Children with Autism and School - Research Paper Example

with autism should be mainstreamed in the general population of students in the school or if they should remain in specialized programs that meet their needs. On one side of the debate, people feel that autistic students in public schools will be distracting, slowing down the progress of the other students. On the other hand, others believe that by being in public school settings and being subjected to students that display proper education behavior, autistic students will be influenced by them to respond in the same way, thus learning some form or other of socialization and communication skills.

The biggest controversy about allowing autistic children into public schools is that they do not possess the behavior to be around others, especially in an educational environment. Depending on the kind of autism that a child has, they are usually unable to socialize and communicate with others, oftentimes withdrawing into themselves and being entirely unaware of other people around them; sometimes this includes situations, which can be potentially harmful to the autistic child, as well as others.

People are unable to hold the attention of an autistic child for even the smallest bit of time. Due to this lack of attention towards others and being unable to learn the proper techniques to do so, autistic children often have a difficult time in communicating their needs or intentions to others. Their inability to communicate properly can cause disruptions that can effect the attention and learning of other students if they were placed in the general population of students in schools. Furthermore, given their inability to communicate, an autistic child placed in the mainstream of a public school will have great difficulty in paying attention to their lessons, therefore making it almost futile for them to be in that class.

Teachers will be unable to accommodate for both autistic and mainstream students; indeed, teachers would need special training to prepare them for teaching