms of, in terms of what's, what's the, what's the end goal in terms of providing the services and meeting the needs of my clients who officially is the parent, unless it's. Unless it's someone who is over 18 and has not designated the apparent as the educational rights or her. So.

Brooke Whitted: (34:24) Can we go to the ethical level for a minute? So here's the dilemma. You've got parents of a very autistic kid, right? I see this all the time and I'm sure you do and you just described this, but I'll make it a little bit more severe and you've got a conviction. You mean? I mean I always insist on meeting the kids if it's possible. So you meet this kid and you say, Oh my God, this kid needs to be in a separate setting, self contained classroom or whatever. The parents says, I don't like him with those retards. I don't know want him there. You personally feel that it's the right thing to have them in a separate classroom. What do you do?

Lam Ho: (35:13) and what does the student want? Is the student competent enough to have some sort of...?

Brooke Whitted: (35:20) The student wants, whatever the last person that talked to him says.

Lam Ho: (35:26)  And the parents?

Brooke Whitted: (35:30) The parents want him to do the Algebra class pretending to learn Algebra. They want them in a history class pretending to learn history. They think that the contact with non disabled kids is more important than education, but they'll also do his homework and make believe that he did it. So you know, this is going on. What are you doing when you're thinking, okay, if this kid doesn't get early intervention, ABA of some kind or DIR or whatever the methodology, then what do you get to aging, which is by the way, aging out of this system is the day before you turn 22. He's not going to be a self sufficient at all. He's going to be looking at a lifetime of dependency. So if you're, if you know that, what are your ethical obligations?

Lam Ho: (36:19) You want me to give him direct response? Okay. So since this is, since this has been a while since being back in a, in a classroom really brings me back to my law school days as well. I'm actually going to provide a very law school response in the sense that there's no direct answer here. I think that the IEP as, as the professor mentioned, stands for individualized. I think that one of the things that you can draw from that in terms of my own work, not only in education, but when I was practicing as a generalist at the legal assistance foundation, it's all about the individual. So I think that I can't give a specific response to that because one of the roles that an attorney has ethically is to make sure that their client is making an informed decision. So I think one that the situation there that Brook presents is an issue where my, my initial obligation isn't actually... Is actually an obligation of education and information because I think that one of the things that I've discovered, and it actually leads to a second ethical dilemma, is that as an attorney and particularly as an attorney who works for free, you have a lot of influence over your clients. Um, it doesn't matter if it's a, if it's a teenager who has a disability in this case or if it's a parent. These parents who are looking for help and the amount of, the amount of influence that you have with them is extensive. So I would say that in the scenario that Brooke presents, I think what ultimately my decision will be will very much be impacted by what happens in the education information process of getting my client to the informed decision. Ultimately, I think that if, as in a situation where it's, let's say it's a very severely, severely low functioning child with autism and it's apparent it absolutely the education and the information that I tried present based upon my understanding of autism and the needs that I think that the child would have still still still parents absolutely still insists even after I invite all the information and make all the efforts that I can regarding the, regarding the child's needs being so severe that maybe a mainstream classroom might not be appropriate. Um, I think that I would ultimately still then represent the parent to pursue what the parent would like because the parents is educational rights holder. Um, but I don't know, but I don't think, and maybe maybe this is too much hubris on my part. I don't think that if I were a competent and a good attorney that I would not Would not be successful in providing significant information to at least get the parent to a point of better understanding that not wanting to be with retards may not be the primary objective in terms of addressing her or his child needs.

Connors:  (39:37) This is fascinating. And what I heard is I've said, you believe you have one client who believes you have another. My question would be, who is your client? Is, is the the disabled child?

Brooke Whitted: (39:58) No, let's leave it because it was the parent. Let's leave it that way.

