Were you placed with severely disabled children as a child?

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Sorry I came off as arrogant...the kids I was placed with were mild-to moderately ret*d, and these programs were tailored towards ret*d children.

No, I always did well in school, but it frustrates me that because I got good grades no one noticed or thought it was important that I had poor social skills, which are the skills one actually needs to get by or succeed in life.

I was placed in special education classes from age 5 up to age 16. The whole entire time I was in special education I was treated like a pariah by the NT students. I spent the whole time begging to be removed from the classes until they removed me from them in my junior year of high school. When I was evaluated on August 6th 2010 by a neuropsychologist he said he found no evidence of learning disabilities (I was diagnosed with ADHD by a school psychologist) He thinks they mistook my social anxiety, poor social skills, memory problems, and my clumsiness as evidence of a learning disability. Because I was put into special ED. I never studied or even thought of going to college so I never really tried at anything but still graduated with 4 quarter grade of 83-85%. I figured if expertsa at the school thought I could not do normal high school work how could they expect me to handle college level work. My psychologist believes I would have done well in normal science and math cources not to mentioned excelled in a college environment. I feel I was cheated out of a proper education by being forced to stay in those special education courses.

No, I was in normal classes, though in early elementary I was in an advanced group of sorts.

I wasn't. I was hyperlexic and unsociable. I was classified as ADHD, not ret*d. I hadn't any therapy.

I was in special ed classes up until the day i dropped out, Lol.

Nope. I did really fine in primary school, and only recently my mother told me that I was the only one of my class for whom the teacher had suggested to attend a special class in secondary school - a class that does everything that the other classes do, only a year faster. Which means that I finished school in 12 and not the then usual 13 years.

I never regretted it

I've never been placed with severely disabled kids although I seemed to be around them out of not having anyone else. I don't mean to say that nobody wants to be around those with physical or other disabilities... but okay, it is mostly true. They didn't seem to have any friends either as kids.

I don't think people really knew what to do with me either. I was off and on put in advanced classes to the slower classes. I remember it confusing me very much because one year I'd be with the advanced classes and the next not... I didn't really fit in anywhere. One year I thought I was different because I must be good and smart and the next wondering what was wrong with me because I didn't seem all that stupid to me.

In HS I was put with kids that mostly had learning disabilities and I didn't fit in there either. It wasn't for people with social/emotional problems, so I was again left out because they socialized fine, just needed help with schoolwork. The only other inclusion place they had was for those with severe disabilities.

My daughter is currently "unlabeled" directly because of this.

I've been fortunate to find a few of the best doctors I've ever imagined in the world to work with my daughter partly because she was born with a heart defect that our local hospital could not handle. She is intentionally unlabeled by them so that she remains mainstreamed in school. She's currently getting a whole lot of special assistance, but we have been cautioned that as soon as the word autism is mentioned that she could be placed in with the severely handicapped children, and that right now that may do a lot more harm than good. The doctors have spoken to us extensively and if things deteriorate and we do need more assistance that they will diagnose her. So for now she simply is diagnosed with a "micro-deletion of chromosome XXPXX.X" which means absolutely nothing to anyone other than a geneticist because it is a rare defect that has not been studied or labeled. (X's to hide the numbers otherwise a teacher googling it could find this)

When I was in 6th grade, my school wanted to place me in another school that had a classroom for kids with behavior disorders because I kept getting into fights with my bullies. But my parents put a stop to it. They knew I would start acting like those kids if I were around them because it be school behavior. Mom said it would have just made me worse.

I mainstreamed special ed up till the day I graduated from HS. But in 5th grade, I didn't go to the special ed room nor at the end of 6th grade or when school started.

Yes. I hated it. It just made the other 'normal' kids look at me as being even more different. I hated it with a burning passion. I went home crying every day.

I got the best of both worlds: I was regularly placed with mildly ret*d children or in low level classes, but I was in a mainstream school so I got bullied into insanity.