What did you receive special ed services for?

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For those who receive/received special ed services (e.g. have/had an IEP in the USA), what disabilities did you receive those services for.

Also, at various times, how segregated were you from the normal kids? For example, were you mainstream (with the normal kids all the time), perhaps or perhaps not getting some extra help on the side, did you spend some time in a special ed classroom away from the mainstream kids, did you spend most of your time in a special ed classroom (where, say, you would only go to gym class with the normal kids), were you completely separate or even were you in a different school or hospitalized?

In my case, in November 1989, I started receiving services for emotional disturbance and speech-language impairment (for severe language disorder and moderate articulation disorder). In late 1990, speech-language impairment was dropped and emotional disturbance was changed to severe emotional disturbance. In 1991, that was changed to emotional disability. Then in approximately 1992, I was labelled multiple-handicapped and speech-language impaired (again, but only for semantics and pragmatics) in addition to emotional disability. In June 1993, I was also found eligible to receive autism resource services. In 2000, speech-language impairment was dropped, but the others I think were retained. I then graduated from high school in 2002. I received no special support in college, as I wanted to put all my issues like this behind me, though in retrospect it might have been better if I had.

I went to a preschool, but was kicked out of it. I entered Kindergarten in a normal classroom, but I could not function and was placed in various special schools--it seemed like I kept moving! Starting in 1991, I would go to a collection school for special ed students, but it was otherwise a normal school; I would be mostly segregated, with one attempt at mainstreaming in the 1992-1993 school year that failed and an attempt at only some segregation in the 1995-1996 school year that also failed; I would, however, attend gym class and like art/music with the normal students. In 1997, we moved to another area, and I was fully mainstreamed (and completely unprepared for it!) In January 1998, I was expelled from school and subsequently hospitalized. I then went to a special school, but was hospitalized again in July 1998 for an episode of psychosis (that had very much got out of hand!). In February 1999, I was finally discharged and returned to the special school I went to before. In August 1999, I went part time to the normal high school, and by October 1999 I was completely mainstreamed at the high school, and this time, with just a few bumps, it actually worked out OK!

So what's y'all's experience?

I never received autism services. I was always under the other health impaired category. I don't know if I was ever other any other category besides that. I know I was labeled as multi handicapped when I was in early elementary school. I am not sure if I was placed under that category.

I was in special ed full time when I was 6 and 7 and ten weeks when I was 8 before being put in mainstream. I mainstreamed special ed since. My parents say it was a mistake I was in that special ed class and I didn't belong in there. I went to a special school when I was 3-5 for kids with developmental delays. It looked like a normal school to me because lot of kids there looked normal and acted normal and some looked obviously special needs. I was never sent to a special school again or to any special classes after I was put in mainstream. My parents wouldn't allow it because it would have been bad for me and I would have learned the wrong behavior since I was the kind of kid who copied everyone and mimicked people and could be anything I wanted.

I did speech therapy in school and OT in 6th grade and then those were dropped because I was having a hard time with the teachers in them. I used to use headphones to listen to the teacher talk when I was 8 and 9 and then in 3rd grade I listened to a FM unit in class, in 4th grade, I was sent to the library for breaks. Then in Junior high I started to get extra help in school with my school work and had an aid with me in every class until my Junior year. In Junior High, I was in the resource room all the time and only went in normal classes with other kids for classes like art or PE or script writing, current events and then in high school I went to all my normal classes and only was in the resource room for two of my periods.

No one really knew what was wrong with me growing up. I had all these labels like dyspraxia, suspected OCD, poor social skills, ADD, sensory processing disorder, language processing disorder, cluttering disorder, and I stuttered. My school also thought I had a behavior problem. I was obviously delayed in my records from school from what was written about me and my report cards were bad too, all needed improvement everything was marked pretty much and my grades were not good either. No F's of course.

I've been in mainstream schools but I got support in lessons for Asperger's and, later at 15 years old, schizophrenia. I needed more assistance for the schizophrenia tbh as I'd do stuff like yell at people out throw things at them when I hallucinated or got paranoid.