Connors:  (40:05) Okay. If you've been there, I think you cannot - I'm leaning towards you. I just can't imagine you're saying, I'm guessing you're in position is this kid needs to be in a more restricted setting. Oh, now that's. If you leave it as the parent is the client, that becomes a little paternalistic. To be honest, I have practice long enough to have to admit I accept that as part of my role as a, as a lawyer. And maybe I've represented kids too long, but, um, I think free or for pe people come to us as lawyers, as counselors, uh, for a reason. And that you know, I think you've got to spin it out and give it to us straight. This is what your child needs. This is what you should do. Now. You can't pull a pistol on them and make em, uh, but if they come to you and ask you, you know, what, how to enforce my child's right to an education. And I think you got to tell them, the kid goes into a smaller setting, a more appropriate setting, a better setting. And uh, I'm going to get off of the that one and just say this, if even if the client is the parent. And so you'll have to think about this. And what makes it fascinating is in the criminal setting and the juvenile justice setting and in the educational setting, I have seen more often than I would have thought when I first started out that parents can be in absolute direct and dire conflict with their children. They take their children to the police station and tell them, tell the cops what you did. Um, you know, they take their .. I have reason to believe they actually placed their own crimes, on their children, thinking the kids will get something less than they will. In the school setting. I have seen parents who are embarrassed about their children's conditions. They don't want to be the cold mother. They're not going to take the way for this. The boy just needs to sit down and do his homework. Like I tell him, uh, so that the resistors to accepting that you have a special needs child. And I think for poor people it is exacerbated because the educational opportunities are not in place early enough.

Brooke Whitted:  (43:07)  People in the system are used to steam rolling,

Connors: (43:09) Right over them. And by the time you get a kid going into kindergarten and first grade, because we certainly don't believe in early intervention preschool. Um, you know, the parent has accepted the child's conduct almost as normal for him. That Is normal for her. He's acting just like his brother. Uh, but the, the, the Luma of parental conflict or what the investment of the parent is. I spent lots of time, Michelle and I spent lots of time talking about how that impacts the child's education. The outcome of the child's a case or you know, any number of things. Um, and so for me it's easier obviously in the terms of the juvenile justice context. The bottom line for me is my client know, and you get up, get out of my office lady, I'm going to try to make him part of this, but if you can't be. So the line is a lot clearer for me.

Brooke Whitted: (44:21) I've been practicing law for 34 years and I've been through this drill, I don't know, at least once or twice a year with parents in denial... What I say is if I think that the position of the parents and you know, they're, my client is going to harm the child. I said, you know what? I'm all about your kid and what do you want me to do with your kid is not something I can agree with or do. And so you're fired, you know, get yourself another lawyer, is your money back to back. I can't do that. And eight times out of 10 they'll say, no, no, no. Let's talk, let's talk, but you know, two times out of 10 they, they'll say, okay, well, you know, screw you. So I'm used to that, but I'm a grouchy old man and I'm too old for, you know, to, to assist parents in denial in what I feel is might be harming their child so I won't do it. So I don't get a lot of full inclusion of parents for that reason I think because, you know, like Rett Syndrome, kids there, a lot of those parents feel that they're gonna even though they, they're profoundly retarded. They think they're going to sit in Algebra and learn Algebra. So, you know, there's a whole system of, of denial, some of which by the way has led to great case law. The Raleigh case was about, you know, it was pushed by a very militant hearing impaired parents concerning their daughters because they wanted an asl interpreter in class for a kid who got a's and b's without the interpreter. So that mean it was, that led to some very good law in a great Rehnquist opinion, um, which I didn't think there were that many of them. Uh, so, uh, the other thing I want to just clarify, one of the other schools we run switching hats is the high park day school, which is a school for gifted ld kids again, need an IQ. We can't, we have to have high Iq kids. This is University of Chicago, so we have 40 kids right here on campus, a 60 more in Northfield in a parochial school. And I will tell you that I'm the least restrictive environment definition is, is really not. It doesn't serve ld kids very well because one of the things that I've noticed is that when kids get into the Hyde Park day school, you walk into the school anytime and I'd like to take you there, that they, you've got a lot of kids grades one through eight having fun learning for the first time in their lives if you want. I don't feel stupid here. And all of these people, they're not stupid either and they're just like me, but they're not associated with non disabled kids, are they? So they're not there in the most restrictive placement. They're not in touch with non disabled kids. On the other hand, they feel safe, comfortable, and they achieve so the least restrictive environment doesn't serve, I don't think ld kids well, because they go through school feeling stupid and if they are not appropriately accommodated, I mean even if they are, they still getting targeted? If they have, for example, executive functioning problems, they sometimes act a little like autistic kids because they miss body language that we all take for granted. Um, and they get teased or they get targeted as a result, they hate school. And sometimes it goes through them, this endless chain of failure experiences and they fall into the juvenile justice system. We know the statistics are we have a summary memo on our website... I just got tired of looking for these studies every time the question came up. So we have a memo that summarizes all the studies from 1960 until now that basically says that kids in the juvenile justice system are anywhere from 53 to 92 percent unserved or poorly served originally ld kids who then become emotionally disturbed and then if they still don't get served falling into the juvenile justice system and then the juvenile justice system has become - and The criminal system has become because of the way our society seems to be also kind of in denial as a society about mental illness. It's become the major mental health provider in the country.

