bbc news item autistic schooling

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looks like people are finally realising (hopefully) that the school system does not adequately support ASD children (suprise,suprise!) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/5350506.stm

Only my most basic educational needs, math and literacy.

everything else by trial and error?

With literacy one can self-educate.

Schools are also charged with teaching people to think. I was a big rule follower just trying to stay out of trouble. Some individuals taught me that we don't always follow the rules. A couple of examples:

I lived on the "Space Coast" of Florida. My father was in the industry. Schools got federal money to offset the impact of so many aerospace workers' families moving to the area. To get the money, a form had to be filled out and signed by the parents, an "impact form." My senior year in high school, I was an emacipated teenager. My parents had moved to Kentucky. Incidently, they did this over the next several years, leaving a child behind in each state. We didn't move out, our parents did. Anyway, I filled out the form, left the parent's signature blank and turned it in. There was a quick deadline on these things. The next day I'm called into the vice-principal's office. He gives me the form and says to me, "I'm gonna turn around here and look at this wall, and when I turn back, I wanna see your parent's signiture on that form."

Close to the end of the season, the best swimmers on the team tried to get as much extra practice in as possible. The week before the last meet the coach comes to the #1 and #2 (me) swimmer on the team and gives us a key to the pool and says, with a wink and a nod, "I want you to 'break in' to the pool this weekend and get some extra practice in."

These people were teaching me that there is a difference between the way we do things and the way we say we do things. It was an important and valuable thing for me to know.

It was a Catholic school so I hated the overkill with religion, and it also imposed on me a few useless subjects like French and Latin. Language was such a weak point for me; I had enough to contend with learning English, so I could not see the point of cluttering up my brain with more languages I will never use. IMO Latin was of no more use to me than learning Icelandic. But on the literacy and numeracy level it did meet my needs.

Bullying was also a huge issue with me that was never addessed properly. I was kind of like Anarchy in the school grounds and I was pretty fair game for it.

Paul

The schools (plural) I went to didn't even teach me math and literacy... I learned those on my own. And home-schooling just kept me within the reach of my bullying stepfathers.

I hated all of my schools

Bullied for 13 years.

I will say, from 1-8 grades, school instilled the love of reading and social studies in me. Beyond that, elementary school was a failure. I was mediocre in math, PE was horrible and they bullying completely condoned. This was a country school (public school in rural setting) in Northern CA. Religious teachings were tolerated because it was a Protestant community. So, they didn't observe the separation of church and state.
Freshman year was more of the same, where stagnant teachers were allowed to teach us obsolete lessons and no choice to take other classes.
Sophomore year I went to "city" school and it was loads better. No peer pressure, choice in classes, better teachers. So, 10-12 grades were awesome.

since leaving school has anyone had the urge to 'catch up'? i didn't like school at all and learnt pretty much nothing, since leaving and (cough-getting older!) i quite enjoyed it. suppose i was doing it at my own choice and time. sounds like as=easy target for bullies...common theme

Seems like the Topic of "mainstreaming" is hotly debated....to bad no one bothered to ask the students most effected,what they wanted.....I spent several years feeling out of place but I know my parents would have felt to much "stigma" if I had gone to a "special" school,even if they had been aware of AS.I dont know how I would have felt if I had been in a school with severely autistic or "behavior" issue kids....seems like these schools dont really put people together because they "fit" together but because they dont "fit" with "normal" kids.Since no one was aware of AS in 1980....I dont know if there is anything that they could have done for me.I did have a few teachers who encouraged my interest in literature and "thinking vs memorising" but they were the exception the rule.

My son's school itself is quite good and he has a wonderful L.S.A.
The only real problem is lack of appropriate speech therapy.
He has a S.E.N. which explicitly states that he needs speech therapy, but there are insufficient resources, so he's not getting any.
In the past, when he has had speech therapy it's either been insufficient (or inappropriate) and hasn't helped.