Parents of Autistic Children Start School

Jan. 17 -- The long journey began with 2-year-old Paul Kotler's devastating diagnosis — autism — a little-understood disorder whose victims live in a world of isolation, unable to communicate or control their body movements.

Before long, Paul's parents realized that they didn't have a way to help him within their community, or even in their state.

"We wanted a full-time speech and language program, but none existed in Pennsylvania," his mother, Melinda Kotler said.

Later, they had a stroke of luck. In the fall of 2001, Kotler met Michael Dinda at a meeting for parents of children with autism, and they had a conversation that would change their lives. Together, they founded the nonprofit TALK Inc.(Teaching Autistic, Apraxic and Severely Language Disordered Children), and then opened the Magnolia Speech School Demonstration Program in Berwyn, Pa., four months ago.

The school's philosophy is that the only truly appropriate program for severely language-disordered children is one that immerses them in language, full-time. The founders say that the communication helps them break through the children's isolation and catch sight of the spark that is inside of them.

The Part That Breaks Your Heart

Before she met Dinda, Melinda Kotler and her husband worked hard on a specialized program in their home, but slowly realized that while Paul was learning, he was not learning to speak. When he turned 6, his parents resolved to find a school that could teach him, and the location didn't matter.

"I went out and did the one-week trial placement, and he was accepted, and that was wonderful," Melinda Kotler said. "But it was very scary to think that we were going to split up the family."

Melinda and Paul Kotler moved across the country to San Francisco. At about the same time, the Dinda family learned that their son, John, had autism.

"To this day I can remember like the out-of-my-body, walking, watching me, John in his little toddler shoes and his blue and white jumpsuit, hand in hand between his mother and father walking down the hall," Michael Dinda said. "And, you know, at that moment that your life is irrevocably changed. The part that breaks your heart is you know that your son's going to have to work harder than anybody else."

First, the Dindas tried intensive home-schooling, and later they made a disastrous attempt at regular first grade. Finally Michael Dinda, a senior vice president at Fleet Bank, took a pay cut so he could focus on his son. If he couldn't find a solution out there, he would create one himself.

"John was coming home frustrated, he was regressing," Dinda recalled. "And I said, 'This is nobody's fault, Maude, but we're going to have to build a school.'"Meanwhile, the Kotlers were also at a crossroads.

"At the end of that fifth year, we decided we just could not live apart as a family anymore," Melinda Kotler said. "And I knew that Paul was far enough along in the program that if I brought him back to Pennsylvania with the idea of starting a school that I could maintain his skills at home while we were starting the school."