RE: Concerns about Austin area autism specialist

[Guest guest]

Was this service provider already under contract with the school

district in question when the parents sought her/his services? Not only

is this highly unethical but illegal. We had a situation more than two

years ago when we sought speech services at a private therapy clinic.

One of their part-time employees was also providing speech services at

the boys' local school and was as a matter of fact their SLP during

their PPCD time. We loved her and when we asked if she could also

provide services to them privately at the clininc she told us that she

would be unable to do that because of conflict of interest.

Would the school even be able to use this therapist's recommendations

during a due process hearing?

[Guest guest]

I would love it if you could tell us which agency this was. This is

appalling and we all need to know not to use this agency/

Concerns about Austin area autism

specialist

I recently attended an ARD meeting on behalf of an autistic client in

the Austin area. The child had received private services from a local

autism clinic for some time. The services began in 2004, and it's not

clear to me how recently they ended, although I know the parents

expended a significant amount of money on the private services.

We had an ARD last fall that we recessed and reconvened after the

holidays in disagreement. When we reconvened after the Christmas

holidays, my clients were shocked and upset that we were " ambushed "

with an " observation " and " recommendations " from the head of this

private clinic, which led to their child being removed from a

mainstream class over their objections.

I have attempted to contact this service provider directly, by e-mail

and fax, to ask her to discuss this situation, but she's refused to

respond.

I realize that the community of professionals that serve autistic

students is too small for in-fighting. However, as the parent of a

disabled child myself, who utilized several private service providers,

I empathize with my clients' feeling of betrayal. What happened was

certainly a violation of IDEA 2004, and we are already in the process

of requesting a due process where that issue will be raised against

the school district. And this service provider will be subpoenaed to

testify if she's not going to talk to me and try to explain to the

clients' satisfaction why she wouldn't have notified and contacted

them regardless of IDEA rules.

I'm posting this after conferring with other clients with autistic

children, not to try to defame the individual in question. However,

if you are in the Austin area, I strongly recommend you consider

giving your private service providers a written, dated, and signed

notice that you expect that they will notify you and secure your

consent before they agree to contract with any school district to

observe or evaluate your child.

I'm sorry to have to recommend this, but I don't know any other way to

protect other children from something like this happening. I

probably could have been appeased if the provider in question had

withdrawn her observation and recommendations and promised to seek

client permission in the future, but since I can't get her to respond

to me, I feel the need to warn other Austin area parents of this

situation.

[Guest guest]

Would a private therapist fall under HIPPA regulations? Might be something

you can do for the family there.

Tonya

From: Texas-Autism-Advocacy

[mailto:Texas-Autism-Advocacy ] On Behalf Of

Heiligenthal

Sent: Friday, January 18, 2008 8:53 PM

To: Texas-Autism-Advocacy

Subject: Concerns about Austin area autism

specialist

I recently attended an ARD meeting on behalf of an autistic client in

the Austin area. The child had received private services from a local

autism clinic for some time. The services began in 2004, and it's not

clear to me how recently they ended, although I know the parents

expended a significant amount of money on the private services.

We had an ARD last fall that we recessed and reconvened after the

holidays in disagreement. When we reconvened after the Christmas

holidays, my clients were shocked and upset that we were " ambushed "

with an " observation " and " recommendations " from the head of this

private clinic, which led to their child being removed from a

mainstream class over their objections.

I have attempted to contact this service provider directly, by e-mail

and fax, to ask her to discuss this situation, but she's refused to

respond.

I realize that the community of professionals that serve autistic

students is too small for in-fighting. However, as the parent of a

disabled child myself, who utilized several private service providers,

I empathize with my clients' feeling of betrayal. What happened was

certainly a violation of IDEA 2004, and we are already in the process

of requesting a due process where that issue will be raised against

the school district. And this service provider will be subpoenaed to

testify if she's not going to talk to me and try to explain to the

clients' satisfaction why she wouldn't have notified and contacted

them regardless of IDEA rules.

I'm posting this after conferring with other clients with autistic

children, not to try to defame the individual in question. However,

if you are in the Austin area, I strongly recommend you consider

giving your private service providers a written, dated, and signed

notice that you expect that they will notify you and secure your

consent before they agree to contract with any school district to

observe or evaluate your child.

