Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Julianna Cohen
Prof. Rodrick
ENGL 115
26 October 2017
Do you want to be who you are or do you want to be like everybody else? Has anyone
ever told that to you? In society, people feel like they can both stand up and be who they are or
have to conform to a model that society has set for us. With children who have autism, schools
call this mainstreaming. Mainstreaming means that kids with autism and who are on the autism-
spectrum have to conform to fit into the mold that schools have set up for students. They are not
involved in the extra programs and help that will allow them to maintain their own identity.
While schools believe that all children should follow the same model and adjust their identity,
students on the spectrum should not have to due to; needing the extra monitoring and help, being
labeled as a group and not having an individual identity, and being labeled as someone who is
retarded and not being recognized for the true identity that makes them who they are.
While children with autism do attend public schools with school district funding, children
on the spectrum have a better chance of being who they are while excelling in school with extra
help and programs. Students go to school to study and learn and by these experiences they
discover their interest and their strengths and weaknesses. With kids with autism, they may not
be able to express what they like in school and their strengths and being able to get help for what
they are struggling in. As stated by Laura Madsen in her article, Mainstreaming May Not
Benefit Autistic Students, children may display some mild signs of autismperhaps poor
coordination, or they focus on certain things for longer periods of time than usual and then
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children who display more severe autistic traits, and can have difficulty learning because of
reduced attention spans, or maybe even display signs of aggression under circumstances and
teachers and personnel at public schools may not be equipped or trained to handle these
behaviors and situations (Madsen). Children with autism and who express the mild symptoms
can be mistaken as just children with behavioral problems so with hiring the trained professional
needed to watch over and help them, they can bring out more of their identity and excel in
school. Madsen is stating that teachers and school professionals need to understand that there are
different levels of autism and that you have to recognize each level as needing help. High
functioning autistic children are known to be able to contain more social skills than children who
are more on the low functioned end of the spectrum. In her article Madsen also states an example
of a school experiment that went a little bit out of hand because the person in charge of the
experiment, was never told that there were some special needs children in the groups that could
require extra supervision and while working with a soap solution and not-toxic paint, one of
the autistic children at the table wound up drinking some of the soapy paint solution as a result
which was from lack of needed supervision (Madsen). These children needed to be watched, and
due to lack of supervision by the extra aides specifically for students who needed extra
supervision, there was more harm that could of occurred to the child. A childs identity can
change from one event and it is unfair that these kids might now always be known for this due to
lack of proper supervision. The aides job was to watch the kids and make sure they were safe
and they were not able to successfully do this. If schools do not pertain to a standard of
supervision and watchfulness to autistic students than mainstreaming is not seen as a viable
option.
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Even though children with autism are still individuals with their own strengths and
weaknesses, they struggle with their identity because schools are known to group them together
and say that they are all the same. As stated by Thomas Sowell in his article titled, Many
Diagnoses of Autism Are False, some parents who had their children diagnosed as autistic later
found that, it has become obvious that many of these children are not autistic and that they
were having diagnoses by people who never set foot in a medical school or received any
comparable training that would qualify them to diagnose autism (Sowell). Sowell describes the
frustration that misdiagnoses and unfair group classification can put on the children and parents
and that it can later travel to school and beyond. Parents and schools are allowing these
diagnoses to define their kids even though the diagnosis may be false and eventually cause more
harm than good. Grouping kids with different disorders and behavioral issues all together and
saying that they all need the same treatment does not allow individual students to get the proper
help they need and does not allow individual identities to be expressed. Also Sowell also states
in his article, the autism spectrum provides a way to not group diagnose kids but provides
wiggle room for those who were wrong, so that they can avoid having to admit that they were
wrong and this correlates with schools having an excuse of why they might be group typing
kids who need extra help (Sowell). Schools and the doctors who may diagnose or label kids
sometimes over reach or misjudge too quickly and Sowell is introducing a way that the people
who diagnose can cover themselves if they diagnose to harshly or just plainly wrong. Children
who become labeled with something can feel that who they were is gone and that they have a
whole new identity they did not even approve of. Children at a young age are at the point of their
lives finding out who they are and what they feel makes them who they are and labeling them
Due to children being labeled with autism, sometimes they are misunderstood and labeled
for being retarded or not smart when they are may be quite intelligent or truly gifted kids. As
Lawrence Scahill states in his article Autism is Not an Epidemic back in the earlier times of
autism diagnosing, the instruments were not very good at differentiating between children with
mental retardation alone and those with both autism and mental retardation which means that
some kids were given an extra label that was not even relevant to them or necessary (Scahill).
Scahill is stating that doctors diagnosed children with mental retardation who truly had autism
but they also sometimes group kids who were only autistic onto a spectrum that labeled them as
also mentally retarded. Schools take these diagnoses and then label kids together to which does
not allow for the proper growth and development that kids need. As seen in this YouTube video
who become mainstreamed do have success but schools have to factor in the mental and
physical effects of mainstreaming kids (Living With Autism | Your Childs Needs In
Mainstream Schools). Schools use less funding when kids are group labeled and not put into the
proper programs. Autistic kids may have trouble expressing who they are and without help on
how to, identity does not come through and even be a place in their lives.
School is supposed to be a place where kids can learn and be themselves but with schools
wanting to mainstream autism-spectrum related students, their identity is not known with them;
not getting the proper extra help and monitoring, being group labeled with kids with other
disorders or even misdiagnosed, and being labeled retarded or stupid with even no
intelligence limitations. Children need help when they learn basic social and motors skills and
providing the needed personnel and assistance is just one way that schools are supposed to help
kids discover who they are and what they are capable of. Kids need to learn self-expression and
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being able to vocally express even the slightest thing and this is what that extra help can do for
autistic kids. Misdiagnosing kids does not allow anyone to get the proper treatment that they
need and could eventually make a small problem with no issues worse. Group labeling kids does
not allow one individuals problem be known from all the others and does not let him get the
proper help and may cause him/her to be berated for something they did not do. Having anyone
being labeled retarded or stupid can cause someone to feel hurt and while some autistic kids
are not able to understand the emotions that come with these words, it is allowing others to think
of them in a negative light without knowing the real them and that the label may not even apply
to them at all. Autistic children are not all lacking in intelligence and labeling someone with this
in school can have negative consequences to them and even someone in the school that may
actually need the help that will be given. Identity is how everyone is viewed in the world and if
we give one institution the power to change who individuals are, all that true self is gone.
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Work Cited
Living With Autism | Your Childs Needs In Mainstream Schools Youtube. Uploaded by
Madsen, Laura. "Mainstreaming May Not Benefit Autistic Students." Behavioral Disorders,
Viewpoints in Context,
libproxy.csun.edu/login?url=http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/EJ3010640250/OVIC?u
2012.
Accessed 17 Oct. 2017. Originally published in Pediatric News, vol. 42, Apr. 2008, p. 24.
Sowell, Thomas. "Many Diagnoses of Autism Are False." Mental Illness, edited by Mary E.