[sidlls]

As opposed to the juvenile delinquents, impoverished kids who don’t have access to tools for basic hygiene like running water or electricity (that was me at various points during my school years), and various other issues taking up “more than their fair share”?

What you’ve identified isn’t the autistic kids’ fault, it’s the miserly taxpayers’, incompetent admins’, and corrupt/spiteful politicians’, who don’t adequately fund or organize our public school systems.

[AllegedAlec]

> As opposed to the juvenile delinquents, impoverished kids who don’t have access to tools for basic hygiene like running water or electricity (that was me at various points during my school years), and various other issues taking up “more than their fair share”?

No, in addition to.

> What you’ve identified isn’t the autistic kids’ fault, it’s the miserly taxpayers’, incompetent admins’, and corrupt/spiteful politicians’, who don’t adequately fund or organize our public school systems.

It is though. Their unique blend of disability makes them inherrently unsuitable to any task that involves a group of other children. That's not to say we should blame them for it, but this is not something you can reasonably fix by throwing money at education.

I'd like to emphasize though that I meant the schooling issue as one of the many examples you could pick where autistic people are both at a disadvantage and are a detriment to the group. Please don't get stuck on this one example.

[wizzwizz4]

> Their unique blend of disability makes them inherrently unsuitable to any task that involves a group of other children.

Within the school system, which forces them to do so in the adults' way. Interesting that this “unsuitability to any task that involves a group of other children” tends to show up when the children aren't allowed to self-organise; in environments where children get to choose their own games, most autistic children are perfectly fine playing with their friends.

The problem comes when you try to force them to do things the way you want them to, and they find that difficult or don't want to. This is not the children's problem; this is adults on power trips.

You know the best teacher I ever had? The Reception and Year One teacher who distinguished between children and adults by whether they went to her school; who made me cross twice (justifiably cross, once); who would have children ask her to resolve disputes when they couldn't resolve them themselves; who gave the Year Sixes a budget and a catalogue and let them order the playground equipment; who talked to me about educational psychology and Game of Thrones when I was ten; whose class always (well, 99%) lined up at the end of playtime within 20 seconds, and patiently waited for an average of several minutes (I counted) for everyone else to line up; who was respected second only to the head teacher (who people were a bit scared of because he was the head teacher); who shouted perhaps four times I'm aware of, and never at her class because they were already paying attention to her; who never had any problems with “disruption” from the autistic kids (only from the biters, and the mute girl who kept hitting people).

Pretty sure she was autistic, too (if I remember one of our conversations right). Funny how that works out.

> I'd like to emphasize though that I meant the schooling issue as one of the many examples you could pick where autistic people are both at a disadvantage and are a detriment to the group.

I'm sorry, I'm not aware of any examples where autistic people are “a detriment to the group”. You'll have to provide them, I'm afraid.

[sidlls]

You’re not even wrong.