Engraving Neurodiversity Into The Education And Labor System

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I'm thinking of trying to draft a policy paper about how to reform our education and labor system to aid people with learning disorders, mostly because I've gotten frustrated with the shallowness of the current debate over education policy (such as it is). I wanted to run a few broad strokes past people here to see what they think before delving further into it.

1. Abolition of segregated special ed courses throughout the course of the school day (at a bare minimum in primary school).
2. Increased investment in extra tutoring courses with learning specialists for catching up students with learning disabilities up in subjects they have difficulty with. Also, tutoring in social skills and niche building (see the book Neurodiversity) to help students become more readily placed in the workforce.
3. Increased investment in adult work training and job counseling programs to help neurodiverse individuals manage job transition and marketplace shifts.
4. A phasing-in of a tightening of the requirements for Social Security Disability Insurance, sloped so that it would hit those who are most able to pass as neurotypical (such as myself) first, but eventually to be adjusted so that with rare exceptions, neurodiversity is no longer seen as a disability in the eyes of Social Security.
5. All of this is to be phased in on a trial basis and halted or adjusted should expected increase in neurodiverse employment and savings from people going off SSDI not materialize.

So these are the broad tenets of what I'm thinking. What does everyone else think, at least in the broad-brush aspects?

I love all of them, except #1 and #4.
I don't think special ed children benefit from being mainstreamed-
often, the opposite.

I would have loved to have been in a segregated classroom, away from most other kids, throughout school,
if it was the kind of place that took Autism and sensory processing differences into account.

As for removing Autism as a disability covered by Social Security...
have you lost your mind?



That's the only way some of us here can even survive.

It would be phased in gradually, and mostly just hit those who can pass as neurotypical. Extending it further would only occur if job placement improves sufficiently for people who can't pass as easily. The point is to try to make the workforce more accessible to people on the spectrum and other neurodiverse individuals. Unfortunately, there does need to be a pay-for, and there hopefully would be less need anyway once neurodiverse people are more thoroughly integrated into the workforce. Besides, one important step I think in getting people to accept neurodiverse individuals more readily is to remove it ultimately from the so-called disabilities and have people focus instead on the skills that neurodiverse people have and NTs often don't.

Refrain from denying the existence of disability. Nobody believes this phony "neurodiverse" crap. Nobody wants this nonsense that doesn't apply in the real world.

Fair enough. I agree with the concept of neurodiversity and think that it makes a lot of sense, but we'll leave that aside for the time being. My purpose here is figuring out the nuts and bolts and what other people with aspergers think about the practical effect of the proposal, not a philosophical debate.

As a practical matter, it still serves as a helpful pay-for, and given that the entire purpose would be making the workforce more accessible to individuals with learning disorders, it only makes sense to cut back on it. As I said previously, the idea would be to phase it in over time and on a trial basis, so if the extra services didn't improve access to the workforce for people with learning disabilities, there wouldn't be any phasing out at all. Granted, the services, having been shown to be ineffective, would also halt, so as not to spend money worthlessly.

The truth is, autism is in many of our cases a disability. The idea of neurodiversity doesn't mean its not also a disability.

Making people not discriminate against me, more accepting of me, will not make me capable of working there. I will still be disabled. Logistically, it won't work for me.

You might say that I'm one of those few cases, but that's denying autism's disability status.

Autism isn't a disability because of people discriminating against us. Autism is a disability because we have things we cannot do that neurotypical people can do. We have things that substantially limit significant parts of our lives.

Sure, there are some people who are impaired, who have disorders, who are not to the point of disabled. These are few. Disorder is a weaker term than disability. But significant impairment is required to be autistic.

SSI/SSDI isn't something you innately can get because of being autistic anyways. Its something you need to prove you need. It's not a fun process. It's not an easy process. It's often a quite frustrating process. It's something I am in the process of and its not something that is just "I'm autistic, give me money" like some people treat it. And I'm someone who has been declared unemployable by vocational rehab.

