175% Jump in Autism Diagnoses Forces Schools to Adapt

The number of children diagnosed with autism in the Los Alamitos Unified School District has nearly tripled in the last eight years, prompting district officials to hire a behavioral specialist to manage the district’s special-education needs.

Between 2002 and 2010, the district experienced a 175 percent increase in the number of students with the autism spectrum disorder, for a total of 152 students. In total, the district has 800 students with special needs. It’s a trend reflected in districts around the nation, and it has a significant impact on the classroom.

In the past, the Los Alamitos school district contracted with an outside agency instead of having its own behavioral specialist.

“In my experience, outside contractors typically have a clinical perspective that does not always work effectively in a school setting,” said Doug Siembieda, director of special education for the district.

“Students with autism can demonstrate a variety of behavioral challenges that impact teaching and learning,” Siembieda said. They include "lack of attention, emotional outbursts, physical self-stimulatory behaviors and communication and language deficits [and] poor social skills.”

The district seeks to hire a person who would have extensive experience working with students with autism in a school situation. It is also important for the individual to have a graduate-level education in behavioral management and be able to work with school staffers, as they face many challenges in the classroom, said Siembieda.

“Our philosophy is to work hand in hand with parents to support their children,” Siembieda said.

with a classmate who may be lonely and feeling like an outcast.

Los Alamitos Unified School District board member David Boyer said he is pleased with the change.

“I commend Doug for keeping our children first and recognizing that autism is an important issue,” he said.

The challenges ahead are tough, given the increase in budget cuts, but districts such as LAUSD are taking steps in the right direction, said clinical psychologist Ronald Leaf, director and co-founder of Seal Beach-based Autism Partnership.

As the number of children with autism grows, local public school officials and autism experts respond by taking action and placing children in a “natural setting,” he said.

“When I began to study autism in the 1970s, there was a belief that having children in a controlled environment was ideal, but it is unrealistic for children to be confined in one space,” said Leaf. “Today we are beginning to take a much more natural approach.”

The Autism Partnership recently completed an international study that found that children with autism in general education classes can actually progress much faster if they are taught more complex language skills as opposed to just basic sentences (45 out of 64 students that range in age from 1.5 to 8 years of age had IQs that increased an average of 22.5 points after 3.5 years of behavioral treatment for 22.5 hours a week, the study found).

“There is a lot of misinformation as to what children with autism are capable of doing, and the first thing to do is to have higher expectations for them,” he said.

He said that a child who is placed in a general education classroom is also more able to create meaningful friendships—although he said the results vary depending on the severity of autism.

“It is important to look at the individual needs of the child,” he said.

But experts still don’t know why there is an increase in autism diagnoses or what causes it.

“All we know is that it is more prevalent in boys than girls [a 4-1 ratio] and studies propose that there are neurological abnormalities in certain areas of the brain,” said Leaf.

It also seems to affect all demographic groups.

“It is an equal opportunity disorder, even though certain data may suggest differently,” Leaf said. “We have found that there is a rise in autism in every country as people become more educated and aware of the illness.”

Parents who have children with autism can find a variety of support available to them now at LAUSD.

This includes a school psychologist who can work with parents to better understand their child's behaviors, as well as get clearer information about the educational impact on the child.

“We also have a parent PTA group that is specific to parents of students who receive special-education services. This group meets once a month to discuss various topics and set up social events,” Siembieda said.