I'm sorry to have to recommend this, but I don't know any other way to

protect other children from something like this happening. I

probably could have been appeased if the provider in question had

withdrawn her observation and recommendations and promised to seek

client permission in the future, but since I can't get her to respond

to me, I feel the need to warn other Austin area parents of this

situation.

[Guest guest]

Isn't there a confidentiality problem here? Did the parents ever

give authorization to the Service Provider to release info to the

school?

>

> I recently attended an ARD meeting on behalf of an autistic client

in

> the Austin area. The child had received private services from a

local

> autism clinic for some time. The services began in 2004, and it's

not

> clear to me how recently they ended, although I know the parents

> expended a significant amount of money on the private services.

>

> We had an ARD last fall that we recessed and reconvened after the

> holidays in disagreement. When we reconvened after the Christmas

> holidays, my clients were shocked and upset that we were " ambushed "

> with an " observation " and " recommendations " from the head of this

> private clinic, which led to their child being removed from a

> mainstream class over their objections.

>

> I have attempted to contact this service provider directly, by e-

mail

> and fax, to ask her to discuss this situation, but she's refused to

> respond.

>

> I realize that the community of professionals that serve autistic

> students is too small for in-fighting. However, as the parent of a

> disabled child myself, who utilized several private service

providers,

> I empathize with my clients' feeling of betrayal. What happened was

> certainly a violation of IDEA 2004, and we are already in the

process

> of requesting a due process where that issue will be raised against

> the school district. And this service provider will be subpoenaed

to

> testify if she's not going to talk to me and try to explain to the

> clients' satisfaction why she wouldn't have notified and contacted

> them regardless of IDEA rules.

>

> I'm posting this after conferring with other clients with autistic

> children, not to try to defame the individual in question. However,

> if you are in the Austin area, I strongly recommend you consider

> giving your private service providers a written, dated, and signed

> notice that you expect that they will notify you and secure your

> consent before they agree to contract with any school district to

> observe or evaluate your child.

>

> I'm sorry to have to recommend this, but I don't know any other way

to

> protect other children from something like this happening. I

> probably could have been appeased if the provider in question had

> withdrawn her observation and recommendations and promised to seek

> client permission in the future, but since I can't get her to

respond

> to me, I feel the need to warn other Austin area parents of this

> situation.

>

[Guest guest]

i know y'all are gonna want to shoot me...

past all the legal piece of it - and i'm sure there were legal if not ethical

bridges breeched, if the clinic was hired by the school to evaluate and

recommend best placement for the child, and they saw behavior or other negative

issues in the mainstream class and thought a better current placement would be

out of mainstream, isn't that worth investigating?

I understand the parents want the child mainstreamed (which led to their child

being removed from mainstream class over their objections) but what if that

isn't best for that child right now?

What if the child needs to be in a different environment for at least a short

amount of time?

As parents we want our children to overcome all of this. But realistically,

some of our kids will be non-verbal til the day they die. some of our kids will

go on to bag groceries. some of our kids will go on to design software. and

some will carve our niches we never knew existed. It's sometimes hard for us to

be objective when our kids are so very precious to us.

amanda

Levine wrote:

I would love it if you could tell us which agency this was. This is

appalling and we all need to know not to use this agency/

Concerns about Austin area autism

specialist

I recently attended an ARD meeting on behalf of an autistic client in

the Austin area. The child had received private services from a local

autism clinic for some time. The services began in 2004, and it's not

clear to me how recently they ended, although I know the parents

expended a significant amount of money on the private services.

We had an ARD last fall that we recessed and reconvened after the

holidays in disagreement. When we reconvened after the Christmas

holidays, my clients were shocked and upset that we were " ambushed "

with an " observation " and " recommendations " from the head of this

private clinic, which led to their child being removed from a

mainstream class over their objections.

I have attempted to contact this service provider directly, by e-mail

and fax, to ask her to discuss this situation, but she's refused to

respond.

I realize that the community of professionals that serve autistic

students is too small for in-fighting. However, as the parent of a

disabled child myself, who utilized several private service providers,

I empathize with my clients' feeling of betrayal. What happened was

certainly a violation of IDEA 2004, and we are already in the process

of requesting a due process where that issue will be raised against

the school district. And this service provider will be subpoenaed to

testify if she's not going to talk to me and try to explain to the

clients' satisfaction why she wouldn't have notified and contacted

them regardless of IDEA rules.

