School districts strive to find best tools for educating the severely disabled
School districts struggle to find a balance between instruction in functional skills and academics while providing custodial care.
The New York Times
JAMES ESTRIN / NYT
To get his attention, Anissia Mack shines a flashlight on Donovan Forde, who is legally blind and suffers from multiple disabilities, at the Horan School in New York. He wears cotton mitts because he sometimes hits himself in the face.
Donovan Forde was dozing when the teacher came around to his end of the table. It fell to his teacher's aide to wake him from his midmorning nap.
She shined a small flashlight back and forth in his eyes like a dockworker signaling a ship, and called his name. Then she put her hand on his cheek, steering his head forward as he opened his eyes.
The teacher, Ricardo Torres, placed a red apple against Donovan's closed left hand and held it near his nose so he could smell it. "Donovan, the fruit holds the seeds of the plant," he said.
Then Torres held a plastic container of apple seeds to Donovan's ear, shaking it, and placed Donovan's hand inside so he could feel them. "And these are the seeds," Torres said.
He watched Donovan's eyes and face for a sign he had understood, a smile, nod, a noise. Donovan gently pulled his hand away. No one knew if he had grasped it.
At a time his peers are enrolled in college, or earning money at jobs, Donovan, 20, is in public school, being taught the most basic facts. Because of cognitive disabilities brought on by a traumatic brain injury at nearly 6 months old, it is nearly impossible to know what he comprehends and retains. After 15 years in the New
Friday, June 18