LETTER FROM
THE EDITOR
HUFFINGTON
01.12.14
ART STREIBER
A Better
Life
I
N THIS WEEK’S ISSUE,
Joy Resmovits takes a
look at one family’s uphill battle to get their
son the education he needs.
Greg Masucci and Maya
Wechsler’s son Max is 6 years
old and suffers from severe autism. Max has moved through
four different Washington, D.C.,
public schools and regressed to
the point where he cannot say
words and phrases he was able
to say a few years ago.
While researchers say regression can be normal in some
cases of autism, Greg argues
that the backslide has coincided
with Max’s time in D.C.’s public
schools, and that a better education could turn things around.
Greg and Maya dream of their
son becoming an independent
adult. But they believe time is
running out for Max to learn the
skills that will give him a better
chance of being able to support
himself later in life.
“The window of opportunity
is that the brain is still developing and very malleable until age
eight or nine,” explains Dr. Laurie
Stephens, a researcher at the California-based Education Spectrum.
Greg and Maya are “hopeful,” Joy
writes, “that if Max catches the
right instruction at the critical
moment, he might learn to ask
questions. To read. To become an
independent member of society.”
Their best chance, they feel,
is private school, where there
are teachers equipped to handle
Max’s needs. Federal law requires public school systems
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