Bright but difficult students go at their own pace
Joe Newman of Hermosa Beach was in kindergarten when it became painfully clear that attending a traditional school just wasn’t going to work.
His problem was not academic; he’s always been a math whiz. Rather, it was behavioral. The stimuli in the classroom filled him with so much anxiety he’d act out by knocking over furniture, hiding under tables or fleeing the room.
Joe missed about a year of school while his parents agonized over what to do. He has since found a place at the Center for Learning Unlimited, a tiny school in Torrance that caters to bright students on the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum.
Many of the center’s students have been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, a mild form of autism characterized by difficulties in social communication.
Tucked away in a nondescript strip mall at 2785 Pacific Coast Highway, the center is technically a nonprofit private school, with tuition costs running about $34,000 a year. The tab is usually picked up by local school districts, sometimes as a result of litigation between the families and the districts.
The center has a niche in part because it serves a population struggling to cope with a form of autism that is especially mysterious.
“As a society we have more understanding of people who are obviously more needy than of people who have more discreet kinds of needs,” said Caron Mellblom-Nishioka, a professor of special education at California State University, Dominguez Hills.
“If we see somebody who’s a math whiz, we are not as sensitive to the social kinds of issues. We think, `Why is this person being such a nerd? If they are that smart, why can’t this person figure that out?”‘
But she added: “You don’t want to shut those people down. … Look at the pictures of Einstein — does he look like a normal person?”
Ginny Mathews, founder and director of the center, said public schools understandably often have trouble with the higher-functioning kids – “the Joes of the world.”
“Joe is tying up all kinds of resources when he’s climbing on the desk,” she said. “(Educators) are trying to respectfully manage this child’s challenges, but that’s shifting their attention from other children.”
Many of the center’s students – there are currently 23, who range in age from 4 to 21 – are quite talented. One was an expert in 15th century literature. Another has been working on a novel. Others have demonstrated an aptitude for painting, photography or poetry.
Those who haven’t been diagnosed with Asperger’s wear other labels: ADHD, bipolar disorder, emotionally disturbed or some complex combination thereof. Still others exhibit symptoms from disorders that are almost singularly rare.
Take Joe Newman. The boy has a chromosomal abnormality whose official diagnosis is so long and technical his mother, Corey Newman, can’t even recite the official name of it without the aid of a document. He’s one of only a few known people on the planet with the condition, which manifests itself in not only social deficits but also seizures.
Many of the symptoms resemble Asperger’s syndrome, but there are key deviations. Whereas people with Asperger’s often are unaware of social cues – perhaps they can’t perceive that a person is sad – Joe understands the cues, but doesn’t know what to do with them.
“Joe will say, `You look so sad, let’s play right now,”‘ his mother said. “He will hug the mailman. … He moves in too close or is sitting too far away when trying to talk to somebody.”
Joe has a difficult time knowing how to process sensory information: The distant sound of a barking dog across the street might seem every bit as immediate as the sound of the teacher talking.
For Joe, academics are fun. So much so that his parents and teachers use them as a reward for good behavior. When the family goes to a restaurant, they bring a backpack filled with math workbooks to keep him occupied.
At Hermosa View Elementary School, things deteriorated to the point where his mother, Corey, never left the parking lot after dropping Joe off in the morning. She knew a phone call from the office requesting that she take him home was inevitable.
Like many parents, she discovered the center on the Internet, during a desperate search for an appropriate school. The Hermosa Beach City School District paid his tuition to the center without challenge.
Mathews said the center distinguishes itself from the public school system in one major way.
While public schools tend to be focused on correcting behaviors, the center attempts to delve into – and then address – the causes for the behaviors. For example, public schools need all students to sit in their chairs, and will do whatever it takes to prevent students from, say, wandering aimlessly.
“We look at why the kid can’t sit down in the chair,” she said.
This means that, in addition to paraprofessionals and special-education teachers, the center’s staff includes a psychologist, neuropsychologist, speech-and-language pathologist and occupational therapist. Working together, the team tries to assess how a child can best be served.
Since its 2002 inception, the center has served about 150 students. The ultimate goal is to reintegrate them into the traditional classroom setting, or send them off to some form of higher education. Mathews said they are usually successful, but not always.
“We’ve lost a couple along the way,” she acknowledged. “We’ve got one who’s in prison.”
One satisfied graduate of the program is Gil Benezer. Now a sophomore at the University of California, Davis, Benezer – who said he has been diagnosed with “borderline Asperger’s” – believes he would have dropped out of school had it not been for the center.
And yet, he was at the top of his class at Manhattan Beach Middle School.
“I’d been bullied and was really stressed out and really depressed,” he said, adding that he’d twice attempted suicide.
Why was he bullied? “Because I was fat, because I was weird, because I had few friends,” he said.
The center, he said, was a welcoming place that taught him everything from time-management skills to coping with his depression.
“I liked that I could go at my own pace,” said Benezer, whose parents are both medical doctors. “They didn’t pressure me into anything. It is a very warm atmosphere. They cared.”
At UC Davis, he’s getting straight A’s and plans to major in biochemical engineering.
Corey Newman, meanwhile, is pleased with Joe’s progress.
“He works in groups now – he never used to work in groups,” she said. “He says hello to every person in the school, and acknowledges the staff. … It sounds so small, but these things are so huge to us.”