#2 and #3 are good, though I'm supportive of all students having tutors. Start with nonstandard learners and otherwise nonstandard students - including gifted students - first though if you have limited resources.

And I didn't think I'd ever be on the same side as dalurker, but the phrase "so-called disabilities" is incredibly offensive.

I am disabled.To deny my disability is innately offensive. I'm someone who believes that my disability does not make me less than those who are abled, but denying disability's existence is in many ways a personal attack on me despite people not wanting it to be.

Understood. My apologies. My phrasing was insensitive.

I have either ADHD or Aspergers as well (I'm in the gray area in between the two, although officially it's ADHD). Yes, there are things that people with autism cannot do. I had to deal with so much frustration from my family and my teachers because of the lack of understanding of that. The reason that I personally dislike the term disability and try to avoid it generally is because I think it harms us collectively from a societal standpoint. I think that it makes society less likely to invest in our human capital to begin with because they perceive us as fundamentally flawed, never mind that there are a lot of skills that people with learning disabilities are particularly good at that NTs often aren't. My goal in trying to draft this proposal is to increase access by encouraging investment in us. I think with proper niche-building, most of us can probably find a place in the workforce where we are able to thrive.

Unfortunately, as I'm too aware, living in Washington, the US has a fiscal problem right now. Wherever the fiscal problem comes from (I do not want to start that debate), one thing most of us can probably agree on is that investment in people with learning disabilities is not the primary concern of the discussion right now. That really bothers me. For that reason, I thought to myself that it will be difficult to propose anything and be able to implement it unless we are willing to put something of our own on the line. My thinking went that most people with Aspergers would rather have more paths into advancement in the workforce than would like to have the benefits without any path back in. Particularly, if more people with Aspergers would be able to go back to the workforce, the SSDI would be at best a redundancy for them. Theoretically, I could always postulate that the savings from people going off SSDI/reduction in people going on it would pay for it. However, I felt that an enforcement of it would be better, sort of like a line of credit - "If you invest in this now, then I can guarantee that you will get money back later, and I'll show you how."

However, as I said earlier, I was glib and insensitive in my phrasing, and I apologize.

You gain that from increasing employability, not by locking people out of the safety nets that are there.

Removing autism from SSI/SSDI will not do a thing to help with that - and will affect people you aren't thinking of - are you thinking about people who are nonverbal in this? They fall into the same category for SSI/SSDI. What about people who if they hear a phone ring meltdown? (Those people actually are sometimes employable, my caseworker for vocational rehab has worked one of those people into employment before, she was the hardest case she's worked to employment)

When it comes to the idea of talking about disability, some of us take the view point of disability exists, it is a part of the human condition, and it is not something to look down on or avoid discussing. It is a neutral thing not a negative thing. It's not a flaw. Callista discusses this in a way I find very informative. It might be worth seeing some of how she discusses the idea of disability. Quite a few of us seem to agree with it, but she seems to be the one who is most articulate about it in a way I personally like.

Pushing for employability of autistic people is a good thing. Supporting this with "if they're employed they won't be on SSDI or SSI and will be paying into systems and will be buying more" and such, is reasonable. You'd also want to look into statistics about what levels of employment for autistic people are vs are with support - they are very drastic changes. However, the changes you propose don't make sense to be pushing for employability.

1. Mainstreaming works well for some people. It doesn't work well for others. Suggesting that everyone should have the same thing done for them is just a bad solution. Don't do it. Do not suggest to force special education classrooms to be removed. If you want to suggest the suggestion of seeing whether individual students do better mainstreamed, even ones that they wouldn't have thought of mainstreaming - citing examples of people who have been mainstreamed, then you can do that, but education is absolutely not one size fits all.

