[asmos7]

you should spend sometime in special education classrooms in America. You'd be shocked what is considered a disability. You have to realize once you have a documented disability it opens up things like lifelong disability payments.

Imagine you have an E student, 16 years old. You have major anxiety over the thought of supporting them for the remainder of your life as it seems unlikely they'll ever be able to able to hold a job/achieve financial independence. Disability can be your ticket and parents hire what's know in the industry as advocates who you guessed it advocate for their student to be labeled and receive support for having a disability. I can tell you it's a surefire way to ensure your child receives passing grades w/ out doing anything at all b/c you can relabel the lack of effort as due to their disability.

It's akin to drug addicts learning the in's and out's of the hospital system to receive pain medications. Pain has a lot of wiggle room and ppl will milk it just they like do disabilities.

[bko]

I just looked it up and the number of kids on disability started to skyrocket in the early 90s. In 1980 there were about 260k kids on disability. By 1990, there was ~300k kids on disability. In 2000 there was nearly 900k.

> Let's imagine that happens. Jahleel starts doing better in school, overcomes some of his disabilities. He doesn't need the disability program anymore. That would seem to be great for everyone, except for one thing: It would threaten his family's livelihood. Jahleel's family primarily survives off the monthly $700 check they get for his disability.

https://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/

[sjg007]

You should read the rebuttals to the NPR piece which I think is one of the worst reports NPR has ever done. The journalist should have done better research. This was something I would expect out of a conservative think tank and completely missed the boat.

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/04/18/177745599/form...

[asmos7]

I mean yea - another way to look at is if you're making $700 per month doing nothing you'd need make at least $701 to even consider from a pure economic perspective - realistically more like $1000+ to be motivated enough to go to work.

So many will write that off but then you have the a ha moment of what if I do work under the table so that's what you do - best of both worlds free money and extra cash. Problem obviously is a lot of ppl choose illegal options especially considering how profitable they are.

[irishloop]

Even if all of this is true, it doesn't disprove the existence of autism as a legitimate disability or diagnosis.

[mason55]

> Imagine you have an E student, 16 years old ... it seems unlikely they'll ever be able to able to hold a job/achieve financial independence.

I'm confused; that sounds like a disability to me. If someone loses the genetic lottery and can't hold a job or achieve financial independence then that does seem like a pretty good use of disability funds. What is the alternative?

Maybe I misunderstood.

[alienbeast]

I think, in this example, the student isn't medically disabled, but is just a lazy nogoodnik who hangs out on YCombinator all day instead of studying.

[sjg007]

You have no idea what you are talking about and frankly your understanding of special education and people with disabilities is obscene.

Schools aren't necessarily even the best place to get that help and that's a big problem despite the provisions of the IDEA or your local state laws and programs.