People with Asperger's Syndrome

John Elder Robison is a very courageous man who like many others, grew up with Asperger's syndrome in a time when there was no diagnosis. Therefore, this made his childhood very difficult as his teachers, relatives, peers and even himself did not understand the challenges he faced. John Robison did not even really start to understand his differences and what they meant until he met with a friend who happened to be a therapist, explained the diagnosis and from there, John has ran with it.
The title of his book "Look me in the eye" really encapsulates the challenges he faced growing up, many people did not understand why it was uncomfortable or distracting for him to look people in the eye and therefore he was labeled as strange or even psychopath. I don't think it was really until he discovered his diagnosis that John understood why he had difficulties focusing, mainly because he had so many other stimuli distracting him.
Luckily for John, with Asperger's comes the gift of a very technical mind. People with Autism Spectrum Disorders are typically good at math, machines and electronics. John exploited this gift as he became an electronic specialist for Pink Floyd and KISS, although I doubt he really understood the social impact of these musicians and how lucky he was. John also worked his way up as an engineer for a major toy company until he decided to quit, again I suspect this is due to the politics involved within the large company as he moved up the ladder and thus increasingly became uncomfortable with all the social networking required. Now John Robison owns and operates his special automobile repair business along with the ironic special events that go along with his very successful book.
Now, suppose I was John's teacher when he was a youth, how would I have handled it differently? Well, first I have the advantage of knowing about a wide variety of disorders that have been diagnosed and therefore have many more resources available to try and understand the difficulties that people with Asperger's face. Therefore the best way a teacher could help students with learning disabilities is to research and try and understand what they are going through and decide what you as a teacher can do, not only help them cope but also to learn. That being said, not all students are easily diagnosed and some may have absolutely nothing wrong with them but are just struggling. As a teacher, the best approach is to first make the environment safe for that student and try to get them to open up as to what they are going through and what you as a teacher can do to help them.

Development of Special Services

Initially as I read the passage, I automatically agreed with the assumption that all special needs students should be included in everyday classroom activities. However, as I thought about it I realized that it is not as black and white as it seems. That being said I am against the relative isolation of students with special needs as I feel it does not help severely disabled students learn or adapt to become self sufficient adults and would seriously damage students who were not severely disabled. However if I were to think logistically, having all the special needs students in one class makes it easier for non special needs teachers, training of teachers and paying teachers.

The next two steps, integration and inclusion, I believe are successful approaches to educate students with special needs. I believe that either step depends on the severity of the students needs. Including a mild or moderately disabled child into a regular classroom is absolutely the right move as long as there are resources set up in that classroom for that child, IE. teaching aid, computers, etc. Including child with severe needs into a regular classroom may benefit that particular child, but would it benefit the other children in the classroom, I believe that it will the hinder the learning of other students and that is not what we want. Therefore, it is my position that children with mild or moderate needs should be included into everyday classroom activities as long as there are resources for them and children with severe needs will only hinder the education of other students and therefore should be integrated at a time when they can handle the everyday classroom.