Autistic Grievance

Autistic Segregation as a Way of life in our society.

The issue of segregation has grown to become central to autistic situation. The self-determination attempt to remedy it for adults is too little too late and it is unlikely to make a dent for this generation on its own. What has not been previously addressed however on official level is that the segregation of adults is a direct result of segregation and captivity in the childhood.

It begins in early childhood with a diagnoses of DISORDER that segregates autistic children [who make a great majority of children with developmental disability] in this profound way leading to the establishment of discriminatory practices that do not apply to the rest of the children, and thus segregating these children from the rest in the most important domain – the way they are treated. Identification aka diagnoses and subsequent early Intervention currently begins at 18th month.

The central piece in maintaining the autistic segregation during childhood and creating a domiciled segregated population of adults is however the IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), or rather an LRE (Least Restrictive Environment) loophole in  this congressional act that allows an exception for when the child can be segregated – an innocent looking loophole into which most Autistic children are guided with the help of IEP(individualized Education Program) by selective assignment with or without parental consent. It is so thorough that it was in danger of becoming too noticeable in its exclusivity, but with DSM-5 and the expansion of ASD diagnostics it statistically camouflages this fact, because Asperger kids are often allowed into a common classroom with an aide or a Special Ed teacher -still segregated by this practice from the rest but not by physical walls they are also largely the ‘educational successes’ which are counted by the proponents to produce statistical justifications of the overall practice. In this way the scope of DSM-5 ASD criteria masks the fact that Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) for Autistic children amounts to systematic segregation by channeling them into self-contained classrooms and specialized schools for developmentally disabled, i.e. the Least Restrictive Education for autistic children as a rule is a segregated discriminatory education, if we can call it education at all.

See the report by NCD effectively stating that the “least restricted environment” for autistic children is as a rule the most restrictive currently available in the school systems, both public and private, i.e. – self-contained classrooms and segregated schools.

It appears to be easy to foresee that children who are raised segregated from society would not learn much about it and would not know how to integrate themselves into it when they reach the adulthood. Nevertheless these are and had been the practices effectively producing a generation of autistic adults kept in segregated circumstances; effectively we have on our hands a pervasive Autistic Segregation practice, which IDEA education act has allowed to occur, and which the Government has failed to correct.

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