I'm posting this after conferring with other clients with autistic

children, not to try to defame the individual in question. However,

if you are in the Austin area, I strongly recommend you consider

giving your private service providers a written, dated, and signed

notice that you expect that they will notify you and secure your

consent before they agree to contract with any school district to

observe or evaluate your child.

I'm sorry to have to recommend this, but I don't know any other way to

protect other children from something like this happening. I

probably could have been appeased if the provider in question had

withdrawn her observation and recommendations and promised to seek

client permission in the future, but since I can't get her to respond

to me, I feel the need to warn other Austin area parents of this

situation.

[Guest guest]

I hesitate to publish the provider's name or the name of the clinic here since I

haven't been able to hear what defense/explanation/apology the owner might have

to offer. She lists herself as having a Masters of Education, so if HIPPA

applies, it would have to be to through those she employs. To the best of my

knowledge, my clients never signed a release for the clinic to release the

child's records to the school--and the observation doesn't refer to the clinic's

background in serving the child. The child was first served by the clinic in

2004. In my experience, schools may contract with a provider for several years,

but the contracts are usually for a school year or less.

And don't get me wrong--I like to use private service providers who contract

with other schools because they have more credibility when I have IEE " s done by

them. But I consulted with another professional who is is a licensed

psychologist under contract to one Austin area school district that I often use

in other districts for IEE's and she was appalled that the professional would

not ensure that the parents were notified and signed consent especially since

her company had served the child for several years.

Also, the parents are foreign born, so their surnames are quite unique--nothing

like or that you might think that the professional might have missed

the connection.

Feller Heiligenthal

Attorney at Law

www.studentslawyer.net

studentslawyer@...

[Guest guest]

--I certainly hear your concerns, and the truth is that I don't

know whether this child is ready for mainstreaming yet. She begs her

parents to be in the classroom and really wants to go. Working with

another law firm, the parents secured an agreement that this

mainstreaming would be tried. According to a lay advocate familiar

with this class, it is a third grade science class with a lot of labs

and " fun " activities and should be a good mainstreaming opportunity.

Unfortunately, the school did nothing and was doing nothing to prepare

the child (or the class) to make this experience successful. They

simply sent her in the class with an aide. When I asked whether they

were sharing the lesson with her mother who works with her on school

work nightly so that she might preteach the new vocabulary words and

the concepts, they looked at me as if that was foreign to them.

That's a very rudimentary and crude inclusion concept from a stupid

attorney. I know that there are inclusion specialists available--from

the service center if there aren't any on staff (and they do have

staff members who carry that job description) who have a whole

universe of inclusion techniques that I've never even heard of or

seen. Our request to bring in someone like this was turned down.

And, they got the contract autism specialist to observe her the second

day after the holiday break, and--surprise, surprise--no they hadn't

sent the preteaching materials home to her mother the day before.

I may be a professional, not a parent, in the autism area, but it

still makes me angry to see a school so deliberately work to make

something fail to have it their way. If they gave it a real effort and

it failed legitimately, I wouldn't complain. And I am NOT a total

inclusion person, and have counseled these parents from the start that

the one on one teaching their daughter needs and is progressing

rapidly with in a private tutoring session they're paying for on

Saturdays will probably be necessary in the basic skills areas of math

and language arts for the foreseeable future. We are, however, trying

to get those moved to a resource setting from the life skills

classroom because she complains that the latter is too disruptive for

her to be able to learn (which the school denies and the lay advocate

tells me is legitimate--and the latter has recently observed the

classrooms).

>

> i know y'all are gonna want to shoot me...

>

> past all the legal piece of it - and i'm sure there were legal if

not ethical bridges breeched, if the clinic was hired by the school to

evaluate and recommend best placement for the child, and they saw

behavior or other negative issues in the mainstream class and thought

a better current placement would be out of mainstream, isn't that

worth investigating?

>

> I understand the parents want the child mainstreamed (which led to

their child being removed from mainstream class over their objections)

but what if that isn't best for that child right now?

>

> What if the child needs to be in a different environment for at

least a short amount of time?

>

> As parents we want our children to overcome all of this. But

realistically, some of our kids will be non-verbal til the day they

die. some of our kids will go on to bag groceries. some of our kids

will go on to design software. and some will carve our niches we

never knew existed. It's sometimes hard for us to be objective when

our kids are so very precious to us.

>

> amanda

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>