Sue Frantz wrote: ====Forwarding begins here========= Imagine the following hypothetical situation.
A student enrolls in your intro to psych and human sexuality courses. The student is believed to be autistic and is attending class with a facilitator. Your college does not have a policy on Facilitated Communication (FC), but prefers to evaluate each case individually. You're aware that several professional organizations, e.g., American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Association on Mental Retardation, American Psychiatric Association, do not view FC as an appropriate technique. The letter of accommodation from your institution's counselors states that the use of the student's own facilitator is an appropriate accommodation for in-class work and test-taking. What do you do? ======Forwarding Ends Here========== I am not a clinician, but I believe that most organizations of clinical and near-clinical types require that treatments be based on sound science. I would challenge the counselor who made such a recommendation to show that their recommendation meets this criterion. My intemperate opinion: Fight this tooth and nail. In other words, I would recommend that you insist that accommodations be for some accepted diagnosis (this one might be -- but what does 'believed to be autistic' mean?), and that the accommodation be based on some credible justification, recommended by a reputable source accepted by the scientific community. Unless "accommodations" are based on some credible evidence, it opens the door to any looney-tunes claim (and associated remedy) that comes along. Outrageous hypothetical situation, just to make a point: A student is believed to have an unusual form of attention problem. The proposed solution is to play the theme from "Barney" at at least 110 dB at all times. Do you allow this? Cheers, Michael ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Michael J. Renner Department of Psychology West Chester University West Chester, PA 19383 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Telephone: 610-436-2925 Fax: 610-436-2846 Office Hours, Sp 2002: Tue/Thur 8-9:30 am, Weds 2-4 pm "The path of least resistance is always downhill." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
