Anyone here ever attend special education?

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I've attended meetings with kids with Down's syndrome during middle school (there weren't other kids with autism).
Also, I've been on the sport program with those kids during my second year of middle school, but all the other classes I've attended were normal ones.
I got along pretty well with those kids, I didn't like the sport program though.
Ahw well. It changed nothing for me in the end.

I briefly attended back in the early 80s in Round Rock, Texas. My mother claims to know nothing about it. I remember clearly wondering why I was there. The boy next to me at lunch used to spit into his hand, the other boy did not talk and rocked all through lunch...I had no clue why I was there. It is like a fog. I was later moved to advanced classes for some and regular for others. It FOREVER broke my soul. From that day forward I thought there was something wrong with me, that I was stupid, etc...it stuck with me for many yeas. That was in 4th grade. No matter what grades I received in high school or college, I always felt like it wasn't enough because I really was stupid. I quit college because I didn't think I was smart enough to be there. I went to work for an airline in reservations and it saved my life. The older workers constantly praised my work. They pushed and pushed me to move up...I never felt I was that good, but they pushed and pushed regardless...to the point of getting me a job at HDQ that I didn't even apply for. I agreed only because I did not want to let them down, not because I thought I could do it or deserve it. I ended up doing very well at the new tech company for about 15 years...I owe my new found self-esteem to the older workers at that airline. To the school? I owe them the heartache I had for years.


PS- I now HOMESCHOOL my child...I'd rather him hate me for not putting him in school than for those idiots to mess up his self-esteem for life

When I was in the 2nd grade, I had been segregated from the rest of the class. According to my records my problems were evident day one of kindergarten, but things finally came to a head in 2nd grade. I was then transferred to a special classroom with about a dozen other kids who had behavior problems and learning difficulties i.e. aspies. And I functioned much better and was a lot happier. For whatever reason, they tried to mainstream me the first semester of the 5th grade. That didn't work out at all, so by the second semester of the 5th grade I was back in special education.

I ended up having to get a GED. Scored a 3.2 GPA. But I only studied enough to pass.

I attended it until I finished high school. In kindergarten and first grade, it was just repetitive schoolwork and they never taught me anything new so I missed out on what normal kids were learning and I was never taught history or money or about science. We also went on lot of field trips and did story time and play time and I thought that was what school was like for everyone and to me work they would do in regular ed was strange. I didn't even know I was in special ed. Then I mainstreamed it after that and I was doing catch up in my education with math and reading because I was so far behind. Then I was finally all caught up and didn't do special ed when I was 11 but then I was in it again in 6th grade to get help with math or to be in there during recess. Then I was in there when I wasn't in school for a while and it was just to do my school work for an hour there. Then in 7th grade and up, I was in there and it was getting help with my normal school work and lot of normal kids went in there and did math or English or other work. We lived in a small town so there weren't very many kids who looked different and disabled. We would have at least one or two in our school who looked special needs. I think I was the only aspie in my school.

I attended a special school when I was 3-5 years of age and I didn't even know it was a special school until I was way older. It was just a normal school to me where we read, did play time, did recess, went on field trips, sang, got read stories to, did PE and Library, had snack time, did arts and crafts, watched movies or videos, did show and tell, and we were taught manners and emotions. I was in a class with high functioning kids who were more normal or seemed normal and only few of us looked different or acted different and I was one of them. Next door was a class for kids who had more severe disabilities or more severe cognitive disorders so they all appeared different and acted different.

But I liked attending all my special ed classes until I was ten and hated it and in 6th grade too because I wanted to be normal. Then I didn't hate it anymore when I was 13 because lot of normal kids went there and they called it the resource room. Special ed had a negative meaning so they didn't use the word. Lot of people think stupid or ret*d when they hear the word so they didn't use it. I realize it was just PC crap. I was told they were two different things but they were both basically the same based on my experience. It wasn't any different than at my elementary school. They just used special ed is all while the schools in my new area used resource room. Different school district, different word they used. I didn't even know it was special ed until I was in high school. I was just fooled by the word so I call it special ed now. But I must admit it did make a difference because it got me to accept help and not mind being in there while I did mind at my old school all because of the words special ed.

I must have been lucky to have a good experience with it despite that it held me back when I was six and seven because it was the wrong environment for me and it was one of those special rooms for special needs students and they all stayed in there all day long mainstreaming mainstream classes for certain classes like PE or Library or music. That is what they did with kids with disabilities then, threw them all in one class and they didn't have inclusion then. I think it was all or nothing. If you didn't want your kid in there, they didn't get help at all. If you wanted them to get help, they had to be in there full time. Then the law finally came out so my parents were able to get me out of there and I was still able to go to school and get the help I needed. But my husband had a bad experience with special ed.

