Phil, I already know this, but it is a mental illness. I am familiar with special needs facilities in my own public educational system, and they are no place for kids with aspergers. Many of the children in special needs classes have down syndrome, or other more debilitating special needs. Those kids do not have the same mental development as most people with aspergers. A lot of people think Bill Gates has aspergers. Daniel Tammet has aspergers , and is a savant. Jacob Barnett has aspergers, and he is a child prodigy. Many of the children in the special needs programs I am familiar with have a below average IQ. They are kind, fun loving kids, but they can barely understand how to do simple addition. I guess what I'm saying is that , yes, there are no medications that will alleviate aspergers like you can do with depression, or schizophrenia, but there are some medications that autistic people can take to help a little bit. But there are no medications to help special needs people improve their mental development.
This isn't really a conversation that I want to get into on a very deep level.
Essentially what you're talking about is called co-morbidity, which is the presence of one or more disorders or diseases in addition to a primary(core) disease or disorder.
People with Autism, Autism Spectrum Disorder, and Asperger's Syndrome (which is an ASD) are very often affected with OCD, ADHD, Depression, ADD, Anxiety, etc. All of these can be can be medicated, but the core disorder of Autism cannot be medicated.
According to your logic, anyone with Asperger's Syndrome, which is defined as a Persuasive Developmental Disorder(PDD, which are a group of conditions that involve delays in the development of many things including basic life and motor skills, communication, and socialization), can take some magical "Autism Medicine" and eventually be cured or have the core disorder of Autism somehow alleviated. This simply isn't true.
Direct from Autism Speaks:
-Autism affects 1 in every 88 children, boys being 5 times more likely to develop it than girls.
-Autism is the fastest growing serious developmental disability in the USA.
The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders) is rumored to be removing Asperger's Syndrome from one of it's next revisions, forcing all people with ASD's(Autism Spectrum Disorders) such as Asperger's, to simply be labeled as "Autistic".
Just because someone is high functioning doesn't mean they aren't special needs.
Just because someone is a "savant" (I hate that word, it assumes that the person is stupid outside of their one realm of expertise), doesn't mean they don't suffer the effects of their disorder. Some have learned to live with it better than others... just the same way some of the alcoholics and drug addicts in our society have managed to live their lives and go to work as normally as we do. That doesn't mean they aren't affected or that any medicine will magically cure them.
I agree that there are much lower functioning members of our society who are greater special needs, but to call anyone with Asperger's or Autism not special needs is simply incorrect. By saying they don't belong in any special needs classes or integrated classes is to actually call people with Down's Syndrome and other developmental disabilities outright stupid, and that isn't correct either.
Don't mind me... I volunteer with the NJ State Special Olympics as a 16 year veteran Chaperone, head coach and volunteer with fund raising for Autism related events.
My wife works directly with the Autism population on Long Island as well.
