Our son was very disabled. He did not make eye contact, play appropriately, socialize or speak, but he was always always in a mainstream classroom with a full time SEIT and had hours of ABA at night. He is now 17 and is looking for colleges, good colleges. He is doing better than I could have ever hoped. He has never been in a special ed environment as per his Dev Ped. She had hoped he would emulate, which he did in time. His first special ed class was a Resource Room in 6th grade. But he did have a full time one on one aid until grade 2. I hope that helps.

That's the point, you need to find a daycare/nursery willing to work with the child and therapists. The special needs child needs a one on one teacher to help facilitate the learning. But if an autistic child is only with other child with similar behaviors, then it is harder to learn appropriate or NT behaviors.

@hdettwyler-I love hearing success stories about mainstreaming and perhaps I was a bit harsh when speaking about it, but the twins have had so many teachers and aides and assistants and specialist and doctors and the like. In all this time, I can honestly say that there was never long periods of time where we thought we had some good people and could relax. With the public school system, things are ever changing and staff does too. We could never keep a good doctor, a good teacher, a good aide or a good bus driver. So, I am very happy for all of you who find good people, but so far, it has been the luck of the draw with people. I will never stop trying because the children depend on it.

Mainstreaming does not work in my opinion. I am sure whomever it was that came up with this bright idea probably did not stick around to see how the process actually works at a lot of these public and private schools. I made it my business to do just that. My findings disturbed me. But at the end of the day, unless you have patient, understanding and caring individuals as teachers who actually care and are concerned about the welfare of the autistic child or teen, mainstreaming means nothing.