A beacon of hope

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A beacon of hope

By DANIELLE C. BELTON, Californian staff writer
e-mail: dbelton@bakersfield.com

Friday January 10, 2003, 06:40:09 PM

From "hopeless" to "happy." For grandmother Linda Payette, every day was a struggle in finding help for her 7-year-old autistic grandson, Billy Joe.

Her voice cracked as she recalled the time when his behavior was so bad that she thought she'd actually have to put him in an institution.

"It really scared me," Payette said.

She couldn't stop the hyperactivity, the fighting, the pinching. She couldn't communicate with him and she couldn't get him to pay attention to her.

Then Payette's daughter told her about a school in Bakersfield that could possibly help her hard-to-reach grandson.

A year and a half later, Billy Joe was at Valley Achievement Center, state-certified school geared toward the education of autistic children.

Autism is a complex developmental disability that typically appears during the first three years of life, the result of a neurological disorder that affects the functioning of the brain.

These days, when Payette sees her grandson, hopeless is the last adjective that comes to mind.

"He's happy," she said.

The Valley Achievement Center, founded by parent Jolene Billinger, is celebrating its fifth anniversary this year.

The parent of an adopted autistic daughter, Billinger said it was a struggle just to open the school at 7300 Ming Ave. Five years later, they've outgrown their surroundings, serving 45 students working with a staff of more than 60.

"They fill a need in our community," said James Varley, communications administrator with the Kern County Superintendent of Schools.

"If it helps a kid, it's a plus for all of us."

The center specializes in working with children with autism. Billinger said their program is more intense than most public school programs, focusing more on socialization before moving on to academics.

"We've gotten children at 12 who weren't even diaper trained yet," Billinger said.

At the center, all children start off working one-on-one with an instructor in a small cubicle with few distractions. There, teachers work to get the children to understand questions and what is being asked of them. Through intense and repetitive instruction, the students learn how to respond appropriately to commands and others' voices.

Later, the children are moved up to bigger classrooms, but often it is just the child and the instructor sharing the room. There, they gradually work on socialization skills along with academics.

As the child progresses, they interact with other children at the school, work in the mock grocery store at the school, and go on instructional outings to stores and parks where they learn appropriate ways to pay attention and address people.

Older students are trained in vocational and life skills in the hope that they can find work and someday live in an assisted-living community.

Autism is somewhat of a mystery in the medical community: There is great debate over what actually causes the developmental disorder. Autistic children are often withdrawn and are sometimes antisocial; some are non-verbal and suffer from mild to severe mental retardation. Some are hypersensitive to touch and light and can't handle too much stimulation. Others can't properly digest dairy and wheat products.

Billinger said that often, autistic children are mislabeled as having other developmental disorders and don't receive the help they need.

Children who could be engaged and taught are left to languish in an imperfect education system, Billinger said.

"They can be taught, but it's just a fight to get what they need," said parent Lynn Davis.

Davis currently has a 10-year-old son, Mark, enrolled in the after-school program at Valley Achievement Center. Her other son, Daniel Rupe, 17, is working with the center's vocational program.

They moved from Washington just so Mark could attend the after-school program.

"It gives him structure, hope, something to look forward to," Davis said of the program.

Progress has been slow, but definite. Davis credits the center with helping Mark learn to listen better and become more productive.

She said she'd like to put him in the program full time, but like many parents of autistic children seeking a better education for their children, Davis has hit a wall.

To get their child enrolled in state-funded schools like the Valley Achievement Center, many parents have to prove that their child's needs are not being met by the public school system. Often attempting to prove this leads to expensive legal procedures that can take as long as two years.

But for the parents at with children at the center, the fight was worth it.

Before, Billy Joe Payette wouldn't even look his grandmother in the eye.

Now he listens and pays attention.

Before, he was withdrawn and violent.

Now Payette can do things with her grandson she's never done before.

"He plays with toys now," she said. "I know it sounds silly, but he didn't do that before. He sits and looks at books. He doesn't tear out the pages now. It's a slow progress, but he's doing better now ... it used to scare me to take him to a park, but now I don't worry about him fighting or pinching.

"Now he wants to be where the children are. He doesn't want to be in the middle of it, but he wants to be where they are.

"He never noticed other children before; now he wants to be around them."

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