Why is Special Education Underfunded in High Schools?

As rates of autism and other similar disorders are on the rise, I can't help but think about funding for special education. For those who don't know what special education is, it is education for physically or mentally handicapped children whose needs cannot be met in an ordinary classroom. Because there are more children with special needs, the funding should increase for the special ed. departments right? In fact, since 1980, there has been a 2.4 million increase in children receiving special education at school. 

Wrong. According to the University of Michigan, in 1975, "the legislation included the goal that 40 percent of the extra costs of the inclusion of special needs children into regular classrooms would be covered by the federal Government". However in over 25 years later, the government only provided 18% of extra costs for special education. 

Some possible reasons special education is underfunded are because people care more about core classes and tests scores. Nowadays, high schools are ranked by the number of APs students take and how well they do on the exams. Since a child who is mentally disabled will most likely not be in AP classes, they will not contribute to having their high school highly ranked. Also states issue standardized tests each year to see how well a school is doing. Kids in special ed. will generally do worse than mainstreamed kids, making the school seem that it is doing "more poorly" than it actually. 

Since kids in special ed. don't positively contribute as much as mainstreamed kids to having a "highly ranked high school" or a "successful" high school, I think their programs are unfortunately underfunded.

Why do you think special education departments in high school are underfunded?

Vaccine & Autism: NO Correlation

Vaccines save our lives from harmful infectious diseases, yet parent's are hesitant to get there children vaccinated after hearing the word "vaccine" and "autism" in the same sentence. In fact, USA Today reports that at least 10% of parents of young children skip or delay routine vaccinations.

The vaccine that many people have tried to correlate with autism is the MMR vaccine, which stands for three diseases: Measles, Mumps, and Rubella. This is a critical vaccine for infants to get because measles alone is the deadliest rash/fever illness a child can develop.


A lot of talk of vaccines and autism has sparked in the media because of  one celebrity,  Jenny McCarthy. McCarthy gained notoriety when she spoke out to the public after she believed her son developed autism after getting vaccinated. Mccarthy told Time Magazine a ludicrous belief that she thinks "it's going to take some diseases coming back to realize that we need to change and develop vaccines that are safe. If the vaccine companies are not listening to us, it's their f___ing fault that the diseases are coming back."To me, it  seems like McCarthy is in denial about her son being diagnosed with autism, so she is trying to find a source to blame, which is clearly not the solution because she thinks harmful diseases that "resurface" like Polio, will be the only way to make vaccines "safer" and preventative of autism.

Do you think there is any chance the vaccines cause autism?

Autism: Why is it so Much More Common in Boys?

As data from the CDC has come in, the rise in rates of autism is alarming, especially in boys. Now, the incidence of autism is 1 in 88, but in boys it is a staggering 1 in 54. I, and probably many other people are baffled by this data, so I would like to explore why it is so much more common for boys to be diagnosed with autism than girls.

First, it is important to really understand what autism is. According to Autism Speaks, autism is "Characterized, in varying degrees, by difficulties in social interaction, verbal and nonverbal communication and repetitive behaviors".  Autism is a spectrum disorder, meaning it can range from people having trouble understanding social cues, all the way to people unable to talk and barely able to communicate basic necessities. 

Now, one reason that there is such a large gap between boys with autism and girls with autism, is there is different symptoms displayed by each sex. According to an article in CNN, one hypothesis is "That perhaps higher-functioning girls with autism are missed by clinicians who are not experts in diagnosis. [Also] girls have better social skills than higher-functioning boys with autism and so are not diagnosed as readily". Because of the difference in symptoms shown by the child, the girls are not as commonly diagnosed because of their ability to have better social skills. Also CNN reports that since girls don't engage in as many repetitive behaviors as boys, like rocking or spinning (a hallmark symptom of autism), so the lack of that symptom could be deceive to inexperienced clinicians. 

Do you think there are actually more boys with autism than girls, or are girls being misdiagnosed? 

What is Regressive Autism?

Many of us have heard of autism spectrum disorders (ASD), but what about regressive autism? According to Dr. Sid Finegold, a former professor at UCLA and leading researcher on regressive autism, "As the name suggests (regressive autism), these children develop normally up to about eighteen months of age, and then they begin to go backwards". By "going backwards" these children lose their social connections, have trouble with eye connect, and develop intestinal problems.

Although, there has been limited research on regressive autism compared to ASD research, scientists and doctors have found evidence that children who are on antibiotics at a very young age tend to be the ones that develop regressive autism because they are disrupting the normal growth of the flora developing in their gut, which can then harm the brain. The diagram to the right depicts a nice flow chart of how children develop regressive autism. Although in the first chart not all of the causes have been heavily research, they give a good idea of what some of the indicators can be.