We are excited to share our first post of the year, by one of our favorite parent advocates on Twitter, Seattle-based mama Arianne McDonald. Arianne first caught our attention last January (2022), when she spoke out about her personal frustration with her son’s masked speech therapy. Since then, she has not stopped advocating for a full resumption of normalcy for kids, pointing out the hypocrisy she has encountered, and sharing sweet anecdotes about her two boys, that illustrate the magic and finite moments of childhood. We are so lucky to have Arianne’s compassionate voice advocating for children.
Here is her first (of hopefully many) pieces for us!
In September 2021, I was told that when speech therapy resumed in person in my six-year-old’s elementary school, both therapist and child would have masks covering their faces.
It was hard to believe.
My son had been in speech therapy from the age of three, both privately and through the school district. During that time, I observed him being prompted to watch the therapist’s mouth for words and sounds. I learned there are mechanics of speech that the therapist modeled. How could that possibly happen if her mouth was hidden? How could his therapist observe what my child was doing with his mouth and provide correction?
In complete frustration and not knowing what else to do, I poured my heart out on Twitter. I asked people to share our story about the masked speech therapy requirement at my son’s school.
That tweet from last January is still being liked and shared now. In thousands of comments, people speak about how absurd it is and share their own experiences with the same policies for their children. I thought if I could create enough attention and outrage, it might make a difference. But, even after appealing to the head of special services of the school district, I could not get this changed. She stated that masking was “the law.”
“What law?” I asked.
She then corrected herself. Turned out it was not a law, but “a mandate.” She would not budge.
The Post Millennial published an article about my son, and I contributed to another article in the Atlantic.
I went on KGNW radio with Tim Gaydos and KVI Radio with Ari Hoffman in Seattle.
As my situation generated negative attention for our school district and state, the State’s head of conflict resolution for special education contacted me.
Still, they would not change the rule. My 6-year-old with a speech delay and sensory integration disorder would continue to be required to wear a mask.
I took to Twitter, again. While my son only attended four hours of in-person school per week, he was forced to mask while in school. (The rest of the instruction happened at home with curriculum supplied by the school district. I chose this approach because it would be four hours of masking rather than over 30 in regular school.)
Finally, after multiple IEP meetings, I was told that a note from his occupational therapist would enable my son to finally go mask-free! However, the day before the waiver was to go into effect, the school district’s head of special services called me. She asked for more time to work with the teachers’ union. I waited a week and contacted her again. Then she broke the news: the union had blocked it.
The special services director, together with our school superintendent, proposed a solution: my son would be required to continue to mask, but now be allowed to unhook the ear loops of his mask. He would need to press the mask firmly against his face and slide it up and down to speak.
I felt this was unreasonable to demand of a child.
In March 2022, the mandate finally ended. I had pulled my child out of -what I felt was worthless - speech therapy. When I agreed to go back, our SLP wore a mask with a window that fogged up. Eventually she took that off, and finally, after two years, therapy at school has returned to normal.
What I did not anticipate is that the healthcare mask mandate would remain in children’s therapy settings (it fell under blanket mandates for healthcare facilities). It felt like the battle raged on. I contacted every politician I could think of, asking them to advocate for children deprived of useful speech therapy for years with no visible endpoint.
The sole response came in the form of a voicemail from Rep. Suzan DelBene’s staff saying that other parents had reached out with similar concerns and they would keep them in mind. It did not feel there was much hope for action. When I tried to return the call, it turned out to be a non-working number.
To this day, the healthcare mask mandate remains in effect even though Washington’s Governor Inslee finally gave up emergency powers at the end of October 2022. Shortly thereafter, journalist Ari Hoffman wrote a follow up article about the mandate.
I am not sure how much longer children will be denied useful mask-free therapies. For me, personally, the advocacy has been emotionally stressful, and I have had to step away at times to stay healthy.
The wins are few and it often feels as though I am running into a brick wall.
I find myself truly angry at the CDC, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Washington State Department of Health for promoting child masking. The American Academy of Pediatrics even tweeted support for masking children with special needs.
They set up an incredibly frustrating fight for parents of children with special needs to receive reasonable accommodations. We saw politics, union concerns, and the promotion of vaccines come before the needs of children. Parents of children who have special needs have stood alone in advocating for them.
Where were the advocates for people with disabilities? The silence was deafening. In the name of “safety” it seems that rights enshrined under the ADA and IDEA vanished and we were on our own fighting to get them back. How was this allowed to happen? I have been struggling to make sense of it all for a year now. I thought the individual needs of a child would come first, but they didn’t.
It was heartbreaking to learn that the needs of children came last.
Arianne McDonald holds degrees in neuroscience and psychology from Washington State University. She worked in the medical field until opting to be a SAHM (Stay-At-Home-Mom), then was launched into the advocacy world when her child’s special education services were shut down during the pandemic.
Speech therapy in a mask is beyond oxymoronic. Good for her!
As an SLP, I was so frustrated with the mandates placed on me working in the schools and spoke out about the harms. I wrote many letters to politicians and those in ASHA (the American Speech and Hearing Association), shared the Urgency of Normal Toolkit and was beyond frustrate with the responses or lack there of. I was told that there was no data to show that it impacted language learning or communication and I argued that's because we would never do a study based on something that we know would cause harm, such as masking children! Children need to see faces while learning to communicate, especially those in therapy. Sadly, we will be feeling the impact of all the unscientific mandates for years to come...