Should My Wordless Kid Go to School with Your Normal Child?
Schuyler gets a mixture of special education and mainstream, as do most of the kids in her class. She spends part of the day in a special class for kids who communicate using Assistive Technology, and gets some reading and math in there. She then goes to a regular second grade class for the rest of the day and gets the bulk of her academic subjects there, as well as PE, music, etc. Her homework is adapted for her communication issues (no oral reports, etc.). She is still expected to meet state requirements in order to move on to the next grade, with a small amount of accommodation for her disability.
Will she get held back at some point? It’s possible, especially as the verbal components of her class material increase. But only three years ago, we were being told by her previous school district that she’d be mostly isolated in a special education class for the rest of her school years. Now she’s performing with other kids her age, at their level. There are plenty of neurotypical kids with all the advantages in the world who can’t say that.
Schuyler and her classmates are success stories, and they are not unique. They stand in undeniable contradiction to the scary boo (and almost entirely anecdotal, “I have a friend who…”) stories that form the backbone of inclusion opposition.
