easier for middle schoolers now than 15 years ago

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im just curious if ppl on this site agree with something i heard recently. It's easier now for middle schoolers who are diagnosed because being "weird" is more accepted now than it was 15 years ago when aspergers was hardly heard of. What do you guys think?

I was in middle school in the early-mid 70s and I don't recall being weird being a real problem even then.

The problems were being forced into social interaction that I was ill-equipped to cope with and attention-focus issues. In that respect kids now who are DX'd early on have a real advantage. Once diagnosed, at least you know why you have such intense reactions to certain types of situations, so parents & teachers have an explanation they can work with. All I could say was "I can't" - and nobody was ever willing to accept that as an excuse for anything.

I generally found my strangeness caused those with whom I had nothing in common to shun or ignore me, but I was embraced by those who themselves were a little different, or smarter than the herd. I was perfectly okay with that. Nerds of a feather...

Bullies were a(n) animal(s) all unto themselves...

I'm not sure. I went to middle school in the 90s and I definitely had a hard time.

I was 8 15 years ago, but middle school (high school for me) was very very tough. Kids made fun of me, I had poor grades and was in a remedial class which taught me f**k all. Teacher thought I was lazy or disrupting class on purpose. PE teacher had it in for me. And I dated a guy because I wanted more friends.
Homelife was no better. Siblings bossed me around and my mum forced me to be more social.

I was in 8th/9th grade (end of middle school/start of high school) fifteen years ago, and yeah, it sucked. I was a special ed student (labeled "behavior disordered"), but I fell through the cracks big time, I think because no one knew what to do with me.

I was in a mix of mainstream and special ed classes. In the special ed classes, I obviously fell behind where I should have been because they gave me the same remedial crap they give LD students. In the mainstream classes, I dealt with a degree of bullying that I now recognize as abuse in many situations, and had a hard time keeping on task and completing homework on top of that. The only classes I really passed outside of the BD classrooms were classes that either I had a strong interest in, or where I had a compassionate, caring teacher.

To make things even worse, in middle school, I was bussed out to a school outside my neighborhood, so I rode the "short bus".

I could go on and on and on... :\

Middle school was horrible. I wanted to die. I have no idea if it's any better now.. I certainly wouldn't want to find out!
There's a Facebook group about how awful my middle school was. It sucked.

Actually during middle school I was part of a small contingent of French Immersion students, about 30 of us who attended grades 6 to 8 in separate classes located at an elementary school. We were all kind of special in a way, and the limited options friendwise ensured that everyone was in the loop (more or less). And we were all linguistically challenged trying to learn french as a second language. Somewhat of a level playing field, this was 'lucking out' for an undiagnosed AS in the early 80s.