Parents of autistic children will tell you that they communicate in various ways, especially the kids who are non-verbal, like Pablo. And they don't always perceive danger in the same way non-autistic children do. Plus, they need dedicated care and a lot of patience. That's the experience of one mother, Kezia Young, whose autistic daughter is now 12 years old. Jenica used to be a student at Stella Maris, so Young has been at the school plenty of times. She explained how heartbreaking it was to hear of Pablo's death, and that society as a whole has failed him.
Kezia Young, Mother of Autistic Child
"People are taking it as, oh well, blame the teachers, blame the school, blame the school warden. If anybody goes to Stella Maris, if you know how Stella Maris is set up, you will know as far as far as I know and I've been to the school, I've performed at the school, I've spent time with the kids. You know, they're very sweet loving children, the teachers, they're always two teachers at a time, most of the time in a classroom. So to say that there's no type of supervision, I'm not going to say the school isn't flawed, I mean which school is not flawed, which school does not have their flaws, but to say that absolutely nobody was taking care of the child, I honestly believe that is a false statement."
"What I can't say is as much as I go to the school, when my daughter was attending the school, she has always, the warden is always there. I'm not saying the school shouldn't be held accountable, I believe the school should be held accountable, the police station should be held accountable and everybody out there who watch the child run past them should be held accountable, that's why I said society on a whole."
"You know as a parent you could turn your back for two seconds and your child is getting into something, doing something, they're not supposed to. That's children on a whole whether or not they're differently able, I don't like to say disabled, differently able or well able, you turn your back and in two seconds a child is doing something or up to something, so to say to put full blame on the school, I don't want it to seem like oh I'm just covering for the school or I'm just being biased because my child went there, I've experienced the school."
"Autistic children often run away, often climb, often jump, they try to be as adventurous as any other kid, they don't grasp the concept that oh I could get hurt or oh I can't do this like everybody else, like like Jenica, Jenica has issues so she can't play like other kids so when you when you see her running and jumping she believes that she's doing it just like anybody else so maybe he thought I'm just going for a little run, I'm just going for a little walk you know they completely think differently from us on one of my posts I even said if they make up their mind that I'm going to do something best believe they will do it they don't care how do you get it done they will do it and I've seen it many a times and most of the time when you have an autistic child, autism is accompanied by ADD or ADHD and that is an attention deficit like they can't keep still, they won't keep still and they won't pay attention to anything. So in their mind if he wanted to go take a walk, he would have taken that walk and It is up to the adults,
"It is up to us to make sure that they're not doing something that is harmful to them and something that is not dangerous, but that is hard to do when you have 15 other students in a class that is differently able from, again, autism is a spectrum. You have different levels of autism."
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