Autism and Schooling in the Late 90's/Early 2000's

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Hi all. I'm 21 years old (going to be 22 in May), and I'd like to share something from my childhood that I just remembered. When I was young (very young, perhaps shortly after I received my PDD-NOS diagnosis), I remember having to read a book in front of one of my teachers (unfortunately I don't remember what grade I was in, nor what school I was at). It was one of those "repetitive text" books that you would see a lot in the late 90's and early 2000's.

Anyways, the repeated phrase in this book was "Guess who?", except I kept pronouncing it "guss who?" Now, this is what upsets me as I reflect on it - it was pretty much just a test to see how well I could read at that age (probably 6 or 7 years old), so I had no feedback from my teacher while reading; I was on my own. And, to top that off, I was never taught how to pronounce the word "guess" properly prior to that. So, having read all of that pronouncing the word "guess" as "guss", my teachers probably thought I was intellectually impaired in some way (this was before I was placed in special ed-like classes, I think), and coupled with my autism diagnosis, that was pretty much the nail in the coffin they needed to seal my fate. Ever since then, it feels like I've been held back from my full potential, and now I'm stuck in college with graduation STILL a number of semesters ahead of me.

So, basically, my question to you folks is this: do you guys think that education for autistic children in the late 90's/early 2000's was adequate or inadequate in the US (or any country for that matter)? How could it have been different? Do you think things will get better from here on out, or will they get worse for autistic children? I'm seriously at a loss here to remember just how things were back then (because I was so little) . Any comments on this are welcome.

I think now that there is, for better or worse, a larger and greater awareness of Autism that it will get better as time goes on. While it may take time for every school to realize that a "one size fits all" school system is inadequate and obsolete in this day and age, slowly but steadily students with Autism will find their place in the school system with what they need to strive and succeed in school like their NT counterparts.