School Putting Autistic Children in Fenced Enclosure 56
In an attempt to deal with autistic children who "have no sense of boundaries and do not respond to staff asking them to stop," a Sydney primary school has created pens which hold the disabled children during play time. As you might expect, parents have expressed outrage that their kids are forced to stand inside a fenced enclosure that has one tree, a bench and a dirt floor. The Department of Education said in a statement: "The school is located on a busy road. Without this area, the students may leave the school grounds and could potentially be injured. Some of these children have no sense of boundaries and do not respond to staff asking them to stop. Once the school is satisfied a student will listen to directions from staff members and is also aware of playground boundaries, the child can use the playground."
No Mention of the Size (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No Mention of the Size (Score:5, Insightful)
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I've never seen a fenced playground. I grew up in rural Ontario. I've since moved, but I haven't gone out of my way to examine any schools since, so maybe it's common in more urban areas.
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I grew up in Montreal, Quebec in the 1960s and 70s.
Not only was my school's playground with an asphalt base fenced, the fence was topped with barbed wire. Didn't stop us from climbing it to retrieve balls gone astray (and sometimes ripping our trousers). I'm surprised no kid got seriously injured. Then again, if they did, it'd be "their own damn stupid fault" for trying to "climb the fence".
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I don't know how big of a city (or how rough of a neighborhood) you grew up in, but the cities I grew up in? All of them have fenced in "playgrounds" (asphalt and concrete). Should it be normal? No, but what else are you going to do to keep the kids from running into the road or from drug dealers coming in unnoticed?
The only school I went to that had a non-fenced in, dirt and grass playground, was a Catholic private school in an upscale town a few miles away.
Oh yeah, thanks for comparing my country with the
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Yeah, except you don't know the neighborhood I lived in (same neighborhood the school was in), so don't make such assumptions. I lived there long enough to know that there were drug dealers around CONSTANTLY.
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even a decent bag of weed can be 50 dollars, I think most school children would be free from your bogey man
You think, you think, you think... in a large number of cases, you’d be wrong.
Anyway, the primary concern is kids ditching school during recess, and/or walking out in the street without looking and getting hit by traffic, and then the parents will sue the school because their kids were supposed to be under the school’s supervision.
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Concrete playgrounds ... ugh. Have to admit you do see a lot of them in America. Was a bit of a shock to me having grown up in Australia where most playgrounds are a) huge (as in, 5 or 6 football fields in size); and b) filled with grass and trees (except for the part reserved for an actual sports/playing field).
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The article's Australian, and having grown up (and went to school) in Australia I can say that ~most~ suburban schools in Australia do NOT have a fence around their boundary. Mine didn't. Although I think things are changing ... a school near where I live now has just had a fence installed in the last couple of years.
I spend a lot of time in the US though and it does seem over there that even in many suburban and rural areas, school playgrounds are fenced.
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This is very dependent on time and location. As recently as the 1980s most suburban schools in decent areas were not fenced. My Jr. High School was attached to a park in Silicon Valley, and was open. Elementary school had a low perimeter fence around the entire edge of the property but not the playground specifically.
These days my father refers to the school near him as the 'local gulag' with all of it's fencing - instilling a prison like atmosphere inside and out. I revisited that school of mine not
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Wow. I am a parent of an autistic child and I know many other autistic children and families. I guess you could say I, and many other parents, have years of experience.
Wandering is a very real issue for many parents: there is a fellow in our neighborhood who is mid-teens now and who has wandered since he was about 7 years old. "Wander" does not mean just to the end of the block -- could be anywhere in the city. The city police got to know him quite well because of the number of times he was brought
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This is stupid bullshit. The kindergarten where my kids go has a nice big outdoors playground with grass, slides and swings. It's all surrounded by a tall fence with barbwire on top. There's only one (always locked) entrance/exit with a guy watching.
I'd go nuts if I knew my kids were playing on the street with nothing between them and the road. A small kid can't understand the danger of walking on the road. You can't just expect him to obey just because you tell him "You can't go there!". In my own exper
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If there's a road nearby and they're worried for the kids, I'd be asking why the entire playground isn't fenced in? Do they allow the "normal kids" to play in traffic?
Coloured writing (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Coloured writing (Score:5, Informative)
Yup.
I am the father of an 11-year old autistic boy with an escape artist complex. He has already tried to run away from his teachers many times, and in one occasion he actually made it out of the school grounds. My only relief at the time is that when he took off running almost everyone was outside, so everyone, even the principal, took off after him.
It still took a good 15 minutes to catch him, and they had already called the police.
