Do you go to an autistic-friendly school?

Post Reply New Topic

im hoping to make schools more autism-friendly by studying nerual pathways associated/responsible for learning deficiencies (relative to mainstream learning style ) ... someday, i hope to implant programs into elementaries where grad students get their teaching stipend (you generally get paid to teach in grad school) by teaching science in elementaries... these grad students will be trained in alternative teaching styles best catered to a-neurotypical learning styles and will thus educate the teachers currently in the system to do so...

i had the pleasure of working in such a program (well, not geared for atypical learning styles) for my first teaching stipend and learned a lot about what is needed to get such programs off the ground. we just need one with an autism angle

that'll make schools more friendly

The special schools I been to weren't autistic friendly nor as the mainstream schools but I was gaslighted into believing something that wasn't true for 36 years.

No to the origional question. But there again. I don't know if I am on the spectrum, and besides, I am now nearly a grown up.

I don't know what an "autisic-friendly" school would be. I don't like group settings, too much light, etc. I do best with private, one-on-one or self-guided learning.

Is there a universal environment and/or style of learning that would suit everyone? What is "friendly" to me may be just as "hostile" to someone else (and vice-versa)

My school is mostly very autism friendly. I have awesome teachers who are very helpful and understanding of my needs. The only issue is substitute teachers sometimes. I don't do well in mainstream classes though because of learning and processing difficulties but that's not the teachers fault. I learn better in special education classrooms. I also have communication challenges which makes regular classes really difficult. I was in one this semester and it didn't work well. I like my teachers that I have because they understand that I have sensory and communication issues and that I learn differently. I sometimes need things to be repeated a lot. I sometimes also need more encouragement to do my work because I have issues with not being motivated at all. I also have behaviour challenges that involve refusing to do my work or finding distractions on purpose. I do much better in a more controlled environment that is also more open for me to be myself. I don't have to be scared of stimming. I also have more freedom over what I want to do while getting more support

Well, I've been out of Uni for over 25 years, and I didn't know I was autistic until last year. I had no accommodations of any form in school, except for Speech Therapy when I was seven and ten years old. I don't recall there being special education programs of any type when I went to school.

The closest I went to an autistic-friendly skewl was a skewl for dyslexia. I did aLOT better there than I had in my previous elementary skewls. Unfortunately the highest level they went to was 8th grade so I went to a private Catholic skewl for my 4 high-skewl years & I had resource & other accommodations cuz of my dyslexia. They didn't have any program for autism & I didn't have an official autism diagnoses anyways thou the psych who recertified me for dyslexia mentioned on his official report for my parent & the skewl that he suspected I also had Aspergers but he wasn't qualified to test & diagnose it. There was no such thing as an autistic skewl or autistic-friendly skewl anywhere around. The closest thing that existed was a boarding skewl for people with down syndrome. There really isn't any autism awareness where I'm from & even the so-called experts think of autism as something like a less sever form of mental retardation or someone like RainMan. I do not have an official autism diagnoses cuz the expert who tested me said I communicated too well verbally & seemed too intelligent to have anything on the autism spectrum. The parents of autistic kids had to just send their kid to regular skewl if they were high functioning enough, hire a tutor for their child with their own money, send their child away to a boarding skewl, or just let their kid stay home all day & accept that the family would have to take care of their child for the rest of their lives or their child could be sent to a mental facility when & if they could no longer take care of their child. That changed now thou. Years ago(sometime after I graduated high-skewl) the local college started a program where they provide skewling for people with disabilities in general weather mental or physical. Dyslexia is one of the many various disabilities they'll accept so the dyslexia skewl I went to shut down. I'm sure that program also covers autism. Everyone sorta just gets grouped together based on their grade level & the classes they take but the classes are smaller so the instruction should be a tad more individualized.

The special needs school I went to primarily had autistic students. Not all of them were friendly.

I went to a tiny high school (about 60 total students across all four grades) that wasn't explicitly for autistic students but had a good amount of them, as the small class sizes and 1-on-1 attention we could get from our teachers when struggling was beneficial for students with different needs. A lot of the students were non-autistic neurodiverse as well. We also referred to all teachers and admins by their first name.

My current sixth form seems to be very good to people who need support in general and so far I have received really good treatment with people being understanding and informed about ASD. It actually shocked me because I'm used to having to explain myself whereas now if I mention a vertain difficulty, I get referred for help and a very nice teacher saying they understand and giving suggestions. I thought my secondary school was quiet good when it came to this stuff but this place is a lot better.


Note: This is a sixth form which is really competitive and it's hard to get accepted there, so it could be the case that there are already a lot of people with difficulties there because smarter people have more problems a lot of the time. This would explain why the teachers in general know so much about this stuff and one year has hundreds of pupils as well.

It emerged some time after I left high school that my headteacher had suspected Asperger's Syndrome. Generally, however, teachers seemed to hold the view that I lived in my own 'fantasy world' and needed to be forced out of it. Fellow pupils were, for the most part, indifferent towards me and in some cases mildly terrified; I was both tall and heavily overweight, so I was distinctive in appearance but not in personality.

Throughout most of high school I was placed into regular 'side classes' with people who also struggled to communicate or had learning difficulties of some kind, but Asperger's Syndrome wasn't diagnosed until after I left.

I think some of my elementary teachers thought I was ret*d or at least thought I was mentally slow. I think my elementary teachers quickly realized that they couldn't force me out of my fantasy world. They were mostly considered about me being a so-called "problem" for the class. Bullies would gang together & lie on me to get me in trouble & my teachers would almost always believe them over me. It never made sense to me why a skinny & physically weak kid who wore thick coke-bottle glasses & yet still couldn't see distances would intentionally start a fight with a group of other kids who could all kick his a$$ one on one. I was deemed a problem thou & those kids had numbers on their side so they were believed over me. My teachers were also concerned about some of my autism symptoms being distracting for the class like stimming & repeating certain noises & sounds. I was in trouble for those things a lot at times thou. Those things are worse under stress for me & constantly being in trouble made my stress levels a lot worse so punishing me for it actually contributed to the opposite of their desired effect.
When I was in elementary till I went to the skewl for dyslexia I mentioned in my other post in this thread, I was just thrown in the regular classes & had some accommodations for dyslexia & ADHD. Noone knew about any alternatives at the time. The dyslexic skewl was a ways away & considered a private skewl that parents had to pay tuition for.

I had a similar issue in primary school where the teachers seemed to think I was bringing the bullying on myself. They would repeat that I was very tall and so probably intimidating but if that was the case then why would they bully me every day, gang up on me in corners and sometimes chase me as nearly a whole class around the pitch, yelling things at me. Yes I would get angry in response and yes, I was way taller than all of them but if I was really such a threat they wouldn't treat me like that for about 4 years. When I reported one particular incident I was punished for it because there must be a reason it is always me and was given detention with my bullies for ages every lunch and then had to hang out with them in established groups. To make things worse, the kids who tried to help me were punished a well. Well done teachers, I am left now having years of therapy and an extremely altered view of the world because of what those kids did to me when you said nothing! Unlike what you, my bullying was all psychological and once I was forced to give money via blackmail.

I was home-schooled since the 5th grade. So basically yes.

Nope. I wish I was homeschooled or put in a private normal school. Here special schools are very limited and don’t provide much, they put all kids with special needs in one class no matter the condition or intellectual level and it’s a chaos.

How many schools out there are Autism friendly?

Also: no. In my school to be accepted, you basically had to not be a complete freak. I failed at this count.