I don't know how I got through secondary school but I was suspended twice and once nearly got a criminal record.

I am in uni now and I have a full-time support worker as my schizophrenia got much more intolerable and had an effect of making my autism worse. I have damaged things and self harmed during meltdowns in public and I've been sectioned by the police 7 times and hence forcibly taken to hospital.

As far as I know I never was diagnosed with anything. I can only think all this was because I was weird, quiet, disruptive, bullied a lot, skipped a lot of school, and was generally uncooperative.

Kindergarten through fifth grade I was in normal school. I had to go to speech therapy in first grade and see the school counselor in fourth and fifth grade. In sixth grade I was in a normal school but by the end of the year I was in multiple special classes. In seventh and eighth grade I was in a different school each year in a special class and had no contact with "normal" students. I did get mainstreamed into a normal math class but I only have 1 memory of being in it. I don't know if I got taken out or just stopped going to school. I missed over 100 days a year both of those 2 years. Then I got sent away by family court for a 30 day evaluation at a mental hospital. After that I did ninth grade there as an outpatient. Then after they put me back in for 2 weeks because I weighed less than 110 pounds (like wtf, I didn't even have an eating disorder and I was fine, I think it was really punishment for skipping school) I mostly stopped going there and had to go to family court and got sent to another special school that summer. Then after skipping a lot there I had to go to family court and got sent away for several months to what was pretty much a reform school. When I got out of there I was 16 and quit school. I'm 38 now.

speech therapy (back in the 1970s)

They had me say the same word over and over and over again. It was pretty awful.

I was mainstreamed with special education plan = study a few grades ahead on my own in regular classroom and ignore eberrything and eberryone else there. This worked for me with my combo of traits.

EBD classes and speech therapy. Easy target as the troublemakers were also sent to the EBD room. Late 1970s before HFA was recognized.

At 11 I was taken out of mainstream and put nowhere until I was 13 by the UK Social Services. At 13 I was put back into mainstream without the Social Services informing the school that I'd missed almost 2 years.
The teachers just pressumed that I'd been at school durin the time I hadn't and got mad at me for not knowing stuff that the other kids knew. My IQ is high, so I wasn't put into a learning deficient class.
As a result, I was excluded from some subjects because I was so behind whilst in the classes.

I'm lucky to have got 3 GCSE C grades.

What annoys me most is that a guy in the year below me told me that he was older than me, but as he had spent 6 months in hospital he was put back a year, as he'd missed out on six months of school. I'd missed almost 2 years, and I wasn't put back at all; and to make it worse the school weren't even informed that I'd missed that time of education.

What pisses me off is that I was only diagnosed with ADHD at age 31, and Aspergers at age 39. Had I been diagnosed earlier my ENTIRE LIFE would have been different.

[Mod. edit: insulting comment redacted]

I wasn't diagnosed until I was 13, and I have received absolutely no support at all, even after the diagnosis. I'm one of the smartest kids in the year group so they presume I don't need any help, but they're wrong. They have absolutely no idea of the social difficulties I have or the problems I have in everyday life at school. My parents have given up trying to get any support with me as the school doesn't care. I am well behaved and my work is always of good standard but they must notice how isolated I am and how the other kids pick on me, but choose not to help, which is pretty annoying. I never really went to nursery, and at primary school I was just considered 'weird' so no action was taken. I have always been in a mainstream school.

_________________
Shy, awkward 16 year old communist girl whose main interests are 9/11, roller coasters and the 1917 Russian Revolution. I might not have any friends but somehow I have a really amazing boyfriend

I wasn't diagnosed with Asperger's until 23 so my IEP wasn't for that. I did have an IEP though, through junior and senior year and it was for social anxiety. I was segregated from the "normal" kids. I was in special ed classes with about 4 other people who had ADHD and one might've been an aspie. My sophomore year of high school I was sent off to an "alternative school" which was the most horrible 8 months of my life. I suffered PTSD and depression at the hands of that school. And freshman year I was with the normal kids but had countless number of truancies that made them send me to that "alternative school" with the other naughty kids. I wish my school could've handled my situation better and I wish the hand full of psychologists that met with me diagnosed me with Asperger's, which was the correct diagnosis.

in my case i had expressed my needs frequently with people but no one listened, it was only in 2011 that i got a diagnoses and got some help in school, a peer helper to help with math and an opportunity to leave class when needed.

