WILL YOU BE THERE FOR ME?

By DEIRDRE CONNER, The Times-Union

Florida Times Union

November 15, 2007

	JOHN PEMBERTON/The Times-Union Geoffrey Brouda, 16, who is autistic, works with teacher Karen Cusick in a class at Yulee High School. Geoffrey's mother, Jeannette Brouda, started an advocacy group this year to help other parents of autistic children.

The surge in children diagnosed with autism - one local advocate compares it to a tsunami - could be amplified in schools because of new state rules that expand eligibility for special educational services.

Locally and nationally, the number of children labeled as autistic has skyrocketed, with counts doubling in some Northeast Florida school districts in just three years. That could go up even more this year because the state has broadened the classification to include a wider range of diagnoses of autism spectrum disorders.

School officials agree that more students will be eligible for autism services, although no one's sure how many - or how much more it will cost.

Funding for exceptional student education comes from federal, state and local taxes and is based in part on how many students need services in a county. Duval County, for example, gets nearly $150 million in funding; Clay gets about $40 million. With tax cutbacks looming, potentially having to provide greater numbers of children with therapy and special classes will squeeze school systems even more.

Leslie Weed of Ponte Vedra Beach calls autism a "tidal wave" that is only beginning to hit schools.
"This is going to cripple the schools," she said, because staff need a lot of training to help autistic children, and because the students can be so draining emotionally for teachers and other caregivers.

Weed, founder of the Healing Every Autistic Life (HEAL) Foundation and parent of an autistic child, said schools are only starting to see the effects because the bulk of the affected children are just now reaching school age.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated this year that autism spectrum disorders affect 1 in 150 children, and disproportionately boys.
If Florida counts end up matching that definition, it will be a sizeable increase. Right now, autistic children make up a wildly varying percentage in Northeast Florida schools. Approximately 1 in 200 students in Duval and St. Johns counties were classified as autistic last year, higher than the state average of 1 in 250. But in smaller districts like Baker, Nassau and Putnam, it's more like 1 in 500 or one in 600.

A growing spectrum

Unlike the more narrow definition of the past, the autism spectrum affects children in every type of classroom, from gifted classes to life skills classes, said Daniel Becton, Clay County's director of exceptional student education.

"Before, if you had autism-like symptoms, you wouldn't have qualified," he said.

The new school definition will include students with Asperger Syndrome, who are high functioning intellectually but have poor communication skills, as well as PDD-NOS, which stands for Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified. With the latter, children often are already in special education classes. Asperger's children, however, are more likely to be in regular classrooms, because they have normal to high academic abilities.

The impact will be different in every district. Duval County has already incorporated child-ren with Asperger's into its autism program, said Terrie Bennett, the specialist who oversees the program, which includes 19 autism centers.

In St. Johns County, ESE director Lisa Bell said children are often getting them even if they don't count as autistic.

"The labels aren't important," she said, because children are placed in a program that meets their needs no matter what.

Too new to diagnose

The change is designed to update Department of Education standards to current medical thinking, which has included a wider variety of symptoms and abilities on the autism spectrum.

That might have been of some relief to Jeannette Brouda, who had to fight to have her son, Geoffrey, identified as autistic by doctors nearly a decade ago.

"It was so new," she said. "They didn't want to give that diagnosis."

She didn't get it until he was 8. Experts say it's important to have early diagnosis and intervention; the American Academy of Pediatrics recently recommended all babies be screened twice before they turn 2 years old.

Brouda, like Weed, decided to start an advocacy and fund-raising organization this year - called the Nassau County Autism Foundation - hoping to help other parents and raise awareness about autism.

Some say that growing public awareness is behind the increased number of children diagnosed with autism.

A large and vocal contingent of parents believes mercury in childhood vaccines and other environmental factors are causing an epidemic and that a certain diet can treat it. Some doctors and scientists agree.

But others believe autism is growing in prevalence because it is often taking the place of a diagnosis of mental retardation or even odd behavior.

As for Geoffrey, he's 16 now and thriving at Yulee High School. On Thursday, his teacher, Karen Cusick, worked with the varying exceptionalities class - which has two autistic students - on language idioms, which can be confusing for students with language delays.

"If I say, you let the cat out of the bag, what does that mean? Does that mean you have an actual cat and an actual bag?" she asked.

No, he said with enthusiasm, it's when you tell someone a secret.

Geoffrey is outgoing, but many autistic children are withdrawn and don't interact socially. They often have reduced intellectual abilities, and sometimes can't care for themselves in basic ways.
"I consider them the most difficult population to work with," Bennett said. "You're talking about kids who don't always communicate, [and] about 30 percent are nonverbal."

deirdre.conner@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4504

This story can be found on Jacksonville.com at
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/121807/met_226363926.shtml.

For information on the HEAL Foundation's Valley of Dreams event, call 285-5651.

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