"This creates even more of a rift
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"This creates even more of a rift
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"I am deeply unsettled by the apparent assumption by much of the population that all MTL exempt students are just trying to piggyback over their children into school placements that are undeserved. This creates even more of a rift between autistic individuals and their families and the larger singaporean population, causing further isolation from society in general and a greater tendancy for autistic families to just 'stick to their own'.
The MOE have not at any time i have seen gone out of their way to educate and inform the greater population about the difficulties faced by autistic students and other students with learning disabilities, which leads to their very reasonable exemption. They have instead repeatedly gone out of their way to remind US, parents of autistic students, how hard mainstream students work taking mother tongue. I'm afraid we are the wrong audience for that explanation. It is deeply insulting to ignore and fail to mention the extremely hard work put in by autistic students from the time of diagnosis which can be as young as 2 years old. While other children attended pre school, our children attended pre school for social exposure AND early intervention for ABA and on top of that speech therapy and behavioural therapy and occupational therapy, therapies which can follow children into primary school on top of the standard curriculum. I for one simply shut down whenever representatives from a mainstream society whose members stare, point, do not include, and do not value my child ask me to remember what a hard time THEY have of it, and that we must really remember how hard it is on them. This exercise in seeming discrimination which could be resolved by simply not allocating a MT score at all, or taking the best 3 grades approach, thereby also respecting the hard work of those students who do take mother tongue, has resulted in further isolation of many of the autistic family community who have been clinging to eachother in some quite great distress while they watch the prospect of their children's years of hard work being diminished and they fear their children are viewed as not as important to the future of singapore and not as in need of lifting up as those without any form of impairment." Charlotte, P2 Mum |