Lam Ho: (48:43) I mean I was just going to point out that I had in terms of certainly what Brooke said regarding lb and the least restrictive environment application towards.. I actually Agree with. I've been to Hyde Park and I think it's fantastic. But I think that they're, I think they are very significant differences which alters my view of at least restrictive for ld students versus these restricted for children with autism. Because I think autism as a diagnosis encompasses various significant, numerous, needs that vary in terms of social interaction to learning ability to communication and language acquisitions. I think those needs are so significant and are so vast and when you come to that diagnosis, I think it's very different than ld. So you want to raise one issue in terms of in terms of the. When we think about, because I think that's one of one thing that as attorneys that we often forget is that our impact and when we work with clients, especially with people with disabilities, our impact is so short are moments in their lives is very limited. And so for me, one thing I want to go back to you in terms of Myelin ethical dilemma is the issue of education to the parents. Because I do think that my advocacy is going to last anywhere from a month to maximum. If it's in like a due process case or if you go to federal court it might last over a year, but it's still over the long... Over the long scheme of things are very short period. Parents have to deal with this at least once a year for four with to 17 years or even longer. Parents are going to have to be able to negotiate the law and the IEP and as a Dr, I think you mentioned was it's the IEP can be a very horrible traumatic experience for parents. Schools can be a hostile, can be manipulative and it can be a very antagonistic, especially when you, when you know what your child needs and the school just simply refuses because they don't have the service. They don't have the resources or is it because they just. It's something that they have to go through at least once a year. I'm going to be. Their attorney is going to be there that one year and we can go in, create a big, a big huff and a puff and we'll get. We'll get the parent what they want for that one year, but then they're gonna have to come back to the table and sometimes it's even worse because they had they had an attorney, and everyone now hostile towards them and then they have to deal with all this on their own now and I think it's... It's certainly. It also just simply encapsulates experience that I think a lot of families with children with disabilities tells me it's something that really takes off for, becomes embedded into everything in their lives, like parents who have to make decisions as to what will work they'll do or what their schedules will be or how many children they will have based upon the needs of their child with a disability. I think it applies to any parent. I think any parent is that having a child one will really consume and end up impacting everything in their lives, but I think having a child with disability really intensifies that experience and I think that's something that's so critical as an attorney working with people with disabilities is recognizing you know you're there for finite short moment in the long story that is their life. What's the way that you have the impact? What way can you have an impact? Then base increases their capacity for the rest of their lives or what else do you have to deal with, but more importantly does not hinder or jeopardize the decisions that they have to make later on. I think that's, for me, that's something that's really critical in this question of do I help the parents or do I think about the child?

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