Researcher(s):
Leah Kenney
ENVS course(s): 400 Initiated: September 2015 Completed: May 2016 Go to project site
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Framing Question:
How has the progression of special needs education affected students with autism in the public education system in Portland?
Focus Questions:
What is ASD and how do people with ASD learn differently than neurotypical people?
How have Portland Public Schools structured their special education system in order to accommodate people with ASD?
What is a curriculum that I can propose in order to better the Portland Public School system and include specific learning techniques to help people with ASD?
Autism is a relatively new medical phenomenon, although perhaps not as recent as the current vaccination panic suggests. The term “autism” was coined in 1912 with the first person ever diagnosed with autism a mere 81 years old. Though the data we have is under constant scrutiny for its accuracy, methodology, and usefulness, the Centers for Disease Control reports that the current rate of autism diagnosis in the United States is 1 in 68. This is a continuation of a trend identified by the Environmental Protection Agency that started between 1988 and 1992, when the worldwide diagnosis of autism spiked from 6 in 10,000 kids to 24 in 10,000. Signed in August of last year, the Autism CARES Act has devoted $1.3 billion in federal spending to research, which is a drop in the bucket autism currently costs the United States annually. The annual cost of supporting U.S. children and adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is between $236 billion and $262 billion, depending on the prevalence of associated intellectual disabilities, researchers estimated. That number will only rise. Basically, the United States doesn’t know how to standardize curricula to accommodate people with ASD. My aim is to propose a form of curriculum to better shape the Portland Public School special education classrooms to better include people with autism.
It’s not hard to see that our current public education system is broken- especially the special education system. Through researching different early childhood developmental philosophies and talking with Portland special education teachers, I came to the conclusion that a combination of Montessori and Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA), if properly instated into Portland Public Schools, would be an extremely effective and beneficial addition to the special education system. My capstone goes into further detail regarding the benefits of the structure and applicability associated with the Montessori approach and the individualized program development associated with ABA.
The outcome of my research is in the form of four articles on my personal DS site.