Student voted out of classroom!!!

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by Munchkin03

You're also way more active and accepting of your son's needs than a LOT of parents are. Aren't most kids on the spectrum diagnosed before the kid even starts grade school, when something doesn't seem right?

We know a kid who's obviously on the spectrum--but to his family, "there's nothing wrong" with him at all. As a result, he's not getting the help he deserves, he doesn't speak, he just grunts monosyllabically. I feel like many urban public school systems are filled with kids like this...which could be the case with this kid. Doesn't make what the teacher did right, though.

Someone asked the same thing a number of pages ago, so I'll just cut and paste what I said there:

Originally Posted by MysticCat

Usually signs start to present themselves by about 3; in fact, I think the diagnosis requires that symptoms be present by then.

That said, it's not unusual in my experience for the diagnosis to come in elementary school. This is so for a couple of reasons -- sometimes the symptoms can be written off as something else before the pressures of school come, sometimes (often) parents really don't want to face the prospect of an autism spectrum diagnosis and resist until they really can't anymore. We knew something was "off" around 3, but he was 9 when he was diagnosed. We weren't ignoring things during those years; it just took that long for us to see what really seemed to be going on.

So you have basically 3 groups -- the parents who have their kids evaluated and diagnosed early on, the parents who refuse to see that something is wrong, and the parents who know something is wrong and who are dealing with it, but who don't get to an ASD diagnosis at first. We're the third group, and I've known parents in the first two groups. It's hard when you can see what's going on with a child but the parents can't/won't.

[SWTXBelle]

Going back to the original concept - I don't care if it is a child of 5 or a high school senior of 18, an adult going through recruitment or a worker at his/her workplace - NO ONE would want to be put at the front of their class/group, discussed then voted on. Except maybe "Survivor" - but let's leave reality tv out of this.

Heck, can you imagine if we put pnms in the front of the group and then had everyone discuss them and vote then and there for membership selection? What if they did it in your workplace?

It is a stupid, cruel idea.