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http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/042/obituaries/Michael_McLean_helped_prove_autistic_students_could_thrive+.shtml

Michael McLean; helped prove autistic students could thrive

By Gloria Negri, Globe Staff, 2/11/2003

ichael R. McLean, whose autism motivated his parents to fight to allow him and other developmentally disabled children to attend public schools in their own communities, died of a heart attack Sunday at his Duxbury home. Born in Boston, he was 47.

''Michael made our lives so rich and he helped others like him have better lives,'' his mother, Mary Manning McLean of Duxbury, said yesterday.

In the early 1960s, she and Mr. McLean's father, the late Boston Globe staff writer Robert A. McLean, were among the vanguard of parents who lobbied the Legislature and school departments to provide special classes in the public schools for children with autism and other developmental disorders.

''Michael was born at a time when the diagnosis of autism was considered rare,'' Mrs. McLean said. ''While there were classes for the blind, deaf, and retarded, there was nothing in the public schools for kids with autism. Instead, they were sent away to institutions.''She recalled how she and her husband helped to fight the uphill battle to pass Chapter 750, the precursor to the state's current special needs education law, which requires all public schools to provide special education classes.

Chapter 750 opened up the public schools to such children as Mr. McLean, who were considered at the time, in 1962, to be emotionally disturbed or mentally ill. And, at the age of 8, he was one of 12 students in one of the state's earliest Chapter 750 classes at the Lakeside Elementary School in Braintree, where the family lived.His mother said that the day in 1977 when Mr. McLean got his certificate of graduation from Braintree High School, at age 22, was one of the proudest of his life.

She felt the fact that her son was allowed to stay in his own community, among a loving family of siblings, brought him out of isolation and helped him adjust. ''He would try everything,'' she said. Mr. McLean held jobs, as well, thanks to the efforts of his and other parents who pushed school administrations to get federal funding for job training programs. One of Mr. McLean's first jobs was at a Howard Johnson's on the South Shore.

Over the years, he enrolled in other vocational training workshops, and was most recently working with Meals on Wheels under a Road to Responsibility program.

He often would attend meetings with his mother on autism, she said. He loved to travel, swim, hike, and ''anything to do with the outdoors.'' The day before he died, he was snowshoeing in their yard.

Mrs. McLean believes her son's autism helped her to help others. She decided she could best do that by getting her master's degree in education, which she accomplished at Northeastern University.

Mrs. McLean became executive director of the South Shore Association for Retarded Citizens and later worked with the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission as coordinator of services for the developmentally disabled. For a time, she helped find jobs for patients recently released from institutions. ''That's what Michael did for me,'' she said. Besides his mother, Mr. McLean leaves a sister, Maureen McLean McNamara of Andover; and two brothers, Daniel of Palo Alto, Calif., and Thomas of South Yarmouth.

A funeral Mass will be said Friday at Holy Family Church in Duxbury at 11:30 a.m. Burial will be in Blue Hill Cemetery in Braintree.

This story ran on page B8 of the Boston Globe on 2/11/2003.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

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