Autistic learners achieve best ever GCSE results

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http://www.midsussextimes.co.uk/news/local/autistic-learners-achieve-best-ever-gcse-results-1-6917914

I did pretty well after my year of English Higher Year GCSE, completing all of my units and exam.

I got no support at school, so having done it later off my own back, and in my late twenties, I'm quite pleased.
I don't think fairness is matched on an equal one to one basis because people are ignorant and tend to treat you like your stupid,(if you have some kind of disability), underlining any potential risk to be employed later on. Also, being prone to insult, abuse, manipulation of a mental and emotional kind. They know they are doing it, because some members in my class, were prone to offset teacher abuse, because of dyslexic disabilities, that couldn't be covered up. My country stinks in this area in a non specialist school. Mainstream adult centres and schools are ill adept.
That's why I'm pleased I could do my own soul work in my own home mainly, and become adept at my craft. My writing and spelling are above average but there were also others who were just using the course as the next stepping stone into Uni.
Unless you're deaf and dumb and don't answer back, you won't get judged. I'm silently dreading my maths retake now. So we'll see how I do, and if I need help, I intend on sourcing myself.

I got the best O level results in my year much to the amazement of my teachers. They thought I wasn't paying any attention as I stared out the window or read a book under my desk when I turned up at all. I was a chronic truant and loser of homework. But I read the textbooks at home and learned by myself.

I wonder how good I would have done had I been from the UK.

Probably not too well if I would have written the above sentence in my essay

I did OK at O levels . I'd have done better if I'd revised. Also mental health problems were on the horizon . I was one of those who blew hot or cold when it came to any exam .It was very much depended on how I felt on the day.

Last edited by firemonkey on 13 Aug 2019, 7:58 am, edited 1 time in total.

How many passes did you get?

^ 6 . I dropped science in the 4th form as I was no good at it. Hence I didn't do the biology,chemistry and physics that most boys did .

I like your educational system. You’re given more of a choice.

In a public high school in the US, you can’t “drop” science.

I would have liked to have to take only 3 courses for A-levels when I was 16-17.

A levels were a wash out for me. I was doing English,French and history but was getting ill by that time. I dropped French because I was struggling. A week into my A level term I went to the school sanatorium and said I couldn't cope (I'd taken an overdose at the end of the previous term). After a few days in the sanatorium I was transferred to the nearest big psych hospital. I never did take those A levels.

Sorry about what happened, my friend.

I don't believe it will really be of benefit----but could you sit for A-levels now?

I believe there is a way you can do that----where you couldn't do that in past years.

I've been very phobic about going into an academic setting. The reasons for that being memories of being badly verbally bullied , and the realisation I have what you in the USA call a learning disability . I've never been dxed with a LD very much because children who were of above average intelligence at the time were very rarely seen as having a LD.

It's much better , though not perfect, now. A boy like me nowadays would probably be referred to an educational psychologist .

I wish you would have had a much better time of it back in your youth.

You seem like a nice, reasonable person.

Thanks , you're the kind of person the world needs more of . I reckon my experience as a youth is fairly typical of those later found to be on the autism spectrum .

You can't drop science here until you are 16+, though maybe you could back in the day. Many high schools have the option to take 'science' or 'separate sciences' at GCSE, meaning you can gain 1 GCSE in Science, or 3 GCSEs in Chemistry, Biology and Physics. The route you take is determined by your grades, aptitude and what set you're in pre-GCSE. Everybody has to study some form of Science, Maths and English though at that age.

My school was a Languages Academy, which meant that everybody had to study at least one foreign language at GCSE. In theory it's a nice idea, but in practice it just made for very disruptive classes. I was the only one in my French class who was there willingly, and the teacher just about gave up within the first term .

It was in 1973 that I took O levels. There's been big changes educationally since then .

I was fortunate that I had a mother who wanted to gain knowledge about special educational programs for me.

When I was 5, I went to a camp where people were researching autism and things like "minimal brain dysfunction." That was in 1966. I was given therapy, and I was encouraged to ask for what I needed. I spoke my first words at the camp.

Then, I was in a class for children with all sorts of disabilities in first grade.

Then, in the fall of 1968, there was a teachers' strike in NYC. My parents wanted me to go to school, anyway. So they enrolled me in the Summit School, which still exists today and is a school for children with a wide variety of emotional and developmental problems. I was placed in the academic track, but there were no "grades," per se, though we had a similar curriculum to the public school curriculum, and we were graded on our work.

I was probably fortunate that I was placed in that school. If I stayed in public school, I would have probably failed because of my behavior. When I did go to public school from 6-8th grade, I was almost expelled because of my behavior.

Last edited by kraftiekortie on 13 Aug 2019, 10:36 am, edited 1 time in total.