When to give up on inclusion

We're about to face a sad decision. We're coming to the time when we have to decide if we can carry on with inclusion for out little boy.

He's been attending our local school for one afternoon a fortnight for the last year and a half. They've done their best to accommodate his needs but it's getting increasingly hard.

We started there because we wanted him to have friends in our local area, friends who didn't have a disability. We wanted him to be visible in his local community and accepted by the children.

But it's in danger of backfiring because he doesn't interact with the kids in the classroom, and instead of learning to get along with them, he's scaring them.

When he gets cross he screams or runs round the classroom, and sometimes he knocks them over. Sometimes he scratches his carer, who's becoming increasingly worried about managing his behaviour as he gets bigger.

And as he gets older his autism becomes more and more apparent. He puts his hands over his ears to block out the noise, he sings loudly with no awareness of others, he parrots the same phrases over and over again.

"What do you want to achieve for him?" the teacher asked me, because it's clear our original aims are not working. I want to achieve inclusion and acceptance, but how?

It's hard to give up on inclusion because in a way it confirms my worst fears about his disability. That he will never cope in a mainstream school, that he really is that disabled. That he won't grown out of it or get better or any of those other things I hoped for once upon a time.

He will have to function in a neuro-typical world one day and special school will do their best to prepare him for it, but who will prepare the rest of the world, for him?