Three of the Ways that a "Fully Included Academic Education" Prepped David for College Success

First, for an introduction to the D.M. Nisson, PhD story, click HERE to see my blog post of June 15, 2020.

For today's post on the topic of the advantages of a "Fully Included Education", here are three of the many ways that I feel my son's inclusive education contributed to his later college success:

1. Access to an academic curriculum

Not everyone has as high an IQ as David's, but when it comes to children's brains which are still developing, we should never "judge a book by its cover", and exclude a seemingly low IQ student from access to academics. Kids' brains can change a lot between kindergarten and grade 12! Had I gone along with the public school's insistence upon denying my son an academic education based upon his superficial appearance of "a hopeless case" at age 4, he would have lacked the proper foundation in math and science to study a STEM major in college.

2. Appropriately modeled behavior

It's always important to have a least one child in every group who follows the classroom rules so the other students can witness someone being rewarded with smiles and esteem-building words of appreciation from the teacher. In a class filled mostly of children who understand classroom behavior basics, those who have disabilities challenging them in this area will learn appropriate behavior more quickly than children segregated into a classroom filled entirely with children who share behavior difficulties. My son was able to learn how to function properly in a college classroom because he was surrounded by non-disabled peers who helped the teacher teach him how to behave in his K-12 classrooms.

3. Preparation for future college and/or professional teamwork

College requires teamwork, in class and in research groups. By high school at the latest, teachers need to be noting into student "Cumulative Files" and other records the teamwork strengths and weaknesses of each student. Who are the leaders, and will someday play the roles of future Project Coordinators, CEO's, or Principal Investigators? Or, which elementary students now shining in their current roles of "getters", or of "double-checkers", will grow up to succeed as Resource Investigators, or Completers-Finishers at college and beyond. Self knowledge in teamwork awareness is absolutely crucial to success in a college level research group, and this might be the single most important gift that my son's "fully included education" provided him.

These are just a few of the ways that my son's inclusive education contributed to his dramatic college level success. In conclusion, if you are the parent of a child with a disability, I encourage you to take the steps needed for your school district, or private school, to include them in an academically-based classroom. Bear in mind, however, that 'inclusion" is a relatively new idea, and each child's needs are unique, so even the best administrators and teachers often benefit from professional inclusion guidance. Are you UK-based? If so, I recommend that you consider contacting Inclusivity Consultant, Nazia Ansari of Inclusivity Education.

Intro to the D.M. Nisson, PhD Person-Centered Planning Success Story

So, what's the big deal? Many colleges are welcoming "autistic" students into their programs, right?

What's different about the story of David M. Nisson, PhD?

Actually, the difference is quite significant!
Autism is on a spectrum, but a lot of people don't realize this. So, most of the college programs are only set up to help "ASD" students who function independently at the mild end of the spectrum (Level 1), and exclude those Level 2 and 3 students with classic autism who require protective supervision. But, that fact didn't stop me from backing my son's dream, nor did it scare off the boldly open minded team at UC Davis Physics and Astronomy.

Because most parents are unable to locate the resources to do as I did, David is the first American diagnosed by the late Dr. Darold Trefffert with aide-dependent, Level 2-3 "Savant Syndrome Autism" to earn his doctorate in physics from a top ranked United States university. I am Mary Nisson -- the mom who helped him get it done. During the years I spent at David's side while he studied at UC Davis, I recorded this blog. To begin at the beginning, scroll down to 2009 and enjoy reading!  🎓 😊

Curious how our partnership succeeded?

The key was to 

[A] Reduce David's stress level and,

[B] Keep David's genius free to focus on his schoolwork and research, by letting me "sweat the small stuff" (that is often the cause of autistic students dropping out). 

So, while David was a lower division undergrad student at the respected Cosumnes River College (CRC) in Sacramento, California, and later upper division and grad school student at the world-renowned UC Davis Department of Physics and Astronomy (UCD), 

I:

• provided him basic Protective Supervision from such dangers as cars in parking lots and chemicals in laboratories; 🚗🚗 ⚛️

• advised and troubleshooted with counselors, professors and other staff in how to accommodate David’s unusual classroom communication and health-related needs; 

• served as David’s career, academic and Social Skills Coach
• 
  
• furnished financial aid advice and FAFSA instruction, executive level Secretarial and Personal Assistance, and more. 

These were a few of the supports that I provided so that David was able to produce scientific work good enough to receive scholarships, fellowships and grants to fund his bachelors and masters degrees.  ＄＄  🎉

Ready to follow in my footsteps?

As I said earlier, even with the new Self Determination Program and Person Centered Planning, most parents won't be able to follow in my footsteps all the way to the top of "the mountain", but I hope some can at least make it partway. 

