What is better for autistic child?

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lepatriinu
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23 Feb 2013, 9:48 am

In our country people often think, that autistic/asperger child should be separated from normal ones at school. Please tell me, why exactly is important, that autistic child experiences every-day-life ja sees "normal" kids, learns from them and so on.
Or is it too stressful for them?



Ann2011
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23 Feb 2013, 9:53 am

I think it's better to integrate them. This will make the other children more aware of autism and they will learn how to deal with these differences rather than be able to dismiss autistic people. Keeping them separated encourages marginalization.



FalsettoTesla
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23 Feb 2013, 9:55 am

I think it depends on the child, but generally speaking I would say integration is better, especially when you take into account how stigmatising attending a special education facility can be.



Wandering_Stranger
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23 Feb 2013, 9:59 am

In part, it does depend on the problems the child has. For example, it's not good for a child with severe hyperacusis to be put in with non-Autistic child where the classes hold 30 children and it's generally very noisy, etc.

I do think that if the Autistic child can cope in mainstream with or without support, that should be an option for them.



paris75007
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23 Feb 2013, 10:55 am

Legally, under IDEA, children in the US must be placed in their least restrictive environment, meaning that if they can learn in a regular classroom, that is where they will be. I think that is "the best place" for any autistic child...in the least restrictive environment that they can handle to be determined on a case by case basis.



Lonermutant
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28 Feb 2013, 8:44 am

lepatriinu wrote:
In our country people often think, that autistic/asperger child should be separated from normal ones at school. Please tell me, why exactly is important, that autistic child experiences every-day-life ja sees "normal" kids, learns from them and so on.
Or is it too stressful for them?


I have to say that I believe that kids with Asperger's will probably grow up more in a special school and become more mature because they aren't the most immature and naive kid in their class anymore. That way they won't end up as "an eternal" 13-year old. This is very important for boys with Asperger's who I believe have to be segregated from nt kids in school. They can have some very limited contact with nt kids, but not much. When they don't have to be recluses to hide their immaturity and be afraid of bullying, they will become much more social.



Maigheo
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28 Feb 2013, 5:44 pm

As a psychology student with a major interest in autism, what I hear a lot about autism lately is the creating of an 'autism-friendly environment', which already starts at level of the family. It is about adapting your environment so, that it feels comfortable and safe for the autistic child to live in: An environment that is predictable, has a clear structure so that the kid knows exactly what is expected from him or her and as little changes occur as possible.

I see where this idea comes from. Autism is most of the time seen as a handicap or even disability. People in wheelchairs that cannot access a building with a high doorstep need a special wheelchair access, elevators and a special bathroom. It is thought that therefore people with autism also need changes in their environment in order to make their life as easy as possible. What they are in fact forgetting is that autism is a developmental disorder and not a disability! Where a disability is often a permanent case, autism is a delay in a certain field of the development that can to the greatest extent be overcome, by learning and experiencing (it is often said that autism cannot be cured, but I'm still not completely sure of that).

Of course it feels highly comfortable to live in an environment where everything's safe and predictable, but eventually it does become boring (yes even autistic people do get fed up with something... which is pretty hard to imagine for my friends who are moaning that I have to watch that movie again for the I think 1000est time). Furthermore, children will never remain living in the safe nest of the mother.

If you are raising your autistic child this way, the unpredictable, vibrant society will feel as a threat and you are basically raising a socially awkward person, who never learned to function in a normal society!

Moral of this story is, although children with autism may need a little bit of extra explanation every now and then, the whole autism-friendly environment will impair the children in their learning and social development. Some things are indeed killing, but they are part of life!

I once got really fed up with a discussion about a certain ride in a theme park. A mother was complaining about how the lines were always so long and the theme park did not accept their declaration that her son was autistic and therefore get special access (as in, skip the line). I told her that it is known that autistic children do hate crowds, but that I'm very sorry to say that a great deal of your life consists of standing in lines and crowds. And that despite of my own autism I have rode that very same theme park ride about a hundred times in my life, including the standing in lines. It was torture, but the ride I got in return was great.. furthermore I just accepted it was part of life.

Mainly teaching autistic children to be flexible will do them so much good. I am still so grateful to my parents that they were always very no-nonsense to me in raising me.

