Special Ed 101 is founded by Henry Schroppe whose older brother, was diagnosed with congenital hypotonia and Autism Spectrum Disorder when he was five. A lot of times special needs students are not developed in a balanced way like their neuortypical peers. My brother could never respond when people talked to him, maintaining eye contact, or obey class rules. He would have frequent melt downs due to fear and anxiety that he wouldn’t be able to complete his work. On the other hand, he was way ahead of his peers in math and anything number related, with a photographic memory of anything he saw. By 3rd grade he was a consecutive spelling bee champion regularly besting 8th graders. He grew to have a passion for the NFL and became a walking encyclopedia knowing every player and team’s stats by memory. Watching a game with him was like having a professional ESPN commentator right next to you, now that he’s in college watching a game without him isn’t nearly as enjoyable. My brother chose the Denver Broncos to be his team simply because our Chinese last name 马 (mǎ) means horse. Under his influence, my entire family became die-hard Broncos fans. 

My parents insisted and fought for my brother’s right to remain in general education classroom despite challenges such as erratic behaviors by an autistic child. By demanding 1 on 1 class aide in classroom, My brother was able to gradually adapt to classroom rules and grew both cognitively and socially. He received advanced induvial math instructions allowing his intellectual curiosity to be satisfied while at the same time he would learn to be able to have short conversations with his peers and learn the need to follow rules. Such growth would be impossible had my brother be withdrawn from general education classroom. In high school my brother became the school’s speech captain which is an incredible achievement for an autistic child. Now he is a confident young man who is comfortable with his disability and will be graduating from Emory University. I feel strongly that my family’s experience with special education can be helpful to many other families thus I founded Special Ed 101 to inform and support other families that have special needs children.                 – Henry Schroppe