And the other side of the coin is this....

My friend's daughter was thrown against a cupboard by a young lad in her class. He was on the autism circle. He put his hands round her neck and was trying to strangle her. Luckily, the other kids managed to help her break free and the young lad resorted to pulling the cupboard door off it's hinges instead. They kept away from him...and no, I've no idea what started his anger off...but being surrounded by faces you can't read, being frightened all the time must be absolute hell.

The teacher held the rest of the class back at the end of the day, after the attack, telling them how they had to be sure to include this young lad, as it wasn't his fault.

No, it wasn't his fault, but what of the young girl who was terrified witless? What of her friends who saw it happen? No thought was given to them...and so the anger and resentment towards autistic children grows...

If that child had been brought up in a school where he was understood, where there were very small classes, and all the children were on the same circle then he may never have had to scream, kick, tear, destroy, because he may never have had to face such fearful situations on a daily basis for YEARS! Sheesh, what a terrible thing to do to any person, make them endure that feeling, endlessly.

Long and short is that he'd be far better off on a one to one basis, feeling safe with a small amount of people, having no pressure put on him because he IS surrounded by people who understand him completely and who go out of their way to help him whilst gently starting to include him into wider society bit by bit.

What makes me so angry is that this terrible fear is there from the start and then...the so-called 'Intelligent People' go and make it 100 times worse because they've not a clue what it's like to feel so frightened that you simply want to curl up into a ball, put a blanket over your head and hide from the world....

And whilst I know that gently educating children to accpet this is not the way forward, I also know that throwing them into factory farm schools, which are already destroying many 'ordinary' children who cannot cope with the desensitivity, is the WORST thing you can do to someone whose life is dominated by fear.