The Importance Of Autism In Education

All students have unique styles of learning that best suit themselves. The condition known as autism affects the way that one processes information, which in turn alters the way one learns. Because many autistic students need to learn in personalized manners, schools isolate them from the rest of the student body. Schools should place students with autism into the same classrooms as “normal” students because integration benefits all those involved. Much evidence reveals the benefits of integrating autistic students, yet arguments against unification continue to arise. The claim that autistic students impede upon the progress of the rest of the classroom remains one of the largest arguments against classroom integration to this day.

Some observations note that autistic students can be prone to disrupting the classroom environment, wasting valuable class time and commandeering the attention of the teacher. Many attempt to blame the idiosyncratic social skills that accompany autism for these breakouts, but the real problem is that typical classroom environments disfavor students who have autism. Some educators hold the false belief that autistic children will never learn and are choosing to misbehave (Romagnoli 8). This belief illustrates the general lack of understanding about autism, and proves that we need to better educate our teachers on what autism really is. Grasping a better knowledge of autism should allow teachers to create an environment that is conducive to all students, rather than ostracizing to students with autism. Some evidence suggests that having classes of students that are diverse in learning ability is actually beneficial to all students, rather than detrimental. To explore this idea, an eleven year old girl n...

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...s this to justify their judgment. Recent statistics show that almost one out of every eighty children born in the U.S. today will have autism. Does it make sense to exclude autistic students from normal classrooms when such a large percentage of children suffer from autism spectrum disorder? According to Douglas C. Baynton, the author of Disability and the Justification of Inequality in American History, “Disability is culturally constructed rather than natural and timeless” (Baynton 52). Baynton means that as a society, we label differences in each other as flaws rather than accepting that everyone is different in their own way. By integrating autistic students into classrooms from an early age we can reshape how autism is perceived; autistic students can prove that they are able to learn and others can learn to see autism for what it really is, just a difference.