My high school also had programs for kids in the resource room and one of them was vocational rehab. I was in it. It was just to provide jobs for kids with it, paid and unpaid jobs. I did recycling in my school and took them to the folk shop that did recycling there. I also worked in the high school library and got paid for that but not for the recycling part. but the program was never good because they would plan it and make a list of jobs you can do that meet your skill level but never follow through due to lack of money. Small town, small area, not enough funds. I gave up with them after high school and started looking for work like normal people do and it was tough getting a job until someone decided to try me so she hired me.

i see your in nyc look for specialized private school and try to make the city pay for it. nyc board of education schools (do they still call it that?)are horrible overcrowding = sensory overload servivor of nyc board of ed (though i didnt get much special ed services through them besides extended time on tests in elementary school when looking back its obvouse i could have used resourse room to help with organizatinal skills etc. in jr high they declassified me after not even bothering to finish the evaluation because of incompetent testers who never heard of scatterted strenths and saw i did so good in some areas that didnt even bother to finish the evaluation. so they put me on the 504 plan which just continued health accomadations of extended time and counseling withouth bothering to tell us that it wouldnt automatically transfer with me into highschool you have redo it each year. in high school struggled greatly but when my parents tryed to get me reevaluated for special ed they told us at least you are passing . i had to weight a year or to for the head of the SpED department to retire so i could try again.

of course it doesnt help i went to one of the less affluent school districts but still

i repeat look into private schools

Yes, I was. All through grade school. That is, if they had special educational classes.
It took a few years for them to get me to talk clearly. But that meant I was late learning to read. And by then I was in schools that did not offer special educational classes.
I was and am slow to learn language.

Kind of. I attended most of the standard classes but I had a CYW. I was also exempt from a couple of classes. I participated in the regular classes for every subject except French and cursive writing. During those classes I went to a separate special education room and I learned to type. I also had time to do homework that I had from other courses.

I guess you could say I was in special education part time.

Preschool and kindergarten were the only times I was not in Special Ed. If I ever have a kid that has autism he of she will not been in special Ed unless they really have to be. I hate it! I am horrble at match because they didn't try teaching me any other then adding. Oh and what real lying pisses me off is the lies they told my family like, autism kids can't learn phonics. Really what a bunch of bs! My grandma taught me phonics because they were stupid like that. They also tried saying that autistic kids can't learn curve so I never learned how to write it curve because of it. And it is a bunch of bs saying autistic kids can't learn curve be used my dad who has the same autism that I have learned how to write curve when he was a kid. The classes were super boring and I didn't learn anything. I wanted to be in the normal classes were I would of learned something. Special Ed made it so I can't go to collage because I am not smart enough that's to them. -__- My last year of high school I asked to be put in a history class and instead they put me in special Ed social study's class where they were talking abut law which has northing to do with history. I dropped out of the class and took a reading class that I had already taken the year before.

Over a year before I attained my Asperger's syndrome diagnosis, I attended a council-funded special needs school at around 3-5 years of age, and I have a collection of eidetic reminiscences of the many incidents I witnessed there, which is clearly an attribution to my exceptional memory. The special educational needs pupils (3-19 yrs) generally consisted of people with autistic spectrum disorders, emotional and behavioral disorders, developmental disabilities (moderate to profound multiple and intellectual disabilities), and sensory and physical impairments. Many of these pupils had complex medical needs, whereas others had severe behavioral problems. It was one of the most dehumanizing experiences ever, as-well as the partial justification being that my AS was undiagnosed and was therefore misconstrued by the special education assistants as recalcitrant, undisciplined, and irreverent towards social authority. One day after being too inquisitive by observing an emotionally disturbed pupil being castigated by one of the assistants, I caught one of my thumbs on a door hinge and the assistant unrealisingly shut it, and since that I'm hypersensitive to aversive stimuli I was in excruciating pain. My thumb was deeply wounded with oozing blood that I needed it attached to a plaster for about two weeks. My early childhood was a forgotten childcare nightmare anyway.

It wasn't until I obtained my AS diagnosis at the age of 5 from a clinical psychologist that my eccentricities were acknowledged, and I was able to assimilate in mainstream classes at primary and secondary school in order to enhance my perception, and apprehensiveness of the world, as long as I was accompanied by a special educational needs assistant (SEN) (first to fifth grade and seventh to eleventh grade). Despite the teacher's consensus that I was "bright but troubled," I was too socially naive, egocentric, and uncoordinated to function "normally," although I never participated in special education services beyond preschool (kindergarten) ever again. As of today I'm studying psychology at college with a current intellectual comprehension at approximately two years at undergraduate level (4-5 years beyond my assigned grade), according to my loyal, and neurodiversity tolerant SEN who is highly experienced with autistic people and has worked for the National Autistic Society (NAS). It's pretty conclusive as of today that I have "Wrong planet syndrome."
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Diagnosed with "Classical" Asperger's syndrome in 1998 (Clinical psychologist).
Alexithymia Questionnaire Score: 158/185
Ritvo Autism Asperger Diagnostic Scale-Revised (RAADS-R): 231/240
Aspie score: 186 out of 200
Neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 12 out of 200
AQ: 48/50 EQ: 9/80

Kindergarten through third grade I was in a "resource room" at least part of the day. It was mainly because I didn't "socialize enough" but also for occasional violent meltdowns and problems with certain academic activities. I had the experience that a lot of the special ed stuff with the other kids in the room was inappropriate or too easy for me, yet I still struggled with some stuff in the "normal" classroom.

