A major problem with ASD is spotting it. Parents, adults and therapists struggle to determine it's presence followed by aggressive efforts to diminish its effect. In education, parents and therapist stress the importance of peer exposure to teach them social skills to normalize their behavior.
Well, an autistic isn't going to learn thru normal methods of reward and punishment, repeated lessons etc. Their brain processes things differently so expecting them to learn the way other kids do is doomed to fail.
Parents want their disabled child to be normal in order to fit in and manage the normal world as an adult. The nature of disability prevents that.
Deaf children thrive in a school for the deaf. Why? Because the school is designed for their needs. They can communicate with each other using the same language, literally and figuratively. In a mainstream school there are costly adjustments for an interpreter and special teaching. Meanwhile, teaching deaf children is still a controversial mind field of conflicting ideas about how it's done.
Mainstreaming has failed the disabled, because schooling isn't designed with them in mind and it's done a terrible job of inclusion. We might have a better education model for everyone if it reflected the many ways people learn. As I've said before when the disabled are accommodated, it benefits everyone. I would be willing to bet that so called normal children schooled the same way as the disabled would show improvement.
