Autism Spectrum and Mainstream Schooling

Autism Spectrum and Mainstream Schooling
This is in the first person because I had an autism spectrum disorder. Mine happened to majorly clear up with a gluten free and casein free diet. By now most parents of autistic children are aware of this diet. Many people say the diet is a crock, but really it works for some kids and it doesn’t work for others.
My gluten free and casein free diet became recommended to me by a urine test. However, many children may have had this test and been told that this diet will work for them when it won’t. This is because the test was found to return too many positives, but that old standard was simply changed. So, I can understand some people will get angry at some of the things above, but these I feel are more like frustrations of personal experience. Yet, understand me that not every case of autism is alike. I was high functioning, having a 120 IQ. However, my auditory comprehension scored on the level of an actual retard. There were other areas such as coding and short term memory where I lagged behind too. Perhaps, retard isn’t the proper word, but you know what I mean.
The first sign I know of that I had autism was back when I was a baby, but only because my mom told me. I received a vaccination and stopped talking for a year. Perhaps, something happened then to cause this. Perhaps, the vaccination timing happened to be a coincidence. However, I do not remember back that far. What I do remember was kindergarten, so I will speak of my own memories from now on and not my moms. Besides my mom is more inclined to lying than me. I rarely know if I get a truthful answer from her. I take everything she says with a grain of salt, and only listen to facts that I can check with a more reliable source. Having autism, I have also been known to have my own psychotic distortions. These really aren’t attempts to lie, but false information has been known to leak from my mouth by accident.
I’ll start with kindergarten for schooling. Most importantly, the public school teacher wanted me to be held back, but I was very intelligent. Usually, intelligent children are the ones to progress to first grade, but I wasn’t ready. I remember crying a lot during this period of time and experiencing a lot of fear. I was not ready like the other children. Something was wrong with me, and the teacher recognized this and wanted me to repeat the year. Instead, my mom very proactively sent me to a Montessori school.
If you aren’t familiar with Montessori schools, they tend to be small and offer lots of individual attention. This is what I needed. I learned very well with all that attention. There were also minimal situations where I was fearful or cried. I felt comfortable there. It was an excellent place to learn because every student gets the individual care he or she needs, but it is not special education. So, I was very fortunate to reenter public school at a time when I was ready for it, and my mom decided that was fourth grade. The name Montessori comes from its founder, Maria Montessori.
I attended fourth grade as part of an accelerated part of the public school. I was very intelligent, having a 120 IQ even with many deficiencies associable with autism. Sometimes people with 120 IQs do go on to get doctoral degrees. So the fact that I had autism meant I had to spend more time studying than most people, but once I learned something, I generally mastered it a lot better than most. This is why it is autism spectrum disorder. There is a whole spectrum of it. It does not necessarily mean stupidity. There has even been an autistic professor at college. Despite having high intelligence, I did have some problems. For example, one of my sixth grade teachers referred to me as, “The boy who couldn’t follow directions.” It was true, so I didn’t get angry. I had retardation level auditory comprehension skills measured by a professional, and this meant that I didn’t even understand the words or directions coming out of the teacher’s mouth. Most of my learning and study was done at home through reading the textbooks we had. Many people can’t do such a thing, but autism didn’t affect my ability to comprehend what I read. On the IQ test for reading comprehension, I scored none wrong, 95th percentile. I was also good at figuring things out on my own, scoring perfectly on the IQ block assembly test, as well. This essentially meant I had the ability to absorb and put things together on my own, and did not really benefit from having a teacher that I couldn’t understand the words coming out of his or her mouth. They simply came too fast. I would have had to have been talked to like a retarded person to understand the teacher.
This pattern held true in college. Classes were worthless. I learned everything at home, reading and doing homework. I remember one of the young ladies at college commenting that she was amazed at just how much I studied, but by now things were really competitive, and my marks weren’t very good. Around about my junior year of college I got the gluten free and casein free diet, but that wasn’t until I once dropped a lot of weight, and was unable to bathe and take care of myself. At home for schooling, mom had always cared for me, but when I was left to my own, even with exceptional discipline, I was unable to care for myself because of the autism.