"Sentimentality," "Rhetoric," But Little Else for McCain-Palin on Special Needs

From Newsweek: "Spotlight on Autism: The mother of an autistic son reacts to John McCain's recent pledge to help families like hers. Was it just rhetoric?" This is an interview with Kristina Chew,
an assistant professor of classics at Saint Peter's College in Jersey City, N.J., and the editor of the blog AutismVox. Commenting on McCain's remarks in the last debate, Chew says, "He's sentimentalizing the children, but not looking at how we can help them, how we can teach them, how we can make things better."

As the mother of an 11-year-old with autism, Chew worries about the impact of McCain's proposed spending freeze. "Every family with special-needs children feels like they need more support and services. They need another aide in their child's classroom, they need more therapy for early intervention, they need sick care, after-school care. I know my own son costs our school district a great deal more than a typical child. Any kind of spending freeze is either going to cancel out the creation of new services or make it harder for a school district to keep on providing the things it has been providing."