Autistics only: How do you feel about mainstreaming / inclus

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There is a debate about whether mainstreaming / inclusion works for autistic kids. How do autistic people feel about mainstreaming / inclusion?

This question is for autistics / aspies only, not for parents or teachers of autistics / aspie, unless they themselves are autistic or aspie.

I went to mainstream daycares and schools, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I could have needed more help in math, but that doesn't mean I belong in spec ed any more than those with dyslexia do. IMO aspies do not belong in spec ed. Other than maths I could follow the curriculum just fine, and in fact was top of the class in several subjects. Not bragging, just pointing out why I should not have been put in spec ed.

The spectrum is too broad to make a meaningful statement about this.

When I was a kid, people were ignorant about autism and special ed was for people with low IQs and severe behavioral problems. High IQ kids who couldn't get along with others were just considered weird.

A similar sort of division exists now. Some autistic kids can function well in inclusion classes. Some can't. If you can do it, it's almost certainly better: the more you can learn to be independent and deal with the world of normal people on your own, the better off you will be as an adult.

But if you can't, it doesn't make sense to push you through something that is just not going to work for you.

It seems like if you are ASD level 1 you are likely to benefit from a mainstream/inclusion class. If you are level 2 you might do well in inclusion, but you might need a more tailored program. If you are level 3 you likely need more support than can be given in an inclusion class.

I think there are pros and cons to inclusion.

The pros:

The kid can learn better social skills that way and learn how to act
They can get a normal education


The cons:

The bullying and the teasing
Lack of understanding from the teacher
Kids not following the rules and not always acting appropriate and that can be confusing for a child on the spectrum
The chaos and the noise in the room and the teacher not keeping it under control


But being in a self contained room didn't work for me because I was copying other kids in there thinking it was normal behavior and school behavior and that is how you act there. Plus I wasn't learning anything and it was holding me back. I was treated like I was slow.

I tried mainstreaming in the 8th grade last year from always having been in private special needs school. It didn't work out though and I had to be placed back in private school. But I'm glad that I at least gave it a try. It was not a terrible experience or anything like that. I did not really get bullied. But I had a kid assigned to me to help me from class to class and so he was also basically like a body guard. My biggest difficulty was not being able to adapt to the curriculum and standard method of teaching. I kept falling further and further behind.

In my case, it was difficult. I was in some sort of self-contained classroom or special school the vast majority of the time from Kindergarten all the way to the 1st couple months (?) of 10th grade. Looking back, I could not fit in with either the special ed kids or the regular ed kids, but I have difficulty seeing how I could have avoided being placed in special ed considering how dysfunctional I was.

I am enthusiastically opposed to any kind of school where this is even a relevant question.

But it would depend on the kid.

I'm self-diagnosed with fairly mild autism (like Asperger's), so I was in the mainstream classes. I "did well" in school, meaning I got good grades, didn't cause authority figures any trouble, got excellent standardized test scores, graduated without having an education, and hated almost the entire experience. That seems to be about as well as anyone else does in school, except some people get an education (from their parents or some other mentor--not actually from the school), and they might even like school if it's supportive of their hobbies.

I did not have a diagnoses and was mainstreamed thus, and I do not feel I really benefited from the experience. Though I could not say for certain being in a special education program would have been any benefited me more per say. I mean I did pretty well academically except for math...but I had a lot of trouble with the interaction bit.

I am all for mainstreaming.

However, I think the traditional education system is broken and in need of major, major repair.

The school my children attend is a private school with a completely different method of teacher. All children are treated as individuals and move at their own pace through hands-on curriculum (no IEPs needed).

When I was a child, I was in a regular public school, but completely isolated from my peers because of my sensory issues. I did not get to be with my peers hardly at all until 5th grade. Honestly, I don't know what a better solution would have been for me. I do know I didn't like being forgotten and misunderstood as much as I was. The isolation might not have been able to have been worked around because I was extremely sensitive.

It depends on the kid and what the alternative is

My mainstream public school experience was worthless but they didn't have anything else to offer either so I was screwed either way. By 9th grade I was pretty much ready to drop out and that is essentially what I did until halfway thru my sophomore year, I had maintained a perfect 0.00 GPA during this time. It was during this time I got diagnosed and my therapist at the time wanted me to go to some private school gear to not necessarily specifically the spectrum but that and other issues, it was a private school that cost quite a bit of money tho and the public school systems a lot of the time would pay the tuition of the kids they sent there but mine however refused. It's something that still bothers me quite a bit, I was under the impression that they would and I was already at that point where I felt victimized and hated the entire school system so I wasn't in any mood to play nice. In retrospect I know that's cutting my nose off to spite my face but at the time I didn't care or really saw an alternative given my situation. Eventually they set it up so a teacher would come and visit me privately twice a week under the guise of some Home/Hospital program. That's how I graduated and finished high school unfortunately, it didn't prepare me for anything and I didn't really learn anything and I missed out socially as well. I just angers me thinking about it, I didn't really have a chance.