Humanity and the planet upon which we depend need us to provide profoundly disabled, IHSS-requiring students an academic curriculum to prep for college so that we can access the potential in every potential scientist’s mind!  🌎 

My books are on the way; in the meantime, head back to the posts in 2009 and start reading. And, please feel free to ask me questions in the "comment" section, or to email me at: 

ddfp.planning@ gmail (dot) com.

                                                                                                                               

Hiatus

Hi, readers. Thanks for being here. For those of you who have someone autistic in your life, I hope that reading this story of my autistic son's life can help you in some way.

According to the little graph that shows how many readers visit per day, there are hundreds of you reading without actually joining my "Google Friend Connect" or clicking on my "follow" button. Welcome!! While there are a few autistic theoretical physicists, David is AMERICA'S ONLY SAVANT AUTISTIC PHYSICS EXPERIMENTALIST, because experimentation is dangerous and so requires someone like me--  a personal assistant to assure safety.

David's uniqueness makes him an important pioneer for others to follow, so it is important for me to keep up with this blog. Therefore, I apologize for the times when I need to take a break from the internet to focus on real world activities for a while. The last couple months have been such a break, and it will continue for another few weeks.

Please be patient with me, and in the meantime, if you're a new reader, you might enjoy comparing the nervousness in my earlier posts, when I didn't know if Dave would do okay at "the big university" with my calm, happy recent posts about Dave's successes in research physics. I laugh when I read those old posts, now that everything has worked out fine.

Blessings!

Christmas gifts

This year for the first time, David shopped independently, without any help from anyone, (except to use my credit card). Online shopping is a great invention for autistic people, isn't it?

A person reveals a lot about himself or herself in the choice of gifts he purchases, as well as letting us know specifically how well we are truly understood by those who claim to love us. So, I was curious to see what Dave would buy for me; to see how well he understands me. Wow! David M. Nisson has really been paying attention to what his ol' mom is all about. He bought me Kisses from Katie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfXgCx3f_1c&noredirect=1

Katie Davis is a remarkable young woman, blessed with all the goodies of an American 1% life, and abandoning it all to follow in the footsteps of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. A Christian mom after my own heart...

Also wrapped under the tree (his first independent wrapping job) was Steven Solomon's Water. I'm barely past the introductory chapters of these books, but already I can see that both are exactly in line with my environmental, humanistic, and spiritual values, and I always find it interesting and reassuring to see the different ways that those with whom I share values use their gifts and talents. Good shopping job, Dave!

So, the best gift of all this year was the reminder that I'm so very, very fortunate to have been chosen by God to be the parent of the best human being I know- my son, David Nisson.

http://student.physics.ucdavis.edu/~nisson/en/

What is Person-Centered Planning?

Here is a link to an article on how the state of California uses "Person-Centered Planning" to help families of disabled children plan for the best future possible, and for helping the families of disabled adults maintain their quality of life:

http://www.dds.ca.gov/Publications/docs/Person_Ctrd_Planning.pdf

How will the 20% trigger cuts affect this objective of caring for the person more than for the state's pocketbook?

Merry Christmas, readers!!

David's Website

Just a reminder that David Nisson's homepage is at:

http://student.physics.ucdavis.edu/~nisson/en/

Physics Conference at SLAC

November 11 and 12 was the California section meeting of the professional organization David is a member of, APS physics. While he has attended a previous APS section meeting, this was the first time Dave was among those who gave PowerPoint presentations of their research results. His colleagues have informed us that he did well, given this was Dave's first talk. Left to right in the first photo are UC Davis graduate students Brian Neal, John Crocker, and David M. Nisson.

The fact is that watching David give that talk was surprisingly emotional for me. The last time I found myself fighting tears of joy at David's happiness and success was the day in June 2010 that he walked across the UC Davis auditorium stage in his cap and gown. I assumed that the next time I'd have that same feeling would be when he earns his doctorate, but I was wrong. As David spoke, I found myself swallowing hard to keep from embarrassing myself with tears of pride and joy. My autistic son, (whom some authorities told me might never speak a complete sentence properly), gave an informative presentation on his research in condensed matter physics
Dave has definitely disproved his childhood doubters...

A week later the editor of the UC Davis Physics department online newsletter, Ms. Cindy Lewis, ran David's summation of the event:

---

*GRAD STUDENT NEWS*

Shouts out to the Traveling Team Physics, including Grad Student David Nisson, who recently attended and presented at (his first) 2011 California APS Section meeting. David shares his experience with us below.

