In May 2009, the team decided he had met the goals of his plan. His family asked for a new review, but Bruno said school-district officials declined, saying Luke was fine.

In October, two months after Dr. Daniel Kessler of St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center confirmed autism, it was clear Luke wasn't fine.

The kindergarten teacher complained repeatedly in e-mails to Bruno of Luke's misbehaviors - spitting, hitting, throwing sand at other children and defecating in the classroom.

The teacher also said Luke seemed "defiant" but she didn't believe it was because Luke had autism.

…

In March, Gentry confirmed autism. The education team created an IEP to address autism.

A week later, Luke's teacher wrote to Bruno, "I don't even want him in my classroom to be honest with you."

Bruno filed a formal complaint with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights to investigate discrimination. The teacher was placed on temporary leave as punishment.

To this:

New Zealand schools should view autism as a learning preference, rather than a difficulty or disability, says UK educationalist Neil Mackay.

His comments come in response to Autism New Zealand’s statement that social stigma, intolerance and ignorance in the education system are holding back the development of children with autism and driving many parents to remove their children from mainstream learning environments.

Neil Mackay is in the country this week presenting training workshops to over a thousand teachers and principals on how to meet atypical learning needs without affecting the classroom experience of other students.

He says that with the growing numbers of autistic learners, teachers need to support their inclusion in the mainstream by understanding their learning preferences and employing practical tools and strategies to improve outcomes in the classroom.

“This means fine-tuning learning so students feel empowered and supported to achieve. For children on the autism spectrum, it’s about helping teachers to understand that these children often need detail, order and certainty in their learning environment and finding practical solutions so these students can operate comfortably and confidently in the classroom,” says Mackay.

Which “z” would you rather live in?

Now, research also coming out of the UK sheds further light on this very important issue.  I read this article posted in Medical News Today:

This ground-breaking study shows for the first time an estimate of how many adults are living with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) in England. The study into the prevalence of autism spectrum disorders among adults shows that one in every hundred adults living in households has the condition - broadly the same rate as that cited for children.

The implications of this research are, in my opinion, nothing short of profound in their implications of the politics of autism.  Further relevance is revealed in these findings:

While 1.0 per cent of the adult population had an autism spectrum disorder, the rate for men was higher (1.8 per cent) than for women (0.2 per cent). This was in line with studies among child populations which show higher rates amongst boys.

People who were single were more likely to be assessed with an autism spectrum disorder than other marital statuses.

Among men, prevalence of an autism spectrum disorder was lower among those with a degree level qualification than among those with no qualifications.

Men renting their home from a social landlord were more likely than those living in other types of housing to have an autism spectrum disorder.

Adults with an autism spectrum disorder were no more likely to be using services for those with mental or emotional problems than the rest of the adult general population.

If I ever doubted we needed to take a serious look at how we, both in the US and internationally, approach autism this offers a never-before-seen glimpse that shows very clearly that we do.  Misinformation and assumptions having us looking for causes and solutions to this false “epidemic,” when what we really should be doing (and should have been doing all along) is using our resources to find ways to solve problems people with autism face every day.