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Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders

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Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders need to learn the academic and social skills that will prepare them for future jobs, just as typically developing students do. The term “Autism Spectrum Disorders,” or ASD, refers to a group of disorders with specific characteristics including deficits with communication and socialization, repetitive behaviors, and limited or restricted interests. As much as possible, students with this disorder are typically mainstreamed, or included in, general education classes to improve their social behaviors and communication. Mainstreaming students with autism has positive benefits for their peers as well. Depending on the severity, students may also benefit academically from inclusion. However, since…show more content…
How Autism was diagnosed changed, and the term “Autism” started to be considered as a wide spectrum of disabilities (Daily 1). The Education for All Children Act was passed in 1975 and it guaranteed a “free and appropriate education in the least restrictive environment” (Dybvik 2). This means that in public education, an autistic student would be able to be educated with their nondisabled peers in the general education as much as possible. The Education for All Children Act was updated y the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 1997 (Dybvik 3). The IDEA added Autism as a category. As a result, over sixty-five thousand students with Autism across the country were educated in inclusive environments (Daily 1). Since the discovery of Autism, research has shown that the severity of disability can be very different in individual students. Therefore, children that may have once been excluded from general education can be mainstreamed more. Mainstreaming children with ASD will help these children grow socially. They will be introduced to typically developing children, and this helps ASD students to work on their social development (Haiduac 29). One thing that helps these students develop socially is the use of their peers as role models (Haiduac 29). They observe other behaviors and change the way they act accordingly (Haiduac 29). Heather McIntyre, who is a mother of a second grader with ASD, says that her son Kellen has
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