The Right School is Crucial for Aspergers Children

Recent political ideology has promoted the idea of mainstream inclusion as being the "best option" for all children with special needs. But is this always the case?

Children with Aspergers syndrome see the world in a different way. With their fixed ideas and concrete thinking they can often come across as very pedantic. They may also be obsessed with some micro-topic and have little interest in general academic topics that they may regard as irrelevant. With their social skill problems they over act inappropriately in social interactions.

The result of this is that many people, especially their peers, will regard them as "odd" or "weird". And this, in turn, often leads to them being picked on and bullied.

Then, with their poor social skills, this can then lead to arguments or even physical fights.

Likewise, their teachers also struggle to accommodate their non-conformist ways. Coping with their endless quesions about some minor point, or their insistence on absolute fairness can be very challenging. If the Aspergers child detects any hint of injustice, this too will be challenged.

So, the peers see them as weird and pick on them, and the teachers don't understand them. So how do these children fare in a normal mainstream school?

Frequently, not very well. With their unique interpretation of the world, and of social interactions, they often end up lashing out or getting into conflict with both other students and teachers. Often they feel they are being unfairly treated, and unfairly punished.

Fast forward this a few years and you have a dispirited child who is on the verge of being expelled from the school for bad behavior.

Had they been placed in a special school with teachers trained to understand them, the outcome can be very difficult. With the right support from the teachers their social skills may improve considerably, and their self esteem improve.

The students, likewise, tend to be much more tolerant of each other's idiosyncracies, since they have themselves suffered teasing. With the right environment, these children develop a positive self esteem, a fascination for learning (in their unique style) and, ultimately, a much better outcome than they might have had in a mainstream school.

Children are all unique. Aspergers children, in particular, do not fit into nice neat pigeon holes. If we are really interested in the future welfare of these children, rather than just political ideologies, we should be very careful of throwing the baby out with the bath water - the right special school might, in fact, be far better for the child than the local mainstream school.