What fraction of "normal-IQ" ASD folks needed spec

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Frieslander
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26 Apr 2012, 12:23 pm

I was wondering what fraction of non-retarded people with ASDs needed or need special education? Are there figures out there? What about the people here with ASDs? I was told by a judge that in his experience, people with ASDs need special education, so he said he doubted my ASD diagnosis.

I admit junior high and high school were social nightmares, but I made it through pretty well.



lostgirl1986
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26 Apr 2012, 1:21 pm

I needed special ed to work in a quiet environment with no distractions. I also needed special ed for math.



Rascal77s
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26 Apr 2012, 1:47 pm

Frieslander wrote:
I was wondering what fraction of non-retarded people with ASDs needed or need special education? Are there figures out there? What about the people here with ASDs? I was told by a judge that in his experience, people with ASDs need special education, so he said he doubted my ASD diagnosis.

I admit junior high and high school were social nightmares, but I made it through pretty well.


The problem is you're thinking of special education in terms of a bunch of 15 year olds sitting around a classroom finger painting. Special education can mean anything outside of the normal curriculum. So for a child with AS special education can mean classes to help with daily life skills or classes on socializing.



lostgirl1986
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26 Apr 2012, 1:51 pm

Rascal77s wrote:
Frieslander wrote:
I was wondering what fraction of non-retarded people with ASDs needed or need special education? Are there figures out there? What about the people here with ASDs? I was told by a judge that in his experience, people with ASDs need special education, so he said he doubted my ASD diagnosis.

I admit junior high and high school were social nightmares, but I made it through pretty well.


The problem is you're thinking of special education in terms of a bunch of 15 year olds sitting around a classroom finger painting. Special education can mean anything outside of the normal curriculum. So for a child with AS special education can mean classes to help with daily life skills or classes on socializing.


Also, in elementary school my brother had testing done and they found out that he was gifted. He was put into special ed where they'd give him more challenging work. He eventually transferred to a school that offered a gifted program.



Callista
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26 Apr 2012, 2:09 pm

I was home-schooled to keep me out of special ed (Mom didn't want them to "label" me); and now, in college, I get their equivalent of special ed--i.e., help from disability services.

So, yeah, if I'd been in school, I would've been in special ed.

I do pretty well on IQ tests, but my weaknesses aren't really things that are tested in those sorts of tests. When it comes to some other sorts of tests, I do worse than most people with Down syndrome and similar mild-moderate intellectual disabilities.

The frustrating part of it is that many people don't seem to understand that a person can be simultaneously gifted and delayed; they see your giftedness and they go, "oh, you're smart," and then assume you can't have any of the same problems as your ID friend--when in reality you could have some of the exact same issues.

It's also a little sad that we don't get together with the self-advocates who have intellectual disabilities. We do have a good amount of things in common--even the social distance we have from NTs, for them because they're different and often think more slowly; for us because we don't learn socializing very well. So if an autistic person has to think harder to socialize, and so does an intellectually disabled person, I think we would have a lot in common even in that respect. We all have problems with schools, and with getting work, and with getting people to take us seriously as competent people and not little kids. And then there are the many, many people who have both.

I know there are a few people with ID/learning disability/etc. around here. I hope they stick around and I hope we can get more. One of the worst things we could do would be to try to define autism as a smart person's syndrome. Yeah, of course autistic people can be smart--and it's important that the schools know that so that gifted autistic students can get the challenges they want--but if we try to say "Autistic people aren't like those other people over there because we're smart", then we've lost track of what it means to really advocate for ourselves, and pushed back into the "who's better than who" argument--something that is totally counterproductive if you're working for equality.


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XFilesGeek
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26 Apr 2012, 2:34 pm

Special education was only for "ret*d kids" where I come from.

I wasn't "ret*d" and I wasn't "gifted."

I was just an "arrogant snot" as per my elementary school teachers.


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CockneyRebel
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26 Apr 2012, 2:47 pm

Rascal77s wrote:
Frieslander wrote:
I was wondering what fraction of non-retarded people with ASDs needed or need special education? Are there figures out there? What about the people here with ASDs? I was told by a judge that in his experience, people with ASDs need special education, so he said he doubted my ASD diagnosis.

I admit junior high and high school were social nightmares, but I made it through pretty well.


The problem is you're thinking of special education in terms of a bunch of 15 year olds sitting around a classroom finger painting. Special education can mean anything outside of the normal curriculum. So for a child with AS special education can mean classes to help with daily life skills or classes on socializing.


I was just going to say something along those lines. I was in Special Ed for Math and Social Studies and in the regular curriculum for everything else. I'm also average or above in intelligence. I would also like to say that ret*d isn't the worse thing in the world to be.


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26 Apr 2012, 8:18 pm

The judge is WRONG to say everyone with ASD needs special education, or some kind of special accommodations in school to do well. I did well in school, and didn't have any kind of special education or accommodations.



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26 Apr 2012, 8:33 pm

This would be different to work out accurately since so many aspies only get dXed later or misdiagnosed. I think it would throw the figures a bit. Maybe they will end up having something like this in time in Britain seeing as they seem to be better at routine screening for autism and meeting kids educational requirements than most other places.


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27 Apr 2012, 8:48 pm

I grew up in a tiny town, and my school didn't have any special ed classes, but they had a resource room for kids who needed extra help. I got sent to the resource room because I tested as gifted and they wanted to give me more challenging work.


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27 Apr 2012, 11:23 pm

I've never been officially diagnosed with ASD, but I was recognized as having some difficulties when I was a child, and I had an IEP (Individualized Education Plan) in elementary school. I was in General Education classes, but I received resource room.
Incidentally, I currently work with preschoolers who are classified as Special Education students. The vast majority of them have speech/ language delays and/ or language processing issues. Many of them also have fine and/or gross motor delays, and some have sensory issues as well. A number of them have issues with behavior and self-regulation. Off the top of my head, I can think of one student who's pretty much definitely HFA, and I'm not the only adult working with him who sees it. Suffice it to say, some of these kids are *very* smart. It's a common misconception that *all* Special Education students are MR. Where I'm from, there are thirteen disability categories for Special Education. MR is *one* of those categories. It always bothers me when people assume all Special Education students are the same, that all of them are "slow," the "dumb kids." That's just wrong. Special Education students are a diverse group, and one would find a *huge* amount of variation among them in terms of skills and abilities, strengths and needs. Also, not all Special Education students are in self contained classes, kept segregated from the general population. Some Special Education students may be in CTT (collaborative team teaching classes) with both a General Education teacher and a Special Education teacher working together, with a specific number of spots reserved for both General Education and Special Education students. Other Special Education Students may be in General Education classes with some supports/ related services in place. Special Education is a far broader category than most people realize.
My opinion is that there shouldn't be such a stigma attached to Special Education, and having a "label," especially since Special Education can change lives for the better when done right. I've seen children blossom dramatically while attending a Special Education program with related services (Speech, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy) I'm not sure how to go about changing people's minds, though. So many people are put off by any kind of difference from the typical.
Sorry to ramble on so long. That's kind of a special interest of mine. :wink: Returning to the original point of the post, it seems perfectly plausible that some individuals on the spectrum could make it through without Special Education. I made it through junior high, high school, college and graduate school without any formal supports or accomodations in place. I struggled immensely, and was spectacularly unsuccessful socially, but I did manage to complete all those levels of education.


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