CBC: Autism advocate questions 'extreme' inclusion model

The caption below the picture of me and Conor is from the CBC web site article Autism advocate questions 'extreme' inclusion model.

"A high-profile autism advocate in New Brunswick is questioning the merits of what he calls the Department of Education's extreme inclusion model. “I believe that the kind of evidence-based intervention that we need for our children, in some cases children with autism, is absolutely necessary and to deny it is a denial of the human rights, basically, of children like my son,” he said. Doherty was responding to a recent statement written by Gordon Porter, the former head of the New Brunswick Human Rights Commission.

Harold Doherty, who has an autistic son and runs a blog dedicated to autism issues, contends the classroom isn't the right setting for every child. Porter, who has played a key role in the province's approach to inclusive education, wrote on a Canadian education website that some interventions in the school system result in segregation and pose a challenge to inclusive education. Doherty, however, argues that’s based on philosophy, not evidence.

He is challenging Porter to a public debate on the issue."

Following is the CBC audio clip of my interview by CBC's Terry Seguin.

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Autism and Extreme Inclusion: I Challenge You Gordon Porter To A Public Debate Of Your Extreme Inclusion Beliefs

Evidence Extreme Inclusion Advocates Ignore

Dr. Gordon Porter was one of the members of NB Premier David Alward's post election transition team of special advisers.  Unfortunately for many NB students with severe autism deficits he has continued to act as a special adviser to both Premier Alward and Education and Early Childhood Development Minister Jody Carr.  Gordon Porter's past record consists of promoting his own extreme inclusion agenda which dictates that all children with special needs, including children severely affected by autism disorders and developmental delays, must be educated in the mainstream classroom.  A recent comment by professor and education consultant Dr. Paul W. Bennett questions Dr. Porter's "full" inclusion philosophy and highlights a recent public statement by Dr. Porter that does not bode well for some special needs children in NB schools, including those, like my son, who are severely affected by autism and developmental delays.

Since the last provincial election Dr. Porter has been conducting yet another review, the third such review in the past 10 years,  of inclusion policies in New Brunswick schools.  The first was conducted by Wayne MacKay. During that process I attended as an autism representative with fellow autism parent Dawn Bowie, a registered nurse.  Dr. Porter who participated in a discussion group with  Dawn and me was visibly unhappy with our attempts to speak specifically about the needs of autistic children,  the needs of some autistic students for evidence based learning methods and quieter learning environments outside the mainstream classroom.  He admonished us for our comments declaring that "you people" should be thankful for what you have.

The second inclusion review was a high profile Ministerial Review led by the Ministers of Education, Health and Social Development. It included broad consultation of community groups, unions and government officials and resulted in a new definition of inclusive education  for New Brunswick schools that recognizes the best interests of the student and evidence based practices as guiding principles in New Brunswick schools:

"Inclusive Education

I. Vision 

An evolving and systemic model of inclusive education where all children reach their full learning potential and decisions are based on the individual needs of the student and founded on evidence.

...

III. Overarching Principles

The provision of inclusive public education is based on three complementary principles:  

(1) public education is universal - the provincial curriculum is provided equitably to all students and 

this is done in an inclusive, common learning environment  shared among age-appropriate, 

neighbourhood peers; 

(2) public education is individualized - the success of each student depends on the degree to 

which education is based on the student’s best interests and responds to his or her strengths 

and needs; and 

(3) public education is flexible and responsive to change. 

Recognizing that every student can learn, the personnel of the New Brunswick public education 

system will provide a quality inclusive education to each student ensuring that: 

Student-centered 

1. all actions pertaining to a student are guided by the best interest of the 

student as determined through competent examination of the available 

evidence;

2. all students are respected as individuals.  Their strengths, abilities and 

diverse learning needs are recognized as their foundation for learning and 

their learning challenges are identified, understood and accommodated;  

3. all students have the right to learn in a positive learning environment;"

The evidence based practices principles established in the 2009 inclusive education policy was opposed strenuously, during the second inclusion review, by the representative of the New Brunswick Association for Community Living, a group tied very closely to Dr. Porter.  

