Letters to the Editor: The reality of autism classes in schools

'What school staff think is right for autistic kids and what is actually right for them are, in many cases, worlds apart.'

Many of the stories in Jennifer Horgan’s article ‘ An autism class opens. What happens then?’ resonate deeply with my wife and I with respect to our experiences with schools and autism. We have two autistic kids who attended the local primary school after their older sibling.

From the off, they were treated as being “defiant” or simply bold and punished along whatever lines the teacher saw fit. In one instance, we were told by the special education teacher (in a meeting that included the principal) that an autistic meltdown was a deliberate “choice behaviour” and not due to autism.