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Post by aln1982 on Aug 22, 2007 16:32:03 GMT -5
^ Agree about Kristy, bscfan and sotypical. Never gave it much thought, though, as this book always makes me feel bad so I rarely read it. I know I'm probably awful but reading about things like Autism and Alzheimers always make me uncomfortable so I tend to stay away from the books that deal with them. Autism is interesting, though. I had a mildly autistic kid in my 5th grade class and it was really an awful situation for him and the other kids - he couldn't handle it and really shouldn't have been in there. A teacher I know has also had some really bad experiences with autistic kids who shouldn't have been mainstreamed. So while this is a good idea in theory, it has a lot of different aspects to consider for each situation. Susan definitely (and this was obvious to me right away which is what kind of annoyed me about hte book) was not a candidate for mainstreaming. It was cool how she could play the piano, though. Autistic kids' special talents can be fascinating (but it was too bad those awful kids treated her like a freak show) My favorite thing about this book was the Hobart boys. They are so sweet ;D
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Post by Kylie90210 on Aug 22, 2007 21:29:04 GMT -5
I agree that Kristy was more idealistic than bossy. I felt really bad for her when she realised it wasn't going to work
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fluffycakes
Junior Sitter
A silken-haired beauty with a laugh like pealing bells
Posts: 868
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Post by fluffycakes on Nov 14, 2007 9:05:29 GMT -5
I agree to that. I think Kristy just didn't truly understand what Autism is until the end of the book, when she goes over to talk to Claudia. I think that's when it all hit her that Susan just isn't able to be mainstreamed, and that she won't get better. Before that I think she was idealistic. I think it's sweet that Kristy cared that much about Susan, even though she sort of went about it the wrong way. I got teary-eyed while re-reading the other day. When James said good-bye to Susan and tells her he's going to miss her and everything, I couldn't help sniffling a little. I'm such a sap. Agree about the Stacey foreshadowing, and about the Hobarts and Mal and Ben in particular. I love how they couldn't stop staring at each other when they first met. ;D
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Post by aln1982 on Nov 14, 2007 10:51:55 GMT -5
^ I was just about to post the same thing, fluffycakes since I just reread this one and liked it much more than usual because I realized more about Kristy's total lack of understanding of what autism really is. Still, it bothers me when the sitters kind of set the kids up for interaction problems - like when Kristy invites the Kuhn kids over to see Deb in Dog Trainer. It's really clear to me that she's not going to be very happy about that, just like telling Susan (thankfully she probably couldn't understand) that those kids were her friends. It's a nice thought but.... It also bothered me that Kristy didn't catch on right away to what Zach and the others were doing - or at least that they had some ulterior motive and weren't really Susan's "friends". That just seems incredibly naive to me. I really enjoyed the stuff about Mal and Ben, too, and like the Hobart boys.
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starrynight
Sitting For The Kuhns
The Royal Diner of Pizza Express
Posts: 4,004
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Post by starrynight on Nov 14, 2007 11:05:38 GMT -5
^ Has anyone ever actually READ the lyrics to "Sheik of Araby," the song that Susan sings on command at one point in this book? I definitely don't think they're BSC appropriate.
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mckay
Junior Sitter
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Post by mckay on Nov 14, 2007 14:24:31 GMT -5
And the lyrics are partially included in the book! So it's not like the author just pulled a song title out of the air without thinking about it!
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Post by greer on Nov 14, 2007 16:52:26 GMT -5
maybe it was a jd salinger reference.
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Post by sweetvalleygirl99 on Nov 14, 2007 20:29:37 GMT -5
The word "retarded" would never fly today. I forgot that they used the word "retarded" in this book until you brought it up. Actually, they used the word several times throughout the course of the book. I agree that it definitely wouldn't fly today, especially in the P.C society we live in. Of course, when I read this book for the first (and probably the only) time, the P.C.-Ness of it all wasn't an issue. People like Susan were just like that- retarded- and that was the end of it. I didn't much care for this book and found it relatively boring except for Susan's ability to remember dates, which I still find fascinating to this day. I totally agree with this! Kristy definitely showed Claudia-level dumbness. Why she thought that Susan would be better off at Stoneybrook Elementary was beyond me. There was a kid in my 5th grade class with autism and he was always fidgeting and flailing his arms around and shouting out random things. And worst of all, everyone in the class would pick on him and make him cry (and after he cried they intentionally started doing worse things just so he could cry again ). Every time I saw him I thought of Susan and it was just so sad . Things like that are exactly why autistic kids shouldn't go to real school .
