The thing is, my DS can't read his own writing, still struggles to tie his own shoe laces, can't make friends, can't speak clearly enough that most strangers can understand him - but he's high functioning so on top of all that, he is acutely aware of his differences.
He's never been on a residential school trip alone - which I have paid for anyway, I had to go with him when he got too old for that and drive him an hour and a half daily to drop him off and pick him up for one so that he could take part. Not just because of his difficulties, but because his fellow pupils can't be considerate enough to allow him to share a room.
He's never managed to take part in an out of school activity, we tried football, the other children couldn't cope with him getting upset when something went wrong, we tried martial arts but he asked to be taken out when other children noticed his co-ordination difficulties. We tried army cadets and had to withdraw him after they refused to allow him to leave a room with a brass band playing in it because the noise upset him. (he would have been fine outside the door and is entirely responsible enough to stay where he's told to).
At school, he is seperated from the other pupils at break and lunchtime for his own safety, he has been punched in the face at least five times, he's had his school shirt urinated on while changing for PE and for two months people hugged him every time he passed because they worked out that it made him cry. He was told by his home economics teacher that he was not allowed to pick home economics as an exam subject because even though he enjoys it and is good at it, he can't lift a full pan of water. (All dealt with btw, not ongoing issues)
He is called mongo, retard and other lovely names so often that he quite often never even tells anyone so that it can be dealt with - even better DD now gets children in the park telling her her brother is all these things.
If he gets the exam results he's expected to this year, he will with the right support go to university - but he'll more than likely have to do that from home. I think he'll live independently after that, and hopefully once his peers are not teenagers he'll make more friends, but I doubt he'll have a relationship, or children - even though he loves small children.
Like I said pages back, we've never used exit passes because he was 13 before he got his official diagnosis, by which time although he finds the queues stressful, he understands the concept of them and is perfectly willing to put up with the stress to get to go on the ride. If it was too stressful or he struggled with the concept, there's no way in the world I would deny him yet another experience just so that the person behind us was inconvienced for 5 minutes.
And for what it's worth when he does have a meltdown, he doesn't lash out or get angry, he cries, he curls up into a ball and cries - if he did that in a queue it would disrupt the people behind far more than us skipping it, because I can't move a 5 ft 11 completely adult size 15 yr old.