<p>And I missed who wrote it, but someone explained the complications of being an autistic person in that interview situation and trying to function, and I’d just like to emphasize that point-- I have moments where I look very seriously impaired (and when I AM very seriously impaired), when 98% of the time I pass for completely neurotypical, if a bit on the quiet side. I’d guess I’m “higher functioning” than the boy in the OP, but autism symptoms are something that can be very circumstantial in their severity. I’m reluctant to use that video as a judge for his capability, and you should be, too. I don’t know much about Oberlin but I doubt they’d have accepted him if they thought he couldn’t do it, and I’d be shocked if it’s Oberlin or any tax payers who are paying out the nose for his services-- trust me, the world doesn’t work that way. The burden is on the families, and when the families can’t afford it the kids usually go without any supports because most schools don’t have these kinds of resources to give. It’s an extremely pervasive problem within the autism community. It’s not like we’re all cruising on through on the taxpayers dime, most of us are going without anything because these services cost a fortune and there just isnt anybody who has them to give for anything less.</p>
<p>I’m shocked by the reaction of some parents here. It is distasteful to be jealous of an autistic child who just happened to be more successful than your neurotypical child in gaining admission to Oberlin, especially when you DON’T even know what this boy’s true capabilities are. I know an autistic guy who attended HYP then went on to HYS law school who’s definitely had his share of jealous insecure parents whose neurotypical children can’t even come close to attaining what this guy achieved. </p>
<p>Also, Oberlin is a private institution and can do whatever it wants with its money.</p>
<p>He applied to Oberlin. Oberlin feels that he is qualified and has something to offer the community there. I trust their judgment about that. I think those who think the kid has nothing to offer and could only be a drain may be wrong about that. I don’t know. He appears to be very bright. Who knows what ideas he may come up with? Oberlin has apparently decided that his potential to contribute is as great as any other Oberlin student.</p>
<p>It is my understanding that there is an asperger med student at U of Iowa that is running circles around his classmates…with both his hands-on-skills and academically as compared to the other “normal” students. He leads study groups and his highly respected by staff and peers. He lacks socially, but is very skilled. I imagine Helen Keller’s parents debated her services/costs of furthering her education based on her disabilities…yet her contributions back to the blind/deaf world were incredible. She found her niche and flourished. Sometimes a gamble pays off. Let’s hope it pays off for the boy at Oberlin!</p>
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<p>We can’t generalize how many hours of trained, professional support services he’ll need in college, just based on what he had at hand during a TV interview clip. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of that adult aide-work might be handed over to peer Oberlin students as Financial Aid jobs today. In college I had a FA job reading to a blind college student, replacing some of the work adults had performed for him throughout elementary and high school years. I hope I was cheaper. </p>
<p>Correct, no taxpayer money changes hands. FA students who work for each other as aides are paid by scholarship money, which comes in from Oberlin alumni, plus endowment investment returns managed by the private college’s Board of Trustees. </p>
<p>It’s a community. Evidently the community is ready to invest in DJ.</p>
<p>I want to put aside for the moment the question of whether a student with just the impairment this student’s parents say he has deserves a spot at Oberlin, and consider again his method of communication.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl remarks that while laypeople thought Ms. Schaivo might be sensing her environment, the vast majority of professionals believed she was vegetative.</p>
<p>I’d like to point out that the large majority of autism professionals have condemned facilitated communication, saying that peer reviewed studies have repeatedly shown that the communication is not coming from the autistic person but (unconsciously) from the facilitator. Proponents of FC reply that FC doesn’t work in the lab, but only works when you aren’t studying it.</p>
<p>I agree with more recent posters that the article & video cannot tell us everything there is to know about this boy, and if Oberlin accepted him, then Oberlin must believe he can do college work. </p>
<p>RE facilitated communication, it is possible that someone providing assistance (“resistance”) to an intelligent person with physical limitations, will make it possible for that person to type out their thoughts. But I believe it is also possible that facilitators in other cases unconsciously type messages for mentally handicapped persons that they would never think of on their own.</p>
<p>I just saw a video about a 43 year old man in Australia who for years was in a coma. Now he is awake and communicates via FC, but…the video showed his eyes CLOSED while the facilitator quickly tapped out a message. Oops.</p>
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<p>Seconded. If Oberlin admitted him, he’s certainly capable of doing the work. What’s with the naysayers?</p>
<p>More importantly, this is another instance of Oberlin bucking conventional wisdom and more importantly, ignoring the closemindedness around them. </p>
<p>IMHO, congratulations are in order for DJ and Oberlin. Good for them!! :)</p>
<p>for those interested in hearing more from DJ on FC and his schooling:</p>
