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Having been diagnosed with ADHD at such a young age, Aiden was able to get accommodations in school from jump. He could have fidget toys in class, take breaks if he needed to work off excess energy, and he always got extended time on tests.
Ashlyn was not so lucky.
See, Ashlyn was Autistic but, due to being a girl and not having high enough support needs to draw much attention to the fact that something was off, her disorder went under the radar for a lot longer. Her parents and everyone else just thought she was a bit odd and, due to her unrelated hearing sensitivities, that aspect of things never drew much attention either.
She was not diagnosed until her sophomore year of high school.
A part of her felt envy over the treatment Aiden got. Sure, she was allowed to have her noise-canceling headphones on in class (again, due to her other hearing sensitivities), but that was where the accommodations stopped.
She couldn't use any fidget toys in class because that was disruptive and not in her IEP. She couldn't take a sensory break during class time because that was just her making up an excuse to get out of work and not in her IEP. She couldn't get extended time on tests because she didn't need it and it wasn't in her fucking IEP.
After receiving her diagnosis, she had gotten hopeful that finally, finally, she could get more accommodations, but that simply wasn't the case.
She'd gotten so far in school that her case wasn't deemed a high enough priority and was promptly forgotten about by the staff member at her school in charge of such things. After all, she was performing fine as it was in school, grade-wise. She was a solid A and B student. She never got any conduct consequences. Her 'needs' weren't important enough.
Who cared if she was masking through meltdowns in class cause everything was too loud and bright? Who cared if she had to skim through English tests and risk scoring more poorly because her brain couldn't process and comprehend words that quickly?
She was fine...
Just fucking fine.