FOX News segment on mainstreaming ASDs NOW...

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Actually Loner, you are wrong to say that most aspies do not want to have friends and be in social situations. The problem is that most aspies cannot figure out the rules for friendship and social interaction on their own and must be taught. Once the lessons are taught, the best place for the aspie to practice the skills is in the mainstream classroom where the skills are needed.

I think mainstreaming can be a good and bad idea in some senses, depending on what type of AS person you are. I think there has to be good AS related schools, where kids are taught proper social etiquette, knowing ways to relate to others, knowing how to think before they say things, learning how to understand how the real world functions and so on, this can help people with ASD disorders to live happy, fullfilling lives. I wish I had lots of services where I was taught proper social skills when I was younger, because in high school (which was just only a few years ago for me) was like death. I was scared to go to class, I would used to fake being sick frequently, I wanted to communicate with others so bad, but didn't know how to (I would just try to talk, but I ended up being a target of bullies). When I was target badly by bullies, I literally slipped into the worst form of depression, I fought with teachers, parents and even classmates and so on. Other issues I struggled with was is almost getting arrested twice, contemplating commiting suicide at times, and even dropping out of high school.

Right now, I am attending community college, got a few As, Bs and Cs, and I can actually get along with my peers pretty well on the other hand. I am also hoping I can get a 3.7+ transferrable GPA, the lowest I am planning to get is a 3.5 transfferable GPA. There is hope, don't worry, it is not the end of the world.

Obviously, which choice you pick depends on what other choices there are. If the choice is between a classroom where they'll be completely mainstreamed and a class where they'll learn to glue macaroni to construction paper (at an age where the mainstream classes have quit that a long time ago), then you should obviously mainstream.

If the choice is between mainstreaming and a specialized program designed to accommodate their needs and teach them the most challenging things they can handle without going overboard on difficulty, then you should obviously not mainstream.

There's no overall answer. "Mainstreaming" means different things in different places. And the choices aren't between regular unmodified public school (which is not a monolith anyway) and spending the whole day in a sped class.

There are just plain a lot of choices:

I went to a small (I could count my classmates on my fingers, and the principal knew every student by name, although I've never known that many people by name in my life) Christian private school that had enough good points for me to say it's worth considering, but which ultimately did not work out for me.

I also went to an even smaller private school which specialized in NLD/AS, and knew someone who went there later, and knew yet a third person who went to a similar place. For me and the latter, it was an unmitigated disaster. For the other one, it seemed to be at least so-so. I would never recommend such a place, but they were definitely teaching a normal curriculum.

I've never been in one, but there are always institutions. Wouldn't recommend them. And even they differ-- the JRC sucks, other institutions suck, but they definitely suck in superficially different ways.

There's homeschool. (The parents can teach, or hire a private tutor. Or you can join a group of homeschoolers. And you can choose from a huge number of teaching methods and philosophies, and teach various electives.) I can't say anything about it as a whole, because it's the furthest from a monolith of any of these. I've had worse educational experiences than my experience with homeschooling, which basically amounted to having my education sometimes talked about and mostly ignored. I taught myself fish breeding and writing and a little art and a lot of Japanese.

Currently, I'm in a "school" that basically does one-on-one tutoring on a flexible schedule. This is definitely working out for me, but it has the potential to suck, just like the others.

...And there are probably other options I haven't thought of. Charter schools and boarding schools, neither of which I know anything about.

And even if you do attend public school, you can go to a different public school. You can be partly mainstreamed. (At one point, I had a decent experience at a public school with the only accommodation being that instead of math class, I got to use a computer game that taught math.) You can be mainstreamed full-time, but with an aide. (I cannot in good conscience recommend this. I guess it could work, but it drove me crazy.) You could do a half-day at school and come home. You can spend time in Resource. You can have an accommodation like finger fidgets, a permanent hall pass or a good seat. Etc.

I don't like this debate. There's not a "mainstream or not" dichotomy at all. Discussing what will actually work in each individual case would be so much more productive.

It seems to me that for kids with ASDs it's unfortunatly a choice between one extreme or another. Even if the student did have a helper while learning in the mainstream environment it's questionable whether that helper is even equipped to meet the student's needs. And then there's the teachers who dont even care or dont want to do any bending even for the students with disabilities. And the other kids in the classrooms who are just heartless and cruel toward anyone who is different.

And then there are the ASD kids who are just screwed over all together and are thrown into the mainstream classes without any assistance whatsoever.

I'm not against or for it. It's true that the special education classes really do not do anything for those with ASDs. There's really no alternative that will allow you to thrive without suffering.