Autism is also related to an oversensitivity to certain sensory information, including tastes and smells. As a kid I could barely eat. I did not like any kind of food and everything that I ate with a lot of stuggle, I puked out instantly. Eating was a big torture. Especially because I wasn't a fan of food with a strong smell and my parents loved cabbages. I was raised with an: 'Autism or no autism.. you need to learn to eat it, it's not poisoned!'. They kept going on until I learned to eat it. Nowadays I'm still pretty much of a picky eater, but I love all kinds of very healthy and rich meals. I understood there was simply no use in complaining and that I had to eat it anyway.

Be direct and clear to them! And don't fear that you might be harsh... It's just so beneficial! Control freaks are for some reason the best working partners for me, because I know exactly what to do around them and feel very comfortable..

Furthermore of course applying structure to the environment of the kid is important, but I think it just works for any child.. Just don't overdo it because your kid is autistic.

And finally.. focus on the child's needs and not on what the book says that children with autism need in generally. Every human being is a unique individual that does not come with a manual that can be applied on all humans. The same counts for autistic human beings because (what often is being said by society) we too are human after all...

I hope this is a good advice (sorry for the length.. I always get a little too passionate around this topic)



Ann2011
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28 Feb 2013, 5:53 pm

Maigheo wrote:
. . . although children with autism may need a little bit of extra explanation every now and then, the whole autism-friendly environment will impair the children in their learning and social development.

I agree; it is not an easy process to understand socialization, but it's good to learn it. The rest of the world is not going to go away.



Maigheo
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28 Feb 2013, 6:07 pm

And those people saying that special schools are better for the child are completely wrong. Their arguments are based on less bullying, but that is just a temporary illusion. Of course the children will be bullied less in school, but I think that people will not spend their entire lives in school, or do they?

Eventually we all have to function normally in society. Autistic or not. I think that being isolated for basically your entire life and eventually being thrown in the deep will be worse than already being in a normal school for your entire life.

I have been in 5 schools.

1 normal elementary school --> I was bullied
1 special elementary school --> I was bullied even more (! !)

1 special junior high school (specialized in physically disabled children, but also highly recommended for children with autism because of the extremely small-scaled classrooms and personal attention) --> was not bullied, but I also felt ret*d
1 normal high school --> was bullied

1 college --> full social acceptation and loads of friends combined with challenging education

I do agree in the field that we should put similar people together and that people should mainly stick to people that they have similarities with. But with similarities I absolutely do not mean the diagnosis. I used to be in a support group for people with HFA. This group mainly consisted of guys (since 80% of Asperger's cases is male) that spent their entire day playing video games and had absolutely no interest in anything human, because they found people just confusing and therefore not interesting. I - obviously Asperger's as well - also found people very confusing, but therefore I DID find them interesting. I had a huge interest in psychology, social sciences and things that women mostly talk about. I could not identify with anyone in my support group and so I did not feel supported at all.

Finally I ended up in college in the psychology track. All those people did actually share my interests! And they were interested in me having Asperger's myself, about which they had learned a lot in classes.. but they actually could ask questions about the material as in: How would that actually feel for a person with Asperger's? Well how would it feel for a normal person? We have the most interesting conversations on a daily basis.. and yes.. all of them are neurotypical!

See what I mean here? The concept of birds of a feather flock together is right.. but we should not classify people on their diagnosis but on personal interests. That's what makes people feel truly happy!

I would never have learned to study psychology if I would have been caged in order to avoid bullying.

What I think is that bullying is something that is related to elementary and high school. People who are still trying to find out who they are themselves. Once they do, they can stick together and find people who they fit in with. Social acceptation comes over time if you really let it in... Think about that before you start screaming things without actually thinking about the long-term consequences. Thank you



Ann2011
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28 Feb 2013, 6:27 pm

While I don't want to see all people with disabilities grouped in the same "special" class, I do think some accommodations should be made. Ideally for me I would have liked to have a blending of home schooling and public school. I found it difficult to spend so much of the day in a foreign environment.
I learned how to mimic social interactions, but I don't think I will ever do them intuitively and I rarely enjoy them. But it's a good skill.