bountifulplate

Dominic was so excited for today!  He and his sixth-grade classmates were going to a movie at a movie theater! What's really cool is that he will be able to order his own "snacks."  I asked him what he was going to eat.  He told me, "popcorn and pop!"  Wow, what an incredible opportunity for Dominic's class, don't you think?  When I was in sixth grade, the special education students were kept so separate from the rest of the school that we rarely saw them, much less have any interaction with them. The administration at Dominic's school goes above and beyond to make sure that he and his classmates always feel "included." Back in October, I got this e-mail from Dominic's teacher: "I printed out 100 sign up forms for peer-to-peer this year and I got a call from the front office this morning telling me we ran out and I needed to print out more :)" As if that wasn't cool enough, in November, I got this e-mail: "...

This morning, I saw a video that an Autism mom had posted on Facebook . After I watched it, I had two emotions - sad and mad. This particular mom had listened to a famous comedian on the radio who decided that it would be hilarious to make a special needs person part of his jokes. It's taken me a few hours to settle down enough to write this post. First of all, it is NEVER acceptable to make fun of special needs children or adults. Those children and adults have families and when you crack jokes, it hurts those families.  I felt physically sick this morning after hearing what this comedian had said. Second, there are many, many non-verbal children and adults out there. Back when Dominic had less language, he would sometimes say, "oh, oh," because he was trying to talk. I had someone ask me once in a sarcastic and negative tone of voice, "what does oh, oh, mean?!?!?!?!" After about 15 seconds of composing myself, I calmly looked this gentleman square in the...