Over the past few years, I have had the privilege of being able to work firsthand with special needs children and families. Being neurodivergent myself (autistic and ADHD, commonly referred to as AuDHD) I have a personal investment in how children with differently wired brains are treated.
Before touching on my professional experiences, I want to give a quick summary of what I recall from my school days. I went through the public school system in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I specify not to age myself but to remind readers that our knowledge of neurodiversity has made great progress since then. I was in the Special Education program until eighth grade, with most of my IEP goals being social in nature. I did not understand the other children, neither their interests nor why they acted the way they did. My goals remained mostly unchanged during the many years I had an IEP. Academically, there were no concerns. Behaviorally, there were mostly no concerns. I do not recall ever having a meltdown in school, nor have I ever read about it in the records my parents kept.
Fast forward to now, and I include in my resume the titles of teacher, crisis interventionist, active-duty military personnel, program director, paraprofessional, in-home behavior technician, and residential counselor. My education involves an MS in Experimental Psychology along with years of self-study on trauma-informed care. And as a reminder, I am autistic.
Perhaps my most frequent observation in my work in schools specifically is how often compliance is prioritized.
I fully understand needing to do things one doesn’t want to do and building a tolerance to discomfort. However, when the problem is simply that the child is hungry or does not have ready access to clean water at home (both of which were the root cause in encounters I had), the situation is very different. I have come to approach any behavior that is labeled as “noncompliance” with a mental checklist. When was the last time this child ate? Had something to drink? Went to the bathroom? Had time to move around and play? And I am constantly amazed at how many “noncompliance” problems vanish following implementation of this mental checklist.
On a happier note, I have witnessed very little social exclusion and bullying in my role as a professional in schools. I certainly experienced it myself: the subtle but unmistakable sense of being different from your peers. Not being invited to birthday parties. Eating by yourself at lunch, not by choice. Always getting picked last regardless of athletic prowess. But the fact that I have not observed any such occurrences myself (at least not in elementary school settings) leaves me hopeful that we are on the right track.
I have also come to witness the various systemic barriers that impact on the ability of very caring people to provide good care. For example, a school I recently worked at had scheduled a class walkover to a nearby location months in advance. In the days leading up to it, everyone was confident in their schedules and the modifications they’d made. The morning of the scheduled walkover, things suddenly shifted. Now, the walkover would be happening that morning instead of the afternoon. We as staff had less than an hour to accommodate this change. The walkover time was changed “because of a severe weather threat,” which referred to the predicted chance of heavy rain in the afternoon. Certainly precautions should be taken in the event of an emergency, but I tell this story so that it will serve as a teachable moment. The walkover could have been rescheduled much sooner. With so little time to adjust, our focus as staff shifted to reworking our day. This was not conducive to providing the best care we could.
On the question of whether neurodiversity is welcomed in school more so today than it was when I was growing up, I would have to refer to the kids currently in school.
They are the ones in it, and that makes them the authority. I think our knowledge of neurodiversity as a society has made tremendous strides, but there is still a long way to go in terms of acceptance. I frequently encounter stories of autistic adults like me receiving a police presence in response to a meltdown. I was once asked if I wanted to press charges against a nonspeaking child after they pushed me away from them and I sustained an injury due to falling. I still cannot believe it even occurred to law enforcement to ask me that.
To sum up my thoughts on neurodiversity in schools, I will say the following. We are much more educated about differences now than we were decades ago, but this does not always translate to acceptance. I do not recall ever being taught self-advocacy skills when I was in school. I do not recall self-advocacy being a goal on anyone’s IEP today either, though as I’ve previously stated, I haven’t witnessed much in terms of overt bullying or discrimination. Though I have seen neurotypical children work with and reach out to their neurodivergent peers in social settings, I am always left wondering if this behavior comes from a place of inclusion or if it was prompted by teachers and other staff. And because I am no longer a child myself, I am not able to weigh in on whether true progress toward acceptance has been made in the school environment. I can only share what I have observed in hopes that things continue to get better.
