Autistic students have died, been assaulted in bus incidents

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Across southeastern Michigan, children with autism have been assaulted on the bus. Bullied. Left with marks on their body. Even lost, only to be found in an empty bus more than an hour later, parents told the Detroit Free Press. They said that, despite state-mandated training, drivers and aides don't always understand how to react when a child's behavior spins out of their control, a circumstance that can become fraught fast in a moving vehicle.

Ann Arbor's school district was thrown into turmoil over the summer — with the superintendent ousted — after a video showed a bus aide smacking and restraining a 7-year-old boy screaming in terror. A lawsuit claims his mother was kept in the dark about the incident for five weeks. The district has defended its handling of the case, and a spokesman said the aide involved was removed from service when the incident was observed on video.

The Free Press identified a string of incidents on Michigan school buses involving autistic children reported by media outlets over the past five years, several leading to lawsuits against school districts and the third-party companies often tasked with transporting students. Advocates and experts say these incidents, while likely not widespread, are a problem that needs addressing through better training and hiring, particularly when the job of a bus driver or aide can be extraordinarily demanding and involve children who require specialized support.

University of Southern California researchers noted in a 2017 report noted increasing media reports on incidents in which autistic children were lost, injured or even died. The researchers wrote that there is a "critical need" to address shortfalls in transportation that put vulnerable children at risk.

"That transition is from leaving the comforts of their own home and getting on these commercial vehicles that are driving around town and taking them to a place where there's high demand," Mulick said. "There's a lot of people, there's a lot of stimulation, and there's high expectations."

Across metro Detroit, parents of children with autism have raised alarms about bus safety. Among them:

A mother in Dearborn told the district's school board in a May 2022 meeting that her 13-year-old son, who is nonverbal, was choked by his harness on the way to school. "By the time they got to school, his lips were blue, his eyes were red and he had red spots on his face that were a result of lack of oxygen," she said. The mother said two weeks passed and she still hadn't received answers from the district about what happened and that other parents had experienced problems with the third-party company hired by Dearborn. "The district is committed to addressing the safety needs of all current and future students and our HR department launched an investigation the very next morning to gather the facts surrounding this event," David Mustonen, a district spokesman, wrote to the Free Press in May 2022. Last month, Mustonen confirmed the district no longer contracts with the bus company district officials said was involved in the incident.

A Detroit mom settled a lawsuit in Wayne County Circuit Court claiming that her 6-year-old son was restrained by a bus driver in late 2021. A video showed the driver sitting on the child, according to the suit. The driver, with a company contracted by Detroit Public Schools Community District, told the mother that her son was being "aggressive" on the bus, according to the lawsuit. The mother claimed Detroit Public Schools Community District administrators did not immediately share details of the incident with her but did open an investigation into the incident. The mother instead discovered the details after a video from that day was posted on Facebook. ABC Transportation, the bus company, in court filings wrote that it is "not liable for the criminal actions of its employees." Parties reached a settlement in the case for an undisclosed amount in July.

Through his family, a then-13-year-old Walled Lake Consolidated Schools student with autism sued Dean Transportation after he was attacked by another student in September 2017 on the way home from school. The student who attacked him gouged his face and thrashed at his head. A bus aide and driver ignored his screams and didn't contact his parents, even though he walked off the bus with blood running down his face, the lawsuit claimed. A jury found that the transportation company was negligent, awarding $10,000 in the student's favor.

The scary thing is, when an autistic child is killed, it doesn't make headlines as much as it should. I remember I once read about an autistic 13-year-old who was killed by police and, while there was outrage, it was pretty much swept under the rug after a few days. Meanwhile adults are killed by police and there's outrage and protests that go on for months.

Then again, neurotypicals are afraid of breaking the status quo with autism. People aren't afraid to change it when it comes to race, gender, or LGBT issues, but with autistic people the status quo gets preserved. During the George Floyd protests, there was no reckoning for how autistic people and other people with disabilities were treated. In fact, things for disabled people got worse, what with Sia's Music being released and Madison Cawthorn getting elected. People ultimately forgave Sia for Music and she got off easy for it.

Did people forgive her, or did she just fade back into her usual level of obscurity? She was a nobody before Music came out, she's still a nobody after it came out too, only now most autistics hate her.

Sia was rather famous in the mid-2010s due to her songs "Chandelier" and "Titanium" becoming very popular. She kinda fell out of the limelight after that, but Music brought her back into the limelight for a short time. She's actually been active since the late 90s, but until 2013 almost no one had heard of her, and even in her home country (Australia) she wasn't that famous.

So, if I understand correctly she's a two-hit wonder who made an indie film that didn't perform very well?

Would describing her as a D-tier celebrity be fair?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_awards_and_nominations_received_by_Sia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sia_discography

She's actually pretty far from a D-lister. I'm not defending her, I'm just pointing out who she is. I'm guessing you didn't know who she was before Music.

It turns out she she has been recently diagnosed with level 2 autism.