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Appeals court requires school district to provide in-home autism therapy
COLUMBIA, S.C. (April 27, 2011) -- A student with autism was denied a Free and Appropriate Education (FAPE) because the school district failed to adequately implement an Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), and the district should provide the student a home-based program at their expense, an appeals court ruled Wednesday.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit made the determination Wednesday based on arguments it heard Dec. 8 from attorneys representing the student and Sumter School District 17. The action was brought under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
"A decision like this will give a lot of hope to similarly situated families," said Erik Norton, a Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough attorney who represented the student through the Firm's Children In The Law Pro Bono Program.
The action began in 2006 when the parents of the Sumter school student withdrew their son from school and began an in-home program of ABA therapy, which was called for in his individual education plan but not provided by the school district as required. ABA therapy is an increasingly endorsed method of teaching children with disabilities like autism.
In the fall of 2005, the district was providing the student with fewer than the 15 hours of ABA therapy required by the IEP. The student began exhibiting self-injurious behavior and aversion to school, so the parents removed him from school in December 2005 for a medical treatment. By the time he returned to school in January 2006, the District had hired a board-certified ABA therapist to work in the autism classroom along with the lead teacher and the other aides. The therapist immediately made some changes in the District’s approach to teaching the student, and the undesired behaviors began to subside.
The therapist testified at an earlier due process hearing that she believed the student's problems during the 2005-06 school year were largely caused by improper teaching techniques that had been used before she arrived. She testified that the lead teacher and the aides "didn’t have a very good understanding of the terminology, of the techniques that are used in applied behavior therapy."
The therapist was successful with the student, but the student's problematic behavior returned after she resigned for another position. The parents ultimately withdrew him from school and began providing in-home ABA therapy.
In affirming the decision of the District Court, the Court of Appeals pointed to testimony that the student's academic problems and self-injurious behaviors were caused by the failure of the district to "properly understand and implement ABA techniques," and concluded that the student should be served in a home-based program provided by the parents at the district's expense because "...the evidence established that (the student) was receiving intensive ABA therapy [in the home], the kind of therapy that the District through its IEPs had concluded was necessary to provide (the student) with an appropriate education, and that the student was responding well to the program."
