When Inclusion Equals Exclusion
Inclusion—autistic students being educated in “mainstream” classrooms along with their non-autistic peers—can too often turn into “exclusion,” as John McDonald, chief executive of the Scottish Society for Autism writes in today’s Scotsman. He writes:
Those at the severe end of the spectrum are taught in special schools - so are already partially excluded from the rest of society - but new figures show that those in mainstream schools are in danger of missing out on education because of a lack of teachers trained to cope with the condition.
Statistics from the Scottish Executive showed that 114 autistic pupils were excluded from school in 2004/5 - a rise of 62 per cent on the previous year. This obviously raises the question about whether teachers are able to understand the condition, and if schools are properly equipped.
But the true extent may be higher still, since local authorities that have excluded fewer than five pupils do not give a figure, and recent research has also shown around a quarter of pupils diagnosed with ASD are excluded every year.
In other words, inclusion is amounting to “exclusion” in the cases of too many autistic students in Scotland—and, I suspect, elsewhere.
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POSTED IN: Asperger's Syndrome, Education, Legal Issues, Stereotypes
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