My thoughts exactly.

I notice at my uni that around the time of exams and essay deadlines there is often an upsurge in people who miraculously slipped through the net that totally have dyslexia.

The fact that having dyslexia is enough to get you extra time in exams, free printing and etc is completely unrelated.

I am going to have to cut this short before I go into one of my rants.

1. You are not lazy just because you get bad grades
2. Some autistics really do have issues in school, are they stupid?
3. At least you're not one of those people so obsessed with autism image that you insult autistics who have issues, using any argument you can to say that they just suck and need to get a move on, or attack those who say that they are depressed and have troubles in life. Disgusting... >.> OR insult mothers or fathers who talk on the news about something that does include showing a disadvantage partly due to autism... its like "let's hide em from the news so that those less functional don't make me look bad! ow, my ego!"

You don't need to insult the children who get bad grades just because you're mad with their moms either. Some may not care, but you don't know which ones do and don't. You attacked the wrong people when you called them lazy and stupid.

I also disagree that someone wouldn't use their condition as a crown just because they are autistic. Autistics aren't any kind of pure or innocent or special. Just saying. Some definitely do complain of issues in school, seemingly justified though. Some have pride all the way up to here & feel very entitled.

I liked the studying part of school, and enjoyed most of the lessons (not the math, that was incomprehensible to me, and not the sport, which I thought was an institutionalized form of torture - basketball, callisthenics, racing carnivals, wtf?  Not something I've EVER used in my adult life!)  But the actual learning I found enjoyable.  

It was just the social side of it, where I got picked on pretty relentlessly for everything and nothing by the other students.  I would have liked school more, I think, if I could have just done the lessons quietly and not had to go outside and play during recess and lunchtime, when the teachers went into the staffroom for their lunch and didn't bother to supervise at all.  And the half-four wait every afternoon for the bus, plus the hour-long journey to get home.  

Oh, and you didn't dare go into the girls toilets during the day, but had to hang on, because that's where the tough girls hung out, cutting class and smoking.  If they cornered you in there, it was nasty.  I learnt to jigger the lock on the female teacher's toilet when I was menstruating, so I could get in there, change myself and clean up without getting beat up in the girl's loo.  I did that for six years, and never got caught!

So yeah, the LEARNING part is fun.  The rest is hell on earth, for an Aspie.
Alison

I don't think I necessarily got bullied, I was more often ignored, and some people liked me because I was nice and helpful...and I could be silly with the teachers, but at the same time I don't think I had a lot of common sense... when I look back, I think a lot of things people told me were lies, some things they had me do were ridiculous, and though they were laughing (and I liked to make people laugh) I suspect now that they may have been laughing at me....lol I didn't know any difference at the time.

However, I hated the social environment even if I wasn't being teased and I decided to stop showing up at school in 8th grade and subsequently failed out (since I hadn't done any work). I just sat at home, hiding in my basement and listening to music for the entire school day. After I was kicked out, my father home-schooled me which was great because I put together my own curriculum and gave myself tests, etc. It was all self-taught. In 11th and 12th grades I was taking college courses (i've been in college for a long time now). I hear high-school is the worst, so I am lucky I completely skipped it and I would probably have my future kids do the same (especially if they are autistic).

One of the things I have trouble with reconciling is the pros and cons of labeling a child- in psychology you can give a child a label to explain their bad behavior, etc, and suddenly it becomes a permanent excuse. So in a certain regard, they never have the opportunity to excel beyond a certain point because of the label (...a diagnosis is supposed to make treatment more accessible). That is why stereotypes associated with labels are VERY dangerous- it can end up causing someone to be more disabled than they really are...and can blacken ones self-esteem. And, yes, some people may fit the stereotypes and meet all the criteria, but many do not.

On that note, Autism Speaks does not seem to understand the extent of the damage they do...

When it comes to Asperger Syndrome (awareness) in modern times, I think a downside could be "learned helplessness", so therefore child will have a tendency to give up or have some sort of an entitlement mentality.  When I was a kid, I was always reminded that there was nothing wrong with me; therefore I should be doing better in school, working harder, etc.  To this day I always have a sense of substandard performance (such as not being fast enough at doing something).

Suddenly, I feel so OOOOOLD.

Or that person has some sort of other disability such as mental retardation.

Thats just plain stupid.... Don't they know that its a wide range.... a variety?

I've seen some of that. I've actually talked to some aspie teenagers, where I pretty much told them that they're looking to the wrong person if they want to be let off easy.

I don't want us to be feared. I want us to be accepted. If people fear us, we all know where that road leads.

Any advice you would want to give to my mom, for these kind of situations?

Hmm, if I had kids...I am not sure I could handle monitoring many children at once, all the time.

At 51 I still don't feel older than about 15.  
While I can handle adult situations efficiently, there's still a lot of the child (or teenager) in my outlook on life.  I don't think we actually do grow up, not exactly, we mature, but I hope we always retain that childlike wonder that seems to be an inherent part of our mindset.
Alison

It's the "child-like wonder" which can inspire inventiveness in the face of "mother necessity".  Think "Thomas Edison".  Think "Thomas Jefferson" and his perpetual passion for Monticello.  The list could go on.

^I concur- I feel like a 10 year old still (and look like one too). I don't like people treating me like I am stupid though (for example, though I am childish, my thought pattern is generally very complex and I can process a lot of information quickly). Yet, because I look, sound, and react like a child (when excited or something), people tend to treat me as if I were simple-minded. I actually did not know I was smart until I was about 19...and even then, I didn't believe it at first when my mentors would tell me.

You're so right.  I sometimes think we spook them, I really do.  So long as they can deride us as stupid, then we're not so scary.  But if they acknowledged that many of us are actually at least as smart as they are, then they worry about our potential.  And perhaps they might begin to feel a bit scared about having treated us so badly in the past?  So long as they can keep us in some sort of subservient retarded position, then they're not so scared, since we can then be disregarded as being just some sort of disabled form of them, rather than a new and functional species of human.  And our numbers are rising.  That's another thing they are becoming so uneasy about.  
Alison

I get people disbelieving that I was Dx'd autistic at age 3 because I seem so "normal" now.  Well, that was probably the result of a  combination of being so-called higher functioning and having had 40 hours/week intervention via Lovaas back in 1974/75.  Thing is, you can make a person behave however you want if given the right circumstances (ex: Milgram obedience studies); but I don't believe that learning how to behave normally really addresses the underlying reasons for the behavior.  It's sort of like treating a severe headache with pain pills that mask the symptoms, but don't really get at the root cause of the headache--a band-aid solution at best.  Besides, I'll never know how I might have turned out had I just been left alone.  It's an unanswerable question.  The worst part isn't the ABA, but not being told the truth about it for years.  That is the part that hurt the most for me.  

Regardless, I hate it when people (professionals) don't believe me.  I have documentation. Apparently, I don't fit their schema of what a person Dx'd with autism looks like as an adult (intervention or no intervention).  
Lydia

Is that necessarily a bad thing? Or is it just a miscalculation?

Same goes for zealots that you thought we're your friend....