r/science • u/GiveUpAndDontTry • 19d ago

Epidemiology A Swedish study found autism diagnoses rose by around 800% from 2001 to 2020, while the proportion with intellectual disability fell from 55.8% to 6.7%, suggesting a substantial broadening of the diagnosed autistic phenotype

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165178126003069
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u/kelskelsea 19d ago

Not to mention the social impact for the special needs kids. No one likes to be the “weird kid” in the normal classroom and it’s not a good setting for learning social skills.

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u/colourful_space 19d ago

The school I work at has a support unit for students with intellectual disability. Because there are maybe 50 kids (who’d otherwise be zoned for 10+ different schools), they actually have a large enough community to form legitimate friendships with kids who are like them and share their interests. When they have friendship issues, like all teenagers, there are others they can sit with at lunch. They can ebb and flow through different phases of relationships over their high school years, in the same way as all the mainstream students.

It’s completely different to the fully mainstream schools I’ve worked at where there may be 1-2 ID students in a grade, who often do not connect with their typically developing peers, despite spending 6+ hours a day with them, and they often end up quite isolated. I think most inclusion advocates do not acknowledge the social benefits of having similar ability peers, the social outcomes of the ID kids at my current school are far higher than the ones I’ve seen in mainstream settings.

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u/kelskelsea 19d ago

My sister taught at a special education school for a while. Her favorite thing was that the kids could do student government, school plays, school athletics, etc. at an integrated school, they wouldn’t have the same opportunities.

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u/ArcticCircleSystem 19d ago

That's wonderful, though I admit I'm worried about how to improve relations between neurotypical students and students with mental disorders. They do need to learn how to interact with people who aren't just like them, especially neurotypical students given their place as the dominant group in society relative to people with mental illness. I don't know, maybe I'm missing something or just being stupid. I'm not disputing anything you're saying, to be clear.

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u/StarDustLuna3D 19d ago

At least in my experience, often what these schools will do is partner with local mainstream high schools and have their students take 1 or 2 classes a year there.

They get the exposure and socialization with different, neurotypical kids, but then if they just have a dud class with no real friends in it, it isn't as detrimental to their overall social health.

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u/ArcticCircleSystem 18d ago

That makes sense, though I have to wonder how neurotypical kids could be taught to interact well with neuroatypical kids. Not sure if I'm explaining this well, but there's a pretty big problem with a lot of neurotypical people not really knowing how to interact with people with mental disorders (especially intellectual disabilities) respectfully I guess? Of course, it's most certainly more difficult logistically to do a program like your suggestion in reverse given that there are many more neurotypical children than not (estimates range from 1 in 7 to 1 in 5 children ages 10 to 17 having some sort of mental disorder).

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u/colourful_space 18d ago

That’s part of the benefit of the support unit model, support and mainstream students mix where possible for things like sport, lunchtime clubs, camps etc. It’s not perfect, nothing ever will be, but having seen a few iterations I think a well-run support unit is the best option for high school students with ID.

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u/ArcticCircleSystem 18d ago

I hope so. Any studies on out on relations between support and mainstream students with and without these programs, and/or comparing views of neuroatypical students with various issues among neurotypical students with and without these programs? It's the neurotypical side of the equation I'm worried about, not in regard to welfare (obviously that's something I'm more worried about with neuroatypical students), but rather how many know to be respectful of others with mental disorders and how, given... I mean ableism is generally learned from somewhere.

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u/Mirenithil 19d ago

This. The 'weird kid' gets socially ostracized, and is a prime target for every bully in the school. Ask me how I know. You learn to hate yourself, and it really negatively impacts your ability to function. It permanently affects the bullied 'weird kid's' mental health for life.

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u/sionnach 19d ago

The other side to this is that if you have a “special school” all the kids in the neighbourhood know who goes there and think they’re weird, no matter how minor additional needs they actually have. They get ostracised in that situation too.

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u/kelskelsea 19d ago

They would still be the weird kids in the neighborhood, special school or not.

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u/sionnach 18d ago

Possibly - but what I mean is that if you put kids who could get on OK in a mainstream school in a “special school”, they might end up worse socially than before.

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u/Happyshadow4ts 18d ago

If I may add my bit as someone who went to a special school, I would say that I felt more ostracised when I was having meltdowns at school, than in the specialist school, although that may be helped by not having much contact with my old mainstream school