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<p>[Communicate</a> with Me | Savarese | Disability Studies Quarterly](<a href=“Communicate with Me | Disability Studies Quarterly”>Communicate with Me | Disability Studies Quarterly)</p>
<p>I just watched a video of a three year old, missing much of her brain white matter, supposedly answering two digit math problems, such as 15-9, correctly on an IPad. Her mother has no idea how she knows these things! But if you watch the video, the child’s cerebral palsy and spasticity are so great that she is just slapping her hands around, and it is the mother controlling her “elbow”. The mother thinks she is gifted, and reading already too.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t be the one the one to challenge this mother, and say it is ridiculous for an intellectually challenged, motor impaired three year old to be able to do math like that, any more than wanting to be the one questioning DJ. But the facts remain. When you watch DJ, or watch this girl, there are major, major questions about the communication and responses.</p>
<p>It will be curious to see what happens with DJ at Oberlin. Of course I wish him well, but it is really hard to believe that a kid who presents with so many issues really has the skill set to be a college student.</p>
<p>This question of whether it’s the student or the facilitator who is really communicating is a very difficult one. But look at it this way, if he gets good grades, maybe the facilitator will be getting a good Oberlin education.</p>
<p>I assume that FC has been tested with facilitators who are uneducated or don’t speak English, right? Wouldn’t that be the way to test who is choosing the words? </p>
<p>Regarding the use of public funds (not in the case of Oberlin), it seems like good economics for everyone to be able to work as an adult up to his or her full potential. I’ve always heard that a lot of people with disablities are either unemployed or underemployed. Isn’t it worth the money to help educate a person so he can support himself for the next 50 years, rather than him receiving public assistance through out his adult life?</p>
<p>I think I would feel lots more confident in Oberlin’s decision to admit this young man if I knew how he took the CR portion of the SAT, and whether his score was “in range”, especially knowing that he can pick a correct answer out of a field of four without any type of prompting.</p>
<p>“Wouldn’t that be the way to test who is choosing the words?”</p>
<p>Yes, that would be a good way to test FC. So would a blindfolded facilitator. Perhaps that has been done and FC has been verified that way, but I’ve never read anything about that sort of test.</p>
<p>The video was of him at age 15, and it appeared to be his mom who was the facilitator. It looked very much to me like his mom was completely alert all the time, looking very hard at each letter typed. If DJ is the one doing the composing, and he only needs someone to hold on to the other end of the pencil, I don’t understand why the facilitator would need to look at the keyboard at all. </p>
<p>My sister has an 18 year old son with severe autism. He does not speak, beyond a few syllables that might have meaning. He communicates through pictures and some simple computer icon typing. He can also type a few words to indicate something he wants. Otherwise, he looked very similar to JC in the way he moves and vocalizes. The big difference I saw was that JC is paying very close attention to each letter as it is being typed. My nephew would never be capable of that. So, although I am very skeptical of FC, just maybe in this case it is legit. If all facilitators were unable to see the keyboard at all times, I’d believe it.</p>
<p>In the quote a few posts back, he says that he has many facilitators, including his mom and dad. Since he needs FC for all communication, it would seem to me that over the course of his waking hours in college, he’d need several facilitators per day and they’d need days off. Most people (other than parents) wouldn’t be willing to work more than 8 hours per day in a very demanding job like this. I have worked with people who have severe autism, and I know how difficult it is. He is going to need a number of people working full-time, to make this work. He would need someone with him round the clock. I’m assuming his family would be paying for these services, unless he is in some kind of government program that pays.</p>
<p>Spanish and Chemistry are two subjects unfamiliar to DJ’s many facilitators and both parents. Nonetheless, DJ did quite well in those h.s. courses. </p>
<p>Either he thinks for himself or he’s hiding a Spanish/Chemistry elf under his couch. I think he thinks for himself.</p>
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<p>I’m interested in how DJ is learning Spanish and how he is demonstrating his knowledge. If he were sitting in Spanish class by himself, with no facilitator, then reading multiple-choice questions in Spanish himself, and (via facilitator) answering them correctly, that would show that he was learning at least some Spanish. But if a facilitator was sitting in Spanish class with him-- well, facilitators can learn Spanish in Spanish class too.</p>
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<p>Similar tests have been done. In one study, the researchers showed one picture to the facilitator and a different picture to the alleged communicator. When they asked the communicator to identify the picture, the facilitated answer was-- what was shown to the facilitator.</p>
<p>In another study, facilitators worked with a supposed disabled communicator, who in reality was a confederate of the experimenters. The researchers asked simple yes/no questions. The supposed communicator was unable to hear the questions at all, and just moved his hands randomly, yet the questions got answered correctly at much better than chance.</p>
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<p>According to who? I haven’t seen mention of any outside evaluations.</p>