The third inclusion review led by Dr. Porter is likely to see an unraveling of the principles of evidence based accommodation of individual student needs. I attended, after requesting the opportunity to do so, a discussion group held at the education building on King Street in Fredericton, during the third review directed by  a retired education official with close ties to the NBACL.  I arrived before other participants and had a pleasant chat with the director.  Once the discussion started though the director did not want to let me contribute to the round table discussion.  She stated twice, in denying me the opportunity to speak, that we would like to give others the opportunity to  speak. I was puzzled because I had not addressed the discussion at all when she began muzzling me. Finally I asked her if she would prefer that I leave the discussion since she apparently did not want to hear what I had to say.  She did then allow me to speak but it was clear to me that my input was not welcome.

In his comment “Full Inclusion” in Public Schools: Is It Best for all Special Needs Kids?  Dr. Paul W. Bennett reviews Dr. Porter's "full" inclusion model, some of the history of the perpetual campaign by Dr. Porter and Professor Wayne MacKay to impose their extreme version of inclusion on New Brunswick schools and their close connections to the current New Brunswick government.  He summarizes a recent commentary by Dr. Porter on the subject of inclusion in our schools,  and asks serious questions about Porter's apparent bias as the co-director of the current New Brunswick inclusion review.

In the commentary Are We Star Gazing? Can Canadian Schools Really be Equitable and Inclusive?  Dr. Porter displays no knowledge or understanding whatsoever of the needs of  autistic children in the school system.  The ego that landed 30 years ago and imposed extreme inclusion on all NB students including those, like my son, with severe autistic and developmental challenges, goes into a full scale attack against the provision of expert, evidence based approaches to the education of children with severe challenges: "we need to repudiate the notion that “special” or “expert” is better when the result is a program that is “segregation” and “exclusion”"

Gordon Porter provides no references to studies or evidence of any kind to back up the opinions he expresses in his commentary.  My son was removed from one of Dr. Porter's "inclusive" classrooms here in New Brunswick at our request because he was biting his hands every day in the classroom where he was overwhelmed by the sensory challenges and by the fact that he was not functioning on the same level of intellect and understanding as his chronological peers. He was removed with the  cooperation and concern of the local educators who could actually see what Gordon Porter's inclusion, what his egotistical insistence that all children prosper in the mainstream classroom was doing to my son. Gordon Porter's inclusion was hurting my son. Once removed from the classroom to a quieter area the biting ceased.

Now in high school Conor starts his days with other challenged children in a resource center, he goes to public areas of the school and to the swimming pool at  the local middle school he once attended.  He also recently attended, with other challenged students from the school's resource center, a play put on at the Playhouse by a group of Leo Hayes High School students.  My son has been accommodated under a flexible model of inclusion which sees him visit common areas and socialize within his abilities while receiving the evidence based instruction he needs in quieter areas of the school.  With flexible inclusion and the evidence based instruction Gordon Porter opposes my son absolutely loves school. It is Gordon Porter's extreme inclusion model that has in the past, and once again, poses a serious threat to his real inclusion in a positive educational experience.

You may or may not be a star gazer Gordon Porter but you are fundamentally ignorant about what my son, and many others with similar challenges, need in order to prosper and enjoy their education experience.

Dr. Porter, if you, or any of your friends in the NBACL or in the Alward government,  are reading this blog I challenge you to debate me openly and publicly on the merits of the extreme inclusion model that caused harm to my son and which you are now in the process of imposing once again on him and children with similar challenges.

I won't hold my breath waiting for you to accept my challenge.

Harold Doherty
Conor's Dad

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Foundation of New Brunswick Autism Success Is Being Abandoned

New Brunswick, Canada, like most jurisdictions, has some gaping holes in respect of autism services delivery. But there have also been some significant successes  due largely to the UNB-CEL Autism Intervention Training Program and Dr. Paul McDonnell who was a leading force in the establishment of the UNB-CEL AIT Program. While the UNB program is still being utilized for some specific purposes it is being abandoned for cost reasons and to satisfy competing adult interests, particularly in education. 

