Conor Misses His So-Called "Segregated" Autism Schooling BUT Summer Helps A Lot

Conor Doherty, enjoying a summer outing with Dad 

in Fredericton, the green city.

In New Brunswick advocates of extreme, everyone in the classroom, inclusion like to describe my son's accommodations as "segration" as though it could be equated with the racially segregated schools of the old American south.  Conor in fact attends a neighborhood school and has ample opportunity to mix with other students, both challenged students in his High School Resource Centre and throughout Leo Hayes High School.  He is well liked and has friends in both the Resource Centre and in the rest of the school. I have often, and I am mean often, seen kids approach Conor with big smiles and greet him.  His instruction, his ABA based instruction, is received in a separate quieter area and he absolutely loves going to school.  Anyone who has worked with Conor in his high school or previously in middle or grade school can confirm these facts.  

Conor does not receive a "segregated" schooling to use the pejorative terminology of NB's very influential full inclusion activists in the CACL and NBACL.  He receives an evidence based, flexible, inclusive education that accommodates his serious autistic disorder and developmental delay hallenges. Conor loves school. When school ends each year it is a difficult time for him. 

Summer heat and humidity can cause problems too but we do get outdoors, a lot,  in Fredericton, the green city, which we both love and it helps a lot.  The last couple of days we have done some bridge walking to Fredericton's south side for fresh air, exercise and of course ... treats.  (Conor has a new "walking" shirt, one of Dad's old loose fitting shirts to go over his T-shirts).

Conor would like to see September arrive quickly, and resume the "segregated" education that Conor loves and some misguided adults demean,  but he and his ol' Dad will enjoy the summer in Fredericton,  this very habitable green city.

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No Nature-Deficit Disorder For Conor In Fredericton,The Green City

Conor enjoying some time at the Saint John River

All photos were taken within a short walking distance

from our home in Fredericton, New Brunswick

The Green City

My younger son Conor, 16, suffers from severe Autistic Disorder.  He does not, however, suffer from Nature-Deficit Disorder in part because of our family life style choices and in part because we live in a city, and a neighborhood, with easy access to nature here in Fredericton.  I was pleased to see Fredericton referred to as a Green City in a recent article in the Brantford Examiner: City should look to Fredericton for example. Author Greg McMillan argues that Brantford, Ontario should brand and promote itself  as a Green City as Fredericton, New Brunswick has been doing aggressively over the past decade. The article notes that the two cities have much in common including trail systems located along rivers.  On a personal note we live less than a minute's walking distance from the North Riverfront Trail in Fredericton and Conor and I enjoy its benefits often, sometimes several times a day.

Conor suffers from Autistic Disorder a very real and serious disorder defined in the DSM-IV and the ICD-10, the two mental disorder diagnostic manuals used by physicians around the globe.  Nature-Deficit Disorder is not a medical diagnosis, it is an expression used by nature writer Richard Louv to describe the modern disconnect between man and nature, particularly between children and nature. Louv explains his coining and use of this term in No More "Nature-Deficit Disorder"The "No Child Left Inside" movement:

In "Last Child in the Woods," I described what I called "nature-deficit disorder." I hesitated (briefly) to use the term; our culture is overwrought with medical jargon. But we needed a language to describe the change, and this phrase rang true to parents, educators, and others who had noticed the change. Nature-deficit disorder is not a formal diagnosis, but a way to describe the psychological, physical and cognitive costs of human alienation from nature, particularly for children in their vulnerable developing years. In the four years since publication of "Last Child" (with an updated and expanded edition in 2008), the gap has grown wider.

I am not suggesting any specific connection between autism disorders and nature-deficits in modern children regardless of where they live.  I know that I personally feel better the more I get outside.  Like many of my generation I grew up outdoors before personal computers, video games and even before multiple channel, high definition big screen televisions.  If we lingered indoors our parents would occasionally tell us "to get outdoors and blow the stink off".  I was fortunate in that I always lived in small communities near natural environments. To this day I absolutely love being outdoors, near nature, along the river and in the woods.  I bring Conor with me and I believe that he, not because he is autistic, but because he is human, benefits from more exposure to nature.  It makes me feel good to be close to nature even more so when I can enjoy it with Conor.  I hope he feels the same way and benefits from it as I believe he does.

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