2. Tutors are very positive. Tutors are good. Push for tutors all you can.

3. Job training would likely be a good idea. Interview training that doesn't cost money would be great.

4. No. Just no. This won't do a thing to help, and will hurt.

Other things:
-Transportation to interviews would be great.
-Transportation to volunteer work to help people gain the skills they need for employment would be great. I need to volunteer before I can look at employment for pay, but I cannot drive - my autism means it'd be unsafe for me to drive. The places I can reasonably function at are limited. My methods of transportation are limited. My money is limited. Things to help with this would be great. (I do get reduced fare public transit, but the buses don't go everywhere)
-Massachusetts has looked at tax benefits for hiring autistic workers in order to fight the discrimination against hiring us. There is a tax cut for the company based on the wages of the worker for 3 years, reducing each year. I don't know where it is, whether it passed or not, or if its still in the system, but I know it was at least being looked at.
-Alternate interview methods would be amazing

Yes, I have thought of nonverbal people. That's why I said that it would be phased in with the goal of eventually removing neurodiverse people from that situation. I never said that the goal would be reached in its entirety. If we could, that would be great. However, I'm not that optimistic. I want to see how far we can get in increasing employability (with the SSDI restrictions included more as a guarantee, since the number one response I've gotten [and am entirely sick of] from NTs is "Why put so much money into them if they're just going to wind up on disability anyway?" No matter how much I try to explain to them that the goal is to get people employed so that they aren't on disability, it never seems to sink in. The restrictions are in order to make sure that it gets through to people that this will remove some of the burden from SSDI, and to serve as a safeguard for people who NTs in government think exist who are simply being lazy. I happen to be of the school of thought that if you give someone the option to improve his lot and make it accessible to them, they'll take it up. That said, once again, I deal with Washington. In order to convince government to do anything, you need to speak their language. I just happen to be in the incredibly uncomfortable position of trying to interpret my thoughts to way too divergent audiences). If employment gains aren't seen in a population, such as people who are nonverbal (and are thus going to be some of the hardest to integrate) or are too low, that population will not be removed from SSDI. That's why the fact that this would be phased in on a trial basis with constant examination of results is so important. That's an additional reason why I stressed that the first people to be hit if there are successes are going to be those who more easily pass as NTs (myself included).

I do need to improve my abilities at communicating with both neurodiverse audiences and non. I seem to wind up on the wrong side of both far too often. I'll try examining the way Callista talks. Thanks for the tip.

1. You're right that this aspect probably can't be done in a centralized manner (due to our decentralized school system) and probably shouldn't be. That's a really important consideration to work in. The main reason I worry is because I think it's a lot easier for school districts to shove neurodiverse people into their own room and not pay much attention to them since the districts are always strapped for cash, even the well-to-do ones. The key thing here is to make sure that if they are taught separately, then it helps the students. Vouchers in some form for private school might help out, since private schools often have more resources to spend on teachers who specialize in LD. Just spitballing one thought there, though I'd be interested in others.

2. This one is really important to me. In particular, I want to push for after-school tutoring for people with Aspergers in social skills, since schools just seem to assume that all kids naturally intuit those.

There are some really interesting other ideas you throw in. I didn't even think of transportation as an issue. That is definitely something to see if there's a way to work in. Tax benefits, I personally see as much more tricky in this type of fiscal environment, but I could always work it in as a kind of "in an ideal world" kind of thing. As for alternative interview methods, I think there would be a big backlash against mandating their availability (Then again, anything involving SS is also asking for a big backlash, but I threw that in anyway), but if you mean something like publicizing them so that employers can choose to use them, I think that has some more feasibility to it.

Thank you so much for the thoughtful critique. I really want to make sure that any ideas I propose would actually be helpful to the people I'm trying to help.

Mainstreaming is very hotly debated. I think it depends on the condition. A person who is severely autistic is not going to be successful in a main stream classroom, in fact he/she will probably bring the rest of the class down.

Now some people who are very high functioning might benefit from main streaming.

I think it's a noble idea to consider tightening SSDI against abuse and to encourage employment, but who makes the decision?

The devil's in the details here. I'll admit that I haven't entirely figured that out yet. By default, the role would probably fall to Congress, but I'll be darned if I trust them with making that call. I was thinking the Social Security Administration might be able to handle it as an administrative matter, but I need to check and see if that falls under their authority. If it absolutely must go to Congress, perhaps the SSA or the Department of Labor could issue an opinion on the matter, at least so that if Congress tries to do something dense (god knows what), they can be reminded of the opinion and knocked around in ads if necessary.

