Mainstream Education for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Abstract

The current chapter has attempted to outline, admittedly very broadly, the current state of knowledge regarding the education of a child with ASD in a mainstream classroom. As with many other reviews of this area, it is difficult not to conclude that the problems of this inclusive approach may well outweigh the benefits. It cannot be stated with any conviction that mainstream education will be appropriate for all children with ASD. Indeed, in many cases, mainstream education may be against the child's best interests and may be motivated by either misplaced political or economic imperatives. If the motivation behind mainstreaming a child with ASD is purely political in nature, then the group imposing that view needs to be very careful that they are not imposing their set of values on others to the detriment of those to whom it is being done. If the motivation behind inclusion is economic, then this view may well be deluded as either it will be very expensive to produce effective strategies for the appropriate mainstream education of children with ASD or even more expensive to sort out the problems that the experience has left the child with later in life. The discussion of the context to the "inclusive" education movement served to highlight the different goals that this policy could have and, in this light, a very cautious approach to the wholesale implementation of such a policy is urged. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)