“The 2011 California APS Section meeting was a great experience for me. My favorite part was giving my very first presentation. It was exciting to have a venue to present my first results on a study... Members of the audience told me that they enjoyed my presentation. There was a wide variety of topics in the parallel sessions. It was interesting to hear the results of other people working on condensed matter physics, including not only experiments but theoretical predictions. The plenary sessions were also very informative, including one about a new kind of measurement being used on high-temperature superconductors.”

“Of the 242 attendees of the 2011 CA-APS section meeting, 17 graduate students, researchers, and faculty represented UC Davis. The conference, which took place on  November 11 and 12 at SLAC, was well-organized by a team that included Thanh Ky Ly, Hendrik Ohldag, and Mary Moseley, among others. In addition to plenary talks, parallel sessions, and interesting panel discussion, the students' “Meet Your Rock Star” luncheon and a delicious dinner, where speaker Burton Richter of SLAC gave an eye-opening talk about the realities of energy policy, there were plenty of opportunities to simply meet new people and chat. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and no doubt some helpful collaborations were born.”
 

The conference we had to miss

Well, our friends at Dave's Bay Area support group, AASCEND:

AASCEND

http://aascend.net/  have informed us that their conference, Entitled "Success on the Spectrum" went great!  As with so many other of their terrific events, we had to miss it due to our busy physics schedule, but we're happy they had a productive, fun time together.

Best wishes to all our friends at AASCEND, and we look forward to getting together with them over the winter break.

UCD Support/Social Group

So, the latest news is that David has finally had time to attend the meetings of the Autism Support and Social Group at UC Davis. Yay! It meets at a bad time for us, so we haven't had time to go, but we finally get time this term and Dave attended while I hung out in the hallway. He really enjoyed himself, and we're happy to announce we'll head back again.

The facilitator for this group is sensitive, caring Susan Bacalman of the UC Davis MIND Institute:

http://beincharge.ucdavis.edu/staff.html       

We're Back!!

Yay!! I had some technical difficulties with the blog posting procedure, so it's been a while.

What a great summer. David has learned a lot, worked hard on his physics, and had some fun, too. He wasn't scared a bit on the flight to and from San Diego. Proof that "taking baby steps" works...We're looking forward to longer flights in preparation for those big trips to his physics conferences.

In the meantime, in November, David will be presenting his recent research results at relatively nearby SLAC (Stanford Linear Accelerator Center).

It's nice that they are making the comfortable Stanford Guest House available to attendees of the conference. I always need an extra-good night's sleep before Dave's big events.

Thanks for reading!!

Summer Work

Well, summer's here, so David and his physics colleagues are busier than ever at the lab. As always, I'm nearby to assist David with keeping on schedule, taking stretching breaks, lunch time, etc. I'm so glad that David is able to do science as he always dreamed.

First Flight Recap

On July 20, 2010, I posted David's and my plan of attack to assure him an anxiety-reduced first flight. Some aspects of the plan we stuck with; others we abandoned. Here is what we did:

1. We visited the Sacramento Airport (SMF) and watched planes land and take off.

2. This was followed by reading about, and discussing, the physics and mechanics of air travel.

3. David practiced flight simulation online.

4. David then rode in a flight simulator at the Aerospace Museum of California, which replicates the experience of bad turbulence. (I rode in it too. It was fun!)

5. We phoned our nearby general aviation airport and arranged for a pilot to simply taxi David around in his Cessna, without actually taking off. The pilot was wonderful; he dispelled David's anxiety by calmly explaining the significance of sounds and flashing lights as they arose.

6. We purchased Sony Sound Isolating Headphones from Best Buy. These worked fine.

7. We made David's first flight just a little commuter trip from SFO to SMF, totaling a mere twenty minutes in the air, not including taxi.

8. We paid extra for the quick check-in through security.

9. When we made our reservations by phone, we INFORMED THE AIRLINE about David's autism, for which they were grateful.

We then did the same when we arrived at security. At the word "autism", TSA provided us our own security agent to accompany David and me through security, double checking that we had not absentmindedly left keys in our pockets, or water in our carry on baggage. How much of this was standard for autistic flyers, and how much was because I'd paid the extra fee, I don't know.

Finally, when we checked in at the airline itself (United Express), we double-checked that the flight crew had been informed of a disabled person's presence. All staff were friendly, and had David and I board before the "neuro-typical" passengers, so as to reduce the emotional stress that bumping elbows, etc, can create.

10. We got to the airport in plenty of time to use the restroom right before boarding, and to enjoy watching the tarmac dramas.

This plan worked for us. "Take what you want, and leave the rest". ~Peace and all good~

Success!

