We, the people of California, are entitled to free speech rights that are protected under the United States Constitution's First Amendment. The content of this website is intended to share information that is believed by many to be true. The truth we know is that a Special Education policy exists that discriminates against many children with autism. This policy has reached our neighbors in Canada negatively affecting thousands of autistic children in two nations.
It is important to understand that when challenging public agencies, including those of Special Education, parents may face serious consequences. Challenging government can lead to threats, intimidation, retaliation, and discrimination in many forms. These are perceived by many parents to be very real. Government, even Special Education, or perhaps, especially Special Education, has destroyed the lives of many parents and children because of discriminatory practices and thinking.
The phenomena of discrimination in Special Education is not new. It has been studied and written about even before Brown v. Board of Education Topeka Kansas overturned the destructive "separate but equal" doctrine in 1954. While headway has been made, discrimination against children with disabilities persists. In the Central Valley of California, the autism policy has launched a new era of "separate but equal" by granting certain children an intensive ABA program, while others, the ones that do not meet the "rules" of public special education and VMRC, get other inferior services; contrary to their claims, children who do NOT meet their rules and criteria do not have access to the "evidence-based" applied behavior analysis (ABA) treatment that flourished from the remarkable contributions of B.F. Skinner. The latter program, the intensive ABA or "EIBT," is reserved for elite children with autism; those children who are "high functioning" as quoted by a San Joaquin Country former SELPA director and "engineer" of the Central Valley's EIBT "collaboration." The EIBT policy contract, a 52-page document, outlines the specific criteria that children must meet to gain entry, or to continue, in the Central Valley's evidence-based program.
But government agencies and representatives implore society's acceptance of EIBT. There is, it seems, a valid reason for this particular discrimination. You see, Special Education is a resource that costs money. Many in the Special Education business, like other organizations affected by financial crisis, seek ways to save money. This is true for Special Education services. The goal is not to meet each student's unique needs. The goal is: how can we serve all of these students and stay within budget. This is especially profound when determining who gets into the Central Valley's expensive "EIBT" program which costs approximately $5,500.00 per month, per child. Please understand: not all kids are allowed to have this program/service. Therefore, public school systems and Valley Mountain Regional Center came up with a plan to deny and/or exit children who are deemed not worthy of intensive ABA. This saves them a lot of money.
For Valley Mountain Regional Center and government agencies and agents, this is a worthwhile "funding model" for public administrations to adopt.
Unfortunately, for children with autism who need "evidence-based ABA" to ameliorate their symptoms, it is a barrier to their access rights under the law, and is harmful to their future outcome.
With no immediate relief for California's budget problems, and the escalating rise of children diagnosed with autism, it seems to make sense to give autism treatment only to some children--children who are deemed eligible by government agents--that is, your Local Education Agency (LEA, aka school district), Valley Mountain Regional Center (VMRC), San Joaquin County Office of Education (SJCOE) and Special Education Local Plan Area (SELPA), and Stanislaus County Office of Education (SCOE) and SELPA.
California's Central Valley Region 6 EIBT policy is implemented by VMRC and special education organizations to the harm of children and their families; and since 2005, they have been doing so with impunity.
Their policy, which was born in the San Joaquin Central Valley in 1994 in Stockton, California, discriminates against a special group of autistic children--those children who will NOT "become tax-paying citizens" and will NOT become a "California taxpayer who supports both the regional center and the school budgets." Those children are not wanted by California's public agencies because they are too much of a burden on our State's economic resources. Why pay for intensive ABA when those low-functioning children will not contribute to our resources; rather, they are a drain on the contributions of good tax-paying citizens. So they designed a plan to weed out the undesirable children giving them their constructed watered-down version of evidence-based intervention: special day class matrix.
The people responsible for engineering this funding model claim to State legislators that they will provide "seamless" evidence-based ABA and technology-based assistance to those who need treatment. This is not simply not true. If their policy becomes State law, the California Department of Developmental Services (DDS) and one regional center will form a partnership and have a wide-berth of legalized unchecked power over a child's ability to receive intensive ABA.
A similar funding partnership between DDS and Regional Center was already found to violate the rights of disabled people. DDS defended their implementation of "spending initiatives" and funding "guidelines" and "activities." On page 9 of the appellate court's opinion in ARC et al. v. Department of Developmental Services, it was found that the implementation of their money-saving "guidelines" and activities, in fact, violated the rights of disabled people to access programs and services.
ARC's request for an injunction was granted.
We should learn from this.
Those responsible for engineering the autism policy "funding model" and "guidelines" hope, however, that history is forgotten. They hope that their autism policy becomes California law, and soon.
Click HERE to read how.
Their policy is the basis of a federal class action lawsuit.
Help put an end to autism discrimination. Alert your local and state people and organizations to this website. The power to affect change lies in the hands of those willing to read and research the veracity of information. If you decide that children with autism should have the right to access intensive ABA that is truly "evidence-based" according to the hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific literature, and not some poor imitation of special day classroom "techniques" or "strategies" of ABA, then help spread this site's information. Help protect the weak from the powerful and abusive.
Separate is Not Equal.