In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the issue's role in campaign politics. In the 2016 campaign, a number of posts discussed Trump's bad record on disability issues more generally. As his words and actions have shown, he despises Americans with disabilities.
Watch to see if the Trump budget proposes such change. Meanwhile, it is doing its best to weaken implementation of IDEA.
Special education experts are now warning that families' paths to accessing a working IEP for their children could get worse with the Trump administration's attempts to dismantle the Education Department. That agency has enforced the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, a federal law guaranteeing students with disabilities the right to a "free and appropriate public education" for decades.
The Trump administration recently slashed $900 million in education-related research contracts and more than $600 million in educator preparation grants. Both cuts will affect students with disabilities, experts say.
President Donald Trump has said federal protections for the millions of students with disabilities across the United States "will be fully preserved" and transferred to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
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Rich Weinfeld and his team of consultants at The Weinfeld Education Group work with parents of families with IEPs to help them advocate for their kids at their schools. They often encourage parents to seek data from the Education Department's research arm.
The Institute of Education Sciences has historically researched and collected nationwide data on what interventions work for students with specific disabilities at specific ages and learning levels.
That could range from how a student with dyslexia should be taught to how much homework and what type of social skills instruction a student with autism should be assigned
"In terms of medicine, we would think about which medicine is proven to work with what specific diagnosis and how often and with what dosage should that medication be given," he said. "We look at the data about which interventions are proven to work, and how often and under what circumstances should that intervention be given. We can all agree kids should have an intervention, but without evidence based data, we may not be able to agree which interventions should be used and how often it should be provided."
The Trump administration recently laid off essentially the entire staff at the Institute of Education Sciences, effectively gutting its ability to conduct further research on students with disabilities.