As for jobs, they left. Education is producing more unemployed, and that seems the future.

Better we need a model of a Post Employment World. 99 weeks unemployment was 5% of a 40 year working life.

Our recent educational system was modeled on the factory, and producing workers. Times change, systems don't. Long before, education was not about employment, it's intent was to produce a well rounded person that enjoyed their life.

Robot factories are coming, endless goods with little employment, so we need a new model of how we will live.

From 150 years ago going way back 99% were involved in food production, packaging, transport. Now that is 5%. The surplus became factory hands, and as that automated, office workers, and computers have taken their toll.

I can see putting more into education, but not for jobs that no longer exist. Teaching is a very valuable skill, there is always something else to learn.

Language, America is a Mono-language people in a global world.

Math and Music are good predictors of intellectual potential.

Unemployment is running out, we are at record food stamps, we need broad support with no disability needed.

The business model, running them into debt to get an education, for a job that pays the least, barely works if there are jobs. Student Loans are uncollectable, unless we give them food stamps, some living money, and reduce their debt for teaching someone something.

It could be language, math, art, gardening, but it is useful to the culture, the teacher, and the students.

Just the unemployed does not show all. We have the young and retired, and both would like tutors. We have those who would like to be employed who would improve their skills, if they could, and skilled people unemployed.

Never tell Washington it will be cheaper, they will cut the program to keep the office staff. Tell them it will cost more and enlarge government, and it will pay off to have millions of people developing skills.

Consider having a million people who can speak, read, write Chinese, French, German, and discuss Art and Music. Now that they may be retired, disabled, or children. They have computers, and are a resource that can further cultural contacts, and perhaps trade.

Our world standing in Math, something useful, is low, because we lack Math Literate people to teach the basics. Our Universities bring in Asians and Arabs, but in New Orleans Public Schools, not enough teachers could be found for Eighth Grade. We have a critical shortage of Middle and High School Math Teachers.

A Private School that did nothing but teach math, perhaps after school, could also work as child care until the parents get off work.

Math is a very measurable skill, working in small groups, for two or three hours after school, can produce a world class knowlede of math. Once one generation is trained, the culture becomes math literate, so parents can help with homework, and good teachers can be found.

Math is a critical skill, Scientists, Engineers, do not happen without a strong base in Math.

As a National Goal, involving everyone in reaching one measurable worthwhile goal, producing a Math Literate Generation, solves the problem for the future. Writing off a lot of uncollectable student loans, getting the unemployed up, dressed, and doing something is good, and can extend unemployment. The retired and disabled could get some bonus from helping, so now we get autistic math majors teaching autistic children.

It is an Educational CCC Program, with long term employment for millions who would not be employed otherwise. It will take twenty years to turn out the next generation of math teachers.

Twenty years is enough time to deal with our short term problems, changing patterns of employment, enough time to write off uncollectable student loan debts, enough time for most of the War Babies to die off leaving less population and more space.

The 2030's could be looking good with the first wave of Math Masters getting degrees in Science, Math, Engineering, Computers. A lot of it will converge in Biology. These are great times, but we need the trained minds to develop it.

We are not going to relaunch American Manufacturing with our current crew. For the next twenty years we will be living light and paying down debt. We can turn out an educated debt free generation that can support us in our old age.

We can also design and build their world, cars are not going to last. We need walking towns, public transport, very local food production, and hiking, jogging and bike trails. We can build them as war baby retirement, and ready to convert to the needs of the next generation.

Government is going to have to play a larger role in lifetime support. We may never see full employment again, but we can have a high quality of life.

The past never was. It was a collection of mismatched and somewhat overlapping memories and misconceptions. No two people saw the same past.

The future can be a common vision, we can all know it before we get there. Towns can have names, but all of the street layout and names can be the same in many towns. The future can be mapped.

The end goal is it will cost less and produce more, not in the short term, but a lot over time. It will put what we do have to work with in the best possible shape.