I hated special edumacation *shudder*, they don't treat you seriously and talk to you like a deaf animal.

I always had some lady to make sure that I don't stim or have a meltdown (kind of counterintuitive right?). Every time I would raise my hands or even try to flap them, she would poke my shoulder and say, "Stop stimming." I would always refuse and flap my hands more furiously because she might try to stop me.

Reading was the worst. No matter how clearly I read, they always made my score on a written test bad, just so they could keep me stuck with them.

Don't think I miss my childhood.

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exams.

Only 1 1/2 more weeks of school and procrastination.

I guess I got lucky in that my parents paid for me to be in one of the smallest and best schools in my town. It was a public school but my graduating class had less than 70 students in it.

Anyway I was in special ed classes up until 5th grade. Most of them were one on one with the exception of the speech class which didn't help out to much since my issue is that I don't like the feel and sound of certain letters and words so I either try to avoid saying them at all or mispronounce the word to make it feel better to me. The reading and math classes helped though. They were both in storage closet sized rooms and they were quiet. That helped me out so much to be able to concentrate on my work rather instead of being distracted by the other students. After I graduated from them I knew what to do and what worked for me so I was able to begin teaching myself how best to do it if I didn't understand the teacher. So yeah I was basically self taught through school. Though I never got the hang of grammar or spelling though. To many seemingly random exceptions to the rules that never made sense to me. I do wish that someone would have paid a bit more attention to me outside of my grades though. I got so much help in that but no one noticed that the reason I never spoke and would rather watch the rest of the class play on the playground rather than join in was because I didn't know what to do and every time I tried to I would get laughed at or told to leave. After a while I just sort of gave up on socializing I guess.

Was in it for "depression" and I think maybe "passive defiant" behavior. In middle school, it was OK, as the small classes were actually small (like 2-3 people, sometimes me alone.) And the teacher actually cared and was an OK dude. I had problems with truancy, as I hated school, and someone started a rumor about me which pretty much ruined me socially (I was actually doing decently in 7th grade when I first got to the school, then the rumor happened...) Had no idea about NVLD/ASD until after high school.

Anyway, high school was sheer hell. It sucked and I just became a complete nihilist and after being threatened with going to a "program" (jail) for 18 months if I didn't go to school, I just gave up on any ideas of getting an education at school at all and didn't care about anything. I'd show up to school at like 10AM, miss like 3 periods, not care, not do any homework, etc. All the kids in my class did drugs. Mostly it was just a place to put problem behavior people, not people with "different" learning styles. Class was unruly as hell. Kids would walk out, slam the door, desks were even pushed/thrown a few times. One time like 3 black kids opened the door during class, disrupted class, wanted to fight some other kid in my class over some "beef." It'd take like exponentially longer than it should have to get through any chapter of reading because all the kids were so disruptive and didn't care about being there. I guess I made a few friends, who I still have today some of, but still, overall a terrible negative experience.

In high school I begged and begged to be let back in mainstream classes again. Besides how terrible SPED classes were, you were "different" in SPED classes. It was a clear separation between you and your peers, and made you feel even more outcasted than you already felt. You'd still have to do things like eat lunch, go to gym class, home room, study hall, etc, with the other non-SPED kids, so everyone knew you were in SPED as you were never in anyone else's classes. Mainstream would have been harder in some ways, but SPED you still had to deal with bullying and other things like that, but with zero educational or social positives of being in high school.

Anyway, personally, if your kids can do it, just have them get their GEDs and be done with it if they don't want a traditional mainstream high school experience. I remember during my court battles in 8th grade for truancy, I told them if given a few months to study, I could pass the GED right now. I was right. When I took my GED after being out of school, I found out it was roughly as hard as a middle school standardized test. The hardest algebra was at most prealgebra, hardest geometry Pythagorean theorem, rest was basic math, story problems, etc, formulas for everything were in the test. Social studies was easy, as it required very little background knowledge, just good reading comprehension. English was reasonably easy, no like diagramming sentences or anything, an essay, though. Pretty much the same as a standardized test. They can take the GED and just be done with school and do whatever or even go to a gifted program in a community college. If you want proof I'm right about the GED, get a GED test prep book from the library or store, and the actual test will likely be easier than the book.