As a graduate student working toward my license in special education, I was appalled with Lesley Rogers Barrett's May 27 Metro&State article, "Autistic boy, 5, drowns in pond." As special educators, we have been taught the importance of "person-first language," and little Korey Penwell along with his family deserved a lot more respect than Barrett gave them in her article.
Korey was not an "autistic boy," as Barrett so insensitively labeled him. He was a little boy with autism. Did it even matter that the boy had a disability? It's a senseless tragedy any way you look at it. The headline should have read, "Retention ponds claim another life."
I urge Star writers to be a little more sensitive when covering a story about a person with a disability. Korey was a son, a nephew and a grandson, who was taken away from a loving family much too soon. My sympathies go out to Korey's family and I pray that he is in a place where there are no labels, prejudice or ignorance. And that now, by the grace of God, that precious little boy can simply be known as "Korey."
From indystar.com
The fact he was autistic should therefore have been completely omitted from the article, but stating someone is autistic rather than "a person with autism" is about as offensive as saying someone is male rather than "a person with a Y chromosome".
I don't think the fact that he was autistic should have been omitted.
It was relevant to what happened. He had a strong interest in water, and wandered from the house, as he was staying in an unfamiliar place.
He left the house during the night, very possibly as a result of night time waking/sleep disorder.
These factors are all relevant to his autism.
He was an autistic boy, and a boy with autism. Political correctness is a joke when it tries to contort that the 2 statements are not one and the same.
The difference is in implication, not in meaning.
"Person with autism" - implies that the autism is something that can be removed from the person, as in, for example, "person with earache", "person with tonsilitis" etc. This terminology, while championed by the wider disability awareness movement, unfortunately plays into the curebie mentality in our case.
"Autistic person" - implies that being autistic is a fundamental part of our character and identity, as in "Black person", "gay person", etc., and is to be respected rather than removed.
The writer in this case has accused the author of some article of being "insensitive" for saying Autistic person, whereas actually it seems as though she was being insensitive for not taking her cues directly from the autistic community (a quick search on the web will reveal what the community generally believes to be the better term).
Plus one point for political one-upmanship, minus one point for being a prat.
Btw here is the link to the article:
http ://www.i ndystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060531/OPINION01/605310322&SearchID=73246356729114
I think that any small children could drown in a pond, not just the ones with autism. I think describing the child like that takes away from the safety issues.
I would agree if the situation was different, such as children going for a walk, and playing near water.
I would agree if the situation was different, such as children going for a walk, and playing near water.
This was a young child of 5 years of age clearly playing near a garden pond and unfortunately accidently ended up drowning in the pond, this can and does happern to NT children as well I don't think this is something which specifically is caused by autism, it is caused mostly by children not being fully aware of the dangers of even small ammounts of water. Although one could argue if the poor victim fell due maybe to some form of motor control issues it could have played a part I still don't see why as in this story the thing which was pointed out as the cause was Autism, instead of the dangers of garden ponds in general thus where the "Retention ponds claim another life." headline would have been better.
I personally think the story was written from the wrong angle, from the angle of his neurological makeup rarther than the trajic death of another child caused by a garden pond.
I would agree if the situation was different, such as children going for a walk, and playing near water.
This was a young child of 5 years of age clearly playing near a garden pond and unfortunately accidently ended up drowning in the pond, this can and does happern to NT children as well I don't think this is something which specifically is caused by autism, it is caused mostly by children not being fully aware of the dangers of even small ammounts of water. Although one could argue if the poor victim fell due maybe to some form of motor control issues it could have played a part I still don't see why as in this story the thing which was pointed out as the cause was Autism, instead of the dangers of garden ponds in general thus where the "Retention ponds claim another life." headline would have been better.
I personally think the story was written from the wrong angle, from the angle of his neurological makeup rarther than the trajic death of another child caused by a garden pond.
Those aren't the facts though MttJocy.
The child wasn't just playing near a garden pond as shown by the original news story.
As I already posted, the child actually got out of bed in the night, left the house, and wandered quite far to the pool. He ultimately drowned.
The fact that an autistic child needs routine and familiar surroundings is very important to this case.
He was in a new environment that was unusual to him.
An average NT child of 5 would not get up in the night, then not wake others, but just leave the house and wander off.
An autistic child needs closer supervision in a strange house, and area. If that was held in mind, this might not have happened.
I have heard of stories of several children, none mentioned autism, of various ages who just walked out the door in the middle of the night. One was a five year old girl who decided she needed to walk her dog. - Only she got lost at 4 am. Another smaller child decided to go to work with her daddy and followed him out the door into the snow. She almost froze to death.
There can't be anyone much to blame. The children can open and unlock doors. Putting dead locks on doors is dangerous since they could not get out in an emergency. Usually, it only happens once or twice and it is explained to the child that they may not go out alone unless under certain conditions. Most of the time, no one can really blame the parents or caregivers. By mentioning "autism" - that is pointing the blame there.
I don't think it is pointing blame, its stating a relevant fact. There are many, many more news stories of autistic children wandering off.
I appreciate you posting, however I think that all parents need to be aware that kids with autism can wander, and often have little sense of danger.
I wandered myself as a child, and my son (who is autistic too) tried to wander. I had no access to the internet at the time, but if I had, and saw some of the incidents that we happening to other people, I would have realised that I was not alone in having a mini escapologist on my hands.
I am lucky enough to have been able to get a large fence for our whole garden, I wish that authorities would pay more heed for families with autistic kids and make fencing either free or affordable.
We had a large fenced in back yard. Unfortunately, Korey left through the garage as I had already mentioned. You seem to like to post threads on tragic events involving autistic children. Maybe you should be a little more sensitive to what you post. Until you have gone through the horrible event of losing a child, you will never know how much pain is involved. Insensitive comments, like yours, does nothing but cause more pain.
You are assuming that I am not a parent myself, and that I have never lost a child.
We are here to post what is in the media, we do not research these stories ourself, anything we post is what is already out there. We post about any news stories to do with autism.
Many of them are tragic. Should we ignore them and pretend they don't exist???
Maybe YOU should be a little bit more sensitive to US. We have autism, and many of us have kids with autism, and have our own personal traumatic life events, and still take the time to post here and let others know what is happening in the world, for free.
It is a community here, and we share our feelings, views, joys and hopes.
If you have a problem with that, complain to the media who reported your story in the first place.
I am at a loss to explain who is being insensitive here.
koreysmom - You have the full sympathy of everyone here including myself for the loss of your child, however it is only natural that when a story such as this pops up it will be discussed. Are you saying that this discussion is in itself insensitive?
We often get people coming here who we have posted about it.
It is common to talk about water safety when a child has drowned.