Yay! David's first flight went great! In fact, we both enjoyed it so much, (and David was so relaxed), that we're going to skip the round-trip to SFO-and-back that we planned, and will move on to the next step-- visiting friends in Southern California.

Peace and all good

 __________________________________________________
Post #28 in "Champagne" (6/8/20)

First Flight

Well, we've got reservations to fly from SFO to SMF on May 15. After that, we make the same trip round-trip. Then (o'jala), we'll fly on weekends further and further each time, until it's "no big deal" to zoom off to the other end of Planet Earth for physics conferences. (Of course, flying's not exactly the greenest form of travel, is it?)

(#29 in champagne)

Lifeskill update-- flying

A lot of autistic people have a difficult time growing accustomed to flight travel, so I've designed a program to help David ease into it. We're starting by just watching planes land and take off at the local airport, and having David study statistics, so that he can see how much safer flying is than driving.

Next, we'll get into a small Cessna at a local airport.
_______________________________________________________

(#31 in "Champagne")

The Lab

Well, the holidays sure passed quickly, didn't they. Happy New Year.

So now, David has time in his schedule to get serious about his laboratory work. This is tricky, because David's autism makes him a different sort of scientist to work with than the other group members. While he can focus quite well on math, physics troubleshooting, data analysis, and writing, he has trouble focusing on verbally-delivered information. Fortunately, the members of his research group are open-minded and welcoming toward David. I'm sure we'll work things out.

Now That Summer's Over...

Well, Thursday was Dave's first graduate level class, a seminar in condensed matter physics. How exciting for him.

Gone are the days of Dave needing me to remain in the classroom with him to take his notes. Nowadays, I get him there on time, remind him to sit at the front (he's distracted if at the back), open his notebook, sharpen his pencil, etc. After that, he's great at taking his own notes, following the lecture, and even making haltered-but-meaningful contributions to discussions. Meanwhile, I sit outside the classroom in the hallway. I read books and journals, pray my rosary, pay the bills (yes, still writing checks) or other written chores, exercise (I walk up and down the nearby stairwell). After class, I check in with the professor to answer his/her questions about Dave's special needs, etc.

So, when I'm not praying, exercising or writing checks, what do I read while Dave's in class?

Well, of course there's The Aggie, and The Enterprise, chock full of essential breaking news. Also, I received one of those itsy-bitsy Gideon Bible-ettes from a guy outside Shields library, which squishes into my overpacked purse perfectly, between my eyeglasses and Kleenex. Then, I was reading Joan Chittister, but have taken a break to re-enjoy the Willa Cather novels, starting with "My Antonia". The story seems so much richer than when I was "a young lass". Finally, I'm reading Dr. Darold Treffert's "Extraordinary People". So, there you have it-- Dave's and my life in a nutshell. At home, he studies while I cook, clean, plan menus, etc. At school, he's in class while I read. Slowly, but surely, our little system is helping David earn his degrees.

Admissions

So, first, admissions:

Wisconsin rejected him.
Rutgers admitted David with an awesome fellowship for study only (no TA, no research-- just studying his first year while he "gets his feet wet") amounting to a giant truckload of money.
Davis admitted him (yay! yay! yay!) with a tentative offer of a TA-ship, while they decide about a fellowship. Praying, praying...Davis is our first choice, not just because it would be easy on me to stay here (more resources for caretakers than other places) but because of the physics itself. David is really shining here, with this wonderful team.

Peace

GRE and Fall Quarter Grades

So, in spite of having to spend any and all free time studying for the GRE, and completing graduate school applications, Dave earned all A-pluses in fall quarter at UC Davis. Wow!

Here are Dave's GRE scores:

Writing: 4.0
Reading: 460
Math: 700
Physics: 820

Not too terrible on the language stuff, considering Dave received no extra time, so ETS disabled him there. No- studying more couldn't have helped; it has to do with his autism. It takes him twice as long as most other people to read, but when he's done, he understands the material much, much better than most...

Same with his writing-- Dave can't write fast under pressure, but with plenty of time to do so, he is a brilliant writer. I can't just technical writing, but his professors tell me he writes the best science papers and laboratory reports they've ever read. Again, wow.

Here's Dave's current admissions wish list:

UC Davis
Wisconsin -Madison
Rutgers
CalTech
UCSD
University of Arizona

Thanksgiving

I'm so thankful that my son, a mathematician/scientist who, a generation ago would have been deprived of a scientific career the way the fictional Raymond Babbit was in The Rain Man, gets to be a member of the international team of scientists researching at the recently-operational Large Hadron Collider. Yay!

David is completing applications to CALTECH, UC San Diego, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Rutgers, University of Arizona, and UC Davis over the coming month and a half.

Thank You, God!