A fence is not going to stop this from happening, but it provides a decent speed bump for wandering children that don't understand the concept of danger.
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For someone who has a child with autism, you sure are acting ignorant. Some autistic children do not learn as well as others. This is something you should know.
Of course your comment about free range hens and eggs says it all.
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Are you suggesting we eat our autistic children?
I try to eat pastured chickens. Chickens that are allowed to move freely inside large pastures with fences keeping them from getting run over on the road.
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No, you don't sound nutty or anything.
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That sounds like what the kid in "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" had. I think in the movie he was called "retarded" but he really acted like he had something else entirely. I'm gonna have to read up on the different types of autism.
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I agree completely. My wife works at a school which caters to children with Autism, and they have several who are runners. At least once a week they have an escape which requires the school staff running after the child, calling the police, and all other levels of disruption and danger to the students and staff. One child in particular is a really good runner -- only one of the teachers there can run fast enough to catch him. Luckily they are located in an area which is mostly surrounded by farm land.
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When i was a kid we were kept in a fenced 'cage' too, of course it was the back perimeter of the school property. One school we didn't have *any* trees, only play fields.
If this fenced in area is large enough i don't see a huge issue, but if its too small, then its a true cage and parents should be appalled.
Someone please think of the tail-eating snakes! (Score:4, Funny)
Parents complain about child's safety. Check.
School responds by putting up fence. Check.
Parents complain about putting children in fenced areas. Check.
And thus another ouroborous was born.
And i assume... (Score:2, Insightful)
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It's not an issue of keeping them separated from the others as much as it is keeping them from RUNNING INTO A BUSY ROAD.
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But of course. It's always done for the protection of someone's safety.
"Finally, dear Julius, you will remember what I frequently said and wrote in Mein Kampf: "The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people." I explained that as long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation. It is truly heartwarming to see how well this lesson has been learned by the Am
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So these children should be allowed to run into the road and die horrible deaths? Or how about not go outside at all and suffer all day inside a stuffy building?
I'd rather high risk children like this be protected in some manner than not at all.
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Non-autistic kids are more likely to listen to a command to stop.
And yes, if they are that close to a busy road they should fence in the whole playground.
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They shouldn't be there at all... (Score:1, Insightful)
Isn't this a glaring sign that these children shouldn't be in that environment at all? I have a severely autistic (ie tantrumming pre-schooler in adult's body) brother. Growing up he attended a special needs school where the whole playground was well fenced, and where there were specialist teachers. This school was government-funded, and we were lucky that such facilities were available. Often they aren't, and due to shortage of money (usual story) these kids get shoe-horned in to regular schools where they
Dirt floor? (Score:1)
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I don’t know what it’s like in Oz, but in the US this thing called “grass” doesn’t survive for long with kids playing on it everyday. People here would normally expect a playground to be covered in woodchips, coarse sand, or compressed shredded rubber.
An observation from an adult with an ASD. (Score:2, Interesting)
After having read the original article and the comments made on it, I would like to share some comments about this, coming from a perspective which probably differs from what may be 74/75ths to perhaps 149/150ths of the rest of you who are Neurotypicals (NTs). You see, I have been diagnosed with an Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD... God... how I hate that last word), such as those who who are being put into the enclosure. However, in my case, my childhood occurred before ASDs were widely known by teachers
Total lack of comprehension. (Score:1, Interesting)
Most of you people have a total lack of reading comprehension. That or are just cold hearted. The problem here ISN'T that the playground is fenced off! No where does it say that. No where does it imply that. Not a single aspect of it. It's that the autistic children are fenced off from everyone else. Essentially telling the normal kids that the autistic children are animals, while telling the autistic children there is something wrong with them. Having worked with special needs children of all types
Not uncommon to seclude a dangerous kid... (Score:3, Interesting)
Putting a dangerous kid in a pen isn't uncommon.
I've worked with high-function autistic, Asperger's, and ADHD students. In almost all the schools (all of them small), there's a "quiet room": a locked, padded room in case a student goes into a flailing tantrum. Ya, it happens. Ya, it's really quite dangerous for the other children and staff around the angry child. So, if they feel like that's the last resort, they go into the quiet room and chill out.
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True... but this is not just for HFA, AS, ADHD or similar students. I have seen such a room used with NTs as well (such as teens who get out of hand). I have no problems with that sort of thing, so long as it is across the board, and not used as an easy way to seclude a student who they don't want to deal with for other reasons.
This is the problem, people. (Score:1)
Why not have a fence around the playground? (Score:1)
Finally... (Score:1)