Did you have to attend regular school?

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Completely mainstreamed. The special classes were for kids who couldn't handle basic arithmetic.

Yes and all it did was add to the mental problems I have....I'd probably be functioning a bit better and feel better had I not been subject to that for 12 years of my life.

My son started at a mainstream school in January. In the Australian state school system, it's all or nothing - a diagnosis of autism is not enough to get special education or funding, it needs to go hand in hand with low IQ or extremely behavioral issues.

We looked in to a private special needs school for my son but quite frankly, he is too high functioning and we couldn't see how spoon feeding him and pairing him children who were also social unaware were going to help him in the long run. Also, financially, it would have been a burden. So, we opted for a small catholic school - he qualifies a tiny bit of funding through the catholic system and so gets an aide for about an hour a day to assist him mainly with socialising and to help with concentration and executive functioning which are all his biggest obstacles.

He's not a big fan - he complains that he has to do things that he doesn't enjoy but aren't most kids like that? I take an active role in the school and assist in the classroom as literacy helper or during sports as often as I can.

Yes, and I fully believe it was a good thing. Because my academic skills were pretty much everything that I could contribute with and excel at, I needed to push myself academically, and mainstream had allowed me to do so. Had I fallen back and taken anything less advanced, I would have regressed academically and not have made it this far, guaranteed. Now, I am getting straight As in university and am going to apply to the most prestigious, competitive stream possible in higher education. The only thing that matters with mainstreaming is to have supportive, accepting teachers, a good social support network outside of class, and appropriate accommodations. I barely had any friends in high school and it didn't bother me, especially later on, because I have acquired external support networks. However, if academics isn't your strength, then you have to choose an alternate pathway that will play on your strengths.

Same here. I've also attended a gifted class once. I do remember suffering in elementary and middle school. However high school gets better as I finally got a group of close friends and not clinging onto one person. I still get easily upset by bad grades, though.