Rethinking How We React to Disability, By Jason Hahr

 

Above is an image of a child in handcuffs. You can also see a small portion of a yellow shirt and blue jeans. 


Happy Monday, everyone. We hope you enjoyed our post from Friday. Today, we will discuss a rather disturbing trend. Last October, Disability Scoop published an article entitled How School Shooting Fears Led to A 10-Year-old Boy with Autism Being Handcuffed. Due to the publication's limited number of free views per month, I will summarize the article below before I comment on the issues it raises.

In 2023, after saying to a teacher that he should bring a gun to school so that kids would listen to him, it would come out later that the student wasn't referring to using a firearm in the typical way. Instead, he wanted to ride it like a horse so that kids could laugh with him. While this does not make sense to most people, we must understand that people with Autism have a different way of thinking about things sometimes, and they may not understand the impact of their words. Especially given the context in which they say certain things.

America has always been on edge, and rightfully so, when it comes to school shootings, ever since the Columbine shooting in 1999. That being said, in this case, I believe the situation was not handled properly because, according to the article, the student was arrested and questioned by his school resource officer without a parent being present. Additionally, the arresting officer who took the student to jail was not made aware of the fact that the student had a disability.

I'm not saying that talking about guns in school should be taken lightly. Still, if further investigation had been done before the 10-year-old student was arrested, they would have realized that he did not understand the impact of what he was saying. I'm all for being treated equally, but we have to take into account someone's disability and their capacity for comprehension. No, I am not saying that all Autistic people are unaware of what they say and do, I am simply saying that disability needs to be considered more on an individual basis rather than just being ignored altogether.

I know Michelle did not write this piece, and I do not have Autism, but that being said, I would be curious to know what people within the Autistic community think of the article I mentioned in this piece and this article as a whole. Until next time, your friendly neighborhood, super advocate, and proud member of The Voiceless Minority, Jay.

If you have not used your complimentary views for the month with Disability Scoop, please feel free to check out the original article that I referenced above.

https://www.disabilityscoop.com/2024/10/16/how-school-shooting-fears-led-to-a-10-year-old-boy-with-autism-being-handcuffed/31116/

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