There are many important ongoing issues in education. America is still spending a fraction of the money on education that they spend on the military and meanwhile, problems in our schools persist. One problem facing our school systems is the integration of autistic children. Autism has gone beyond an epidemic with scientists still trying to figure out exactly why nearly 1 in 100 kids are being diagnosed. Moreover, why this epidemic effects boys in particular and whether the root causes are genetic or something altogether different.
What is known is that these kids function at all different levels and placing them in a standard school setting does not work. Some of these children have almost no capacity to learn in a regular school setting while others just need some help understanding the directions they receive. Unfortunately, it is the answer of many schools to simply round up these kids and place them in a room together so that they aren’t a distraction to the rest of the class. For parents of these children, this idea is most often unacceptable.
Many high functioning autistic children are gifted in math and reading but lack some simple understandings that others find intuitive, For instance, it is not common sense for an autistic child to know to stay out of the way of a moving car. In this capacity, an educational technician can guide a child through school and help them to succeed in school.
Mainstreaming an autistic child is not easy, but for sure it can be done. What these kids lack in intuition, they can often learn with the help of a willing educator. Ed techs as they are called have extensive training in the differences between autistic children and the mainstream kids that surround them in schools. Though it’s rarely a quick fix, with time and patience, these kids often times end up in regular classrooms with regular students.