News

Montana’s top educator proposes 30-item checklist to identify autistic students

March 12, 2019 /

MATR Sponsor (view all)

Bear Paw Development Corporation is a private non-profit organization created for the purpose of administering programs to help improve regional economic conditions in Hill, Blaine, Liberty, Chouteau and Phillips Counties and the Fort Belknap and Rocky Boy's Indian Reservations.

Disability Rights Montana attorney Tal Goldin said no other state has such a checklist.

Montana’s plan is not based on science and would create the most restrictive system in the nation for identifying a child with autism, he said.

Montana education officials want to change the criteria for identifying children with autism by creating a checklist of characteristics, a proposal that disability rights advocates say would lead to a drastic reduction of educational services to autistic children.

The changes proposed by Superintendent of Public Instruction Elsie Arntzen would require that students show 14 of 30 characteristics to qualify as having autism. Examples include “does not use gestures for communication” and “does not initiate or maintain eye contact while interacting with others.”