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Post by aln1982 on Nov 15, 2007 0:56:05 GMT -5
^ Agree about autistic kids not going to school. This may sound mean, but I see it as being bad for the other kids too. My aunt had some autistic kids in her class and she said it was bad for everyone as they needed so much special attention that it took tons of time away from the other kids. I also had an autistic kid in 5th grade who would "go off" and get really violent. Both uncles who are teachers have had similar experiences. In general, I'm not a big fan of mainstreaming. I think it can cause a lot more harm than good.
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Penny Lane
Sitting For The Arnolds
The Girl With Colitis Goes By
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Post by Penny Lane on Nov 15, 2007 11:42:31 GMT -5
maybe it was a jd salinger reference. Wait, how? What am I missing? I know there's a reference to the song in Great Gatsby (totally not a book I ever want to read again). I swear, I've read everything by salinger except the stuff that was only printed in magazines. Or have I? (runs to wikipedia)
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alula
Sitter-In-Training
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Post by alula on Nov 17, 2007 5:30:55 GMT -5
I'm not crazy about the tendency of the media to perpetuate the myth that all, or even most, autistics have savant-like talents.
Even when the book was published, there was a lot less understood about the "spectrum" aspect of autism. Susan is clearly quite severely autistic, and mainstreaming would have served no purpose for her. Even with an individual, full-time personal aide, she would most likely not have benefitted from the unstructured socialization that occurs in a classroom, and the lesson plans for her general age group would have been inappropriate. Her education needed to focus on very specific, graduated goals for communication and for even minor feats of self-sufficiency. But there are a lot of kids who are "higher" on the spectrum and do benefit from spending at least some time among their peers, especially if they can participate in academic work. For a long time, it was assumed that all autistic people had low IQs, because they couldn't be evaluated by special means.
But mainstreaming as done now is frequently underfunded and overly reliant on teachers without sufficient training, either for special needs or for running a multi-level classroom, which is a specific pedagogy.
The idea behind mainstreaming, which is that all children deserve access to education and that the state should make reasonable accommadation, has been pretty important in the general philosophy that autistic people, as well as people with other developmental disabilities (or mental illnesses, for that matter) should be included in society rather than institutionalized, and that their education and therapy should be designed with that in mind. (And state-funding outside the public schools for accomadations is often even more woefully inadequate, and in many places there is virtually no funding to support adults. Most insurance companies, if they pay anything, require parents to get the primary funding for alternative education through public school funds, which requires massive amounts of (usually argumentative) evaluation. Although to be honest there are increasingly few such schools today, because very few experts would recommend a residential program for a child that young.) For example, from as much as you can tell about Susan at age eight, it's unlikely she'd ever be able to live on her own or in a loosely-structured group home; her therapists would need to focus on ways to accommadate her sensory integration issues, appropriate ways for her to self-soothe (like the hug machine in SS15) and tasks of daily life. Certainly a general "special needs" class, like the one Kristy saw at the assembly, would not have helped her and would probably have set her back, because she would have been constantly stressed from overstimulation.
I'm still bothered by Kristy's attitude toward the Felders, not her ignorance about autism--it's a terrible thing for anyone to assume that the parents of a special-needs child are "sending her away." It's cruel and disrespectful, and if I was able to understand that at eight, I don't have a lot of sympathy for it being "idealistic" in a thirteen-year-old.
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Post by crazychick10793 on Nov 25, 2007 19:10:03 GMT -5
i really got mad when Kristy was embarrassed because Susan wet her pants.i mean,it's not Susan's fault,and Kristy is just the babysitter.and they were only at the park or something talking to two little kids.if Kristy was Susan's mom,and it was a fancy dinner party or something,i might understand her getting embarressed..but really.........................
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 25, 2007 22:09:43 GMT -5
I volunteered with autistic kids this past summer, and soon after re-read this book and i'd have to say that Kristy was totally disrepectful. She had no right in thinking she knew what was best for Susan when she knew so little about autism. But I really have to wonder what the Felder's were thinking leaving their daughter with someone with absolutely no training to work with children with special needs...
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 27, 2007 10:10:33 GMT -5
Ann M. Martin wrote another book about an autistic kid, "Inside Out." I used to reread it a lot when I was younger because it's a good book and it's told from the perspective of the brother of an autistic kid. I guess it was written in the 80s, which would make it way ahead of it's time. The autistic kid in this story didn't have any savant-like skills, but he did display the classic behavior of flapping his hands, saying "wee-ooh" and spinning pennies on the bathroom floor for hours. And for some reason I remember that the only foods he'd eat without a fight were bagels and Cheerios.
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Post by babysittersfan100 on Nov 27, 2007 13:09:54 GMT -5
I found it a bit of a boring read. I did not like Kristy in this one as it semmed she thought she knew all about autism.
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