Single Gender Schools
AnonymousAnonymous
Veteran
Joined: 23 Nov 2006
Age: 35
Gender: Male
Posts: 74,022
Location: Portland, Oregon
I don't think it'd matter either way.
Aspies would face physical, emotional, and psychological problems,
not to mention problems socializing in either environment.
My sister and I went to the same schools for our primary
and secondary school years. From grades K-8, we were
usually the loners & outcasts just because we didn't
dress the same, play sports, talk the same, and the like.
I was a "goody-two-shoes" until about grade 7,
when I landed often in lunch-time detention mainly
for not paying attention. The teacher who oversaw
detention was the same all the time. That's when
I met a good friend who was in "Special ED" with me.
I was banned from seeing him about the same time
I graduated from HS.
Now on to HS...
The high school my sister & I went to was awesome!
No one bothered us, although my sister did have friends
who had the same interests as her. The student population
was about 400-450 with somewhat small classes.
After she graduated, I joined a school-based political group.
That's when I really tried to make friends. Many people
weren't from my area, from the areas of Portland where
"richer people" live. I avoided these types of people.
The psychiatrist I saw helped me in learning how to
socialize with people.
Whenever I become a parent, I'll make sure my
{hypothetical, future} children go to the same K-5
school I went to, but skipping the 6-8 school which is the school
following the K-5 school.
I'll make sure they go to a different school for three years,
then will make sure they go to the same HS that I attended classes at.
_________________
Silly NTs, I have Aspergers, and having Aspergers is gr-r-reat!
Sweetleaf
Veteran

Joined: 6 Jan 2011
Age: 35
Gender: Female
Posts: 35,155
Location: Somewhere in Colorado
I prefer co-ed schools to single-sex schools. I once chatted with some girls who attend a single-sex school. They said that the obsession with popularity in their school is more severe as compared to co-ed school. If you are in a clique, you have many "sisters" watching over you, but if you are not in any clique, all the cliques will conspire together to make your life miserable. I sometimes overhear conversations while on the bus. Girls, whether they attend single-sex schools or co-ed schools, are equally bitchy when they gossip about their classmates. Nevertheless, I'm still glad that I have never attended any single-sex school before. I think that girls are at their bitchiest in their early teens, then most of them will eventually tone down.
Maybe for some individual spectrumites, single-gendered schools would be better, but I don't think it can be generalized to say all people with an ASD would perform better in such a setting. When I was in elementary the majority of my closer friends were male (and one female when I was really young who was a SUPER-tomboy). When ALL of the sixth-grade girls decided they hated me--ALL OF THEM--the only people who would associate with me were a few boys. Had I been in a single-gendered school, perhaps I would have been even more miserable than I am today because maybe I would have been 100% completely alone.
_________________
Diagnosed with classic Autism
AQ score= 48
PDD assessment score= 170 (severe PDD)
EQ=8 SQ=93 (Extreme Systemizer)
Alexithymia Quiz=164/185 (high)
Twilightflame
Raven

Joined: 18 Aug 2011
Age: 35
Gender: Male
Posts: 103
Location: Hell... I mean Singapore.
I've been in both types of schools.
I have like, twice to three times as many female friends as male ones.
I dunno how to put this in a politically correct manner, so I'll be direct. In my experience, males tend to have a greater potential to be asses than females. The most I ever get from females is the cold-shoulder-you-don't-exist-go-and-die treatment, the worst I got from guys was having the whole class gang up to beat me up.
So honestly, I'd rather co-ed. Having girls around tends to make the alpha males a lot less violent 'cause they're too occupied chasing skirts to chase after me with a club. Both the wooden type, and the followers type. And the followers carrying wooden sticks type.
Getting hit by hornets in the eyeball is not fun.
Fighting back isn't an option because that invites the wrath of the administrators, and guess who gets sent to the administrators when the whole class says I'm at fault and I'm the only one who thinks otherwise?
Not to say that I can fight off 23 guys. 1, 2, perhaps. I'm not strong, but I'm more suicidal in fighting than most people are. However, not 23.
I'll go out on a limb here and speculate that it may be better for aspie girls to be in a single sex school, but it is better for aspie guys to be in a coed school. At least in my country.
_________________
"Mind what people do, not only what they say, for deeds will betray a lie."
- Terry Goodkind's "Wizard's Fifth Rule"
I went public co-ed, though I had friends from single-sex schools. Had I gone to the one that my friends went to (all boys catholic school full of rugby geeks), my butt would've been kicked badly. Luckily the bullying that I received during high school was just emotional and psychological.
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