Adult residential care and treatment in particular is brutally bad here in NB with many severely autistic adults living in group homes with untrained staff and other inadequate resources.  The most severely affected autistic adults live in psychiatric hospitals and some live in other make shift accommodations, at least temporarily staying on general hospital wards and shipped out of the province.  Two young men were sent several years ago to the Spurwink facility in neighboring Maine, USA,  where at least one is believed to still be residing.  

Although not perfect there have been some successes here in NB in early intervention and provision of autism trained education assistants and resource teachers. The foundations for those successes, as highlighted very well in a Brunswickan news article, have been the UNB-CEL Autism Training program and Dr. Paul McDonnell, Clinical Psychologist and Professor Emeritus (Psychology).  Sadly, our provincial government is largely moving away from using the excellent UNB-CEL Autism Intervention Training program to train early intervention workers and education assistants and resource teachers for our schools. 

Our provincial government has recently approved the provision of in house, on the job, training for early intervention workers in our government approved early intervention agencies of which there are seven in our province.  One or two of these agencies may be able to provide some level of quality training but it is highly unlikely that all seven agencies will be able to meet a quality training level.  The move away from early intervention autism training by UNB-CEL is a serious setback for New Brunswick children with autism disorders.

At the same time New Brunswick has already been abandoning UNB-CEL Autism Intervention training for education assistants and resource teachers in favour of, once again, in house training.  It took some strenuous advocacy by parents of autistic children to obtain a commitment by our previous governments to provide UNB-CEL autism training for our education assistants and resource teachers working with autistic students.  Well placed people in the Education Department, in particular a gentleman named Robert Gerard, objected to the UNB training as being a "Cadillac" service.  Instead the department offered a number of in house training options none of which called for entry qualifications, testing as a requirement of course completion and in some instances no timeline for completion.  

It is my understanding that our government has sent some teachers to obtain BCBA qualifications in the US, and that they will be involved in some capacity with in house training of education assistants and resource teachers.  In house training however has inherent drawbacks. Lack of independence of those providing the training, who will report to a number of Department bureaucrats will be one of those drawbacks. The CUPE local which represents education assistants, and Teachers Association for the teachers, will likely be involved with and possibly interfere with, the conditions and qualifications for training.  There are already reports of a collective agreement  arbitration award which rejected a posting requirement for a UNB autism trained education assistant to work with an autistic student.  I have been unable to confirm that information though as a request made to the Department several weeks ago for a copy of the award has not been fulfilled despite a follow up last week. 

Our present Conservative government has chosen to abandon the quality UNB-CEL training of front line workers in early autism intervention agencies and schools.  Next will come a report by Dr. Gordon Porter and the New Brunswick Association of Community Living both of which have opposed the individualized instruction of students with autism in favor of Dr. Porter's everybody in the mainstream classroom inclusion illusion.

The autism success for which autism parents fought so hard in this province for so many years is eroding before our eyes. In all honesty this is what I expected with the current administration which has such close ties to Dr. Porter's "everybody in the mainstream classroom" inclusion philosophy.  Dr. Porter was part of the advisory team which assisted Premier David Alward in his transition to office after the last provincial election.  Minister Jody Carr and government members Jack Carr and Daniel Soucy all have backgrounds in the NBACL which has opposed attempts to provide one on one ABA based instruction to some autistic students in quieter school environments outside the mainstream classroom.

The abandonment of the UNB-CEL Autism Intervention training and the renewed influence of Dr. Gordon Porter and the NBACL in the provision of education services does not bode well for the future of New Brunswick's autistic children and students.  The challenge of bridging the gap in New Brunswick's adult autism residential care and treatment has always been huge. It is unlikely to be tackled in any meaningful way until a new government takes office in several years time.

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