Abstract
This article describes one family's experiences with the early intervention system in its treatment of their son, first diagnosed as deaf, later as autistic. Parents in both deafness and autism quickly find themselves mired in bitter disagreements, whether between sign language and speech advocates, or between believers in developmental versus behavioral approaches to autism. Experts in deafness, for all their squabbling, agree on early intervention's top priority: language. Specific methods and materials abound for teaching both sign and spoken language to deaf people. Autism intervention, dominated as it is by psychology/psychiatry gurus rather than educators, offers only the vaguest and the most schematic of intervention strategies. While often passed off as comprehensive curricula, these strategies fall far short of the specificity, practicability, and effectiveness of intervention materials for deaf children. Ultimately, parents realize that it is up to them to devise specific lessons for their children, and that it is up to all of us who work with autistic children directly-parents, teachers, and therapists-to compile, collectively, the truly comprehensive autism curriculum that we all so desperately need.