Wow! Lots of stuff that can apply to me!

League_Girl,

Ja. My dad hated that I was in special ed and had only the "whacko" kids to learn from. Apparently, though, despite a number of attempts, I could not function in a regular classroom until high school.

I had lots of different labels, too, prior to entering middle school, such as ADHD, behavioral disorder (whatever that is), emotional disorder (whatever that is), conduct disorder, PDD-NOS, learning-disabled (in what?), etc. I was put on all sortsa stuff, like Mellaril (the first one!), Ritalin, Adderall, even lithium at 600 mg/day!

My grades in elementary school were alright, though they got worse in middle school and improved again in high school. I know what you meen about the needs improvement, though! I was often marked N for behavior, whereas I looked at my sister's, and she was marked almost exclusively G or S.

SteelMaiden,

Tell me about it. I almost got a criminal record at 14, as well, because of the psychotic episode I had. I ducked a schizophrenia diagnosis, though, and was diagnosed instead with schizotypal personality disorder (comorbid to Asperger syndrome), which the diagnosing psychiatrist later defined as "being on the borderline of schizophrenia." Amazingly, I improved greatly after that, however, and by age 16 didn't even need meds. Of course, with the improvement, we don't even know what that psychosis was anymore, though I do still have occasional psychotic-like symptoms.

AardvarkGoodSwimmer,

That does sound awful! I think my speech therapy was a bit more functional.

RedStar98,

At 13, I didn't really received support, either, which may have sparked the downward spiral that led to the onset of psychosis at 14. I think I received much more understanding and support in high school, which may have contributed to my amazing recovery from psychosis.

I had special ed until 7th grade. No matter who they sent to me, I didn't like that person. Teachers definitely were segregating me from the other students and treat you almost as if you're something less than human. However, if it wasn't for special ed, I never would have met some of my autistic friends.

In summary, take schools out of unions, because it sucks when they are only there to collect a paycheck.

I was never recognised as having ASD when I was in public school, though due to my premature birth at 26 weeks, I had obvious motor and executive functioning delays. Between first and ninth grade I was on a 504 plan that specified accomodations for my slow walking and eating (was assigned a student "buddy" to sit with me at lunch where I was given extra time, and to walk with me to the bus and during fire drills so I didn't get lost (that happened on at least one or two occasions)). My poor fine motor skills were also such that I was given extra time on tests and exams, as well as fewer tasks to complete (spelling words, maths problems, etc), and a scribe in third grade to help with my written work. The teachers were instructed to keep snacks on hand for me due to my tiny stature and low weight, something I found very embarrassing, and in seventh grade my English teacher made me use a portable microphone in her class because she couldn't hear me; my vocal cords were obstructed by scar tissue thanks to the tubes I had down my throat as an infant, so my voice is very soft and raspy. The microphone was probably the worst, I developed an aversion to them after that that lasts to this day. Sadly, in spite of all the help I was receiving, my information processing difficulties went unnoticed, so that throughout elementary school, I was always two steps behind everyone else and forever trying to "catch up"; get to the right page in the textbook, work on the correct paper, remember what to do for the homework, etc. Because I was unaware that anything was wrong at that age, I never asked for help, and so did very poorly in grade school. Things improved in middle school, I think because moving from class to class meant that I was always sure at least of what subject we were on, so I could catch up on the little things. There was more structure and routine to middle school too, oddly enough, so I was better able to predict what was coming up and be prepared for it.

I was in private schools for developmentally disabled until the 7th grade where a mutual
decision was made by everyone (including me) to mainstream me in a public middle school.
One reason being is my best friend acts as my student buddy.
I have special ed for math and gym and speech therapy.