Your thoughts?

[Guest guest]

dd, 11 , pdd-nos, mainstreamed in gr.5, has an aide in class to help

the teacher, thats all the help she gets, I spend alot of $$ to have

her basically homeschooled by a tutor. There are no special ed

classes here, everyone believes in integration, which basically

means we welcome your child for socialization, but educating her is

up to you, but of course they would never admit that. There is a

school for special needs kids, classes of 10-12 with a special ed

teacher and an aide, all services are free from ST, OT, Life Skills,

Creative Arts, my thinking is this would be wonderful for her, now

I'm getting feedback from people saying oh how could you put her

there, it would ruin her self-esteem, blah,blah blah, being with NT

kids are the best role models. Anyways I totally disagree, she would

fall through the cracks. I personally feel that her self esteem

would improve seeing that she is not the only child like this rather

than being shunned by NT kids. So I had to have her re-evaluated and

her scores fall in the mental deficiency range, I wasn't surprised

but now is she considered to be slow? Intellectually delayed? I

asked her on the way home what were some of the questions asked, and

she said she was asked what a clock was, her answer, it ticks. I

said you know what a cloc is for, telling time? She said to me, of

course I know, and the doctor knows the answer, so why did she ask

me a stupid question like that? I guess I'm just alittle upset,

even her AS friends look at her like shes from Mars sometimes. But

getting back to my question, what would you say to these people who

are clueless of what its like to have a child like her?