‘‘They really do need something for high-functioning, where it’s in the middle,’’ she says.

Danny Sorbello says Dante’s future in the mainstream system will be ‘‘a real lottery’’.

‘‘In an ideal world, you hope that he transitions well,’’ he says.

‘‘But the thing is, if he doesn’t transition well, I mean, what happens then?

‘‘All the kids are different.

‘‘Maybe that’s what makes it so hard. But having said that, if you can harness these kids ...

‘‘I don’t know what Dante is gonna do, what he’s gonna be able to do later on or anything like that. But if you can harness that talent somehow, I mean, maybe, he may be a genius.

‘‘He could be anything, who knows.

‘‘It’s what the paediatrician said to us at the time: it’s about reaching their potential. You just don’t know what their potential is. They could be really special and something super-duper.

‘‘You just don’t where you’re kid’s going to go.’’

VAL GILL'S openness about not wanting a prep to year 12 autism school in the west has seen her incur the vitriol of some parents, and even political wrath.

But the principal of Western Autistic School stands by her belief that you can’t create an autism ‘‘silo’’.

Even so, she sees why mums and dads want that ‘‘insurance’’.

‘‘Look, it’s another option and I can understand parents wanting that option.

‘‘But to have them in an autistic environment from prep until the real world, somewhere in that you would have to build in the opportunity for those kids to blossom in a social world and not in a purely autistic environment.

‘‘And talking to [special education consultant] Professor Loretta Giorcelli, she’s saying that an autism silo is against all international best practice and research.

‘‘Philosophically we believe in a really intensive kickstart and then a supported transition but also ongoing support for our students that leave us via our outreach programs.’’

Gill believes high-functioning children on the autism spectrum are falling through the cracks.

‘‘My dream would be that every school in the state has an inclusion program with a teacher there and staff that are trained to understand our kids,’’ she says.

‘‘The kids that are missing out mostly at the moment are probably your Asperger group who are really struggling, who should be in mainstream.

‘‘It’s where they should be because for them their intellect is their source of self esteem.

‘‘You would never put those kids into special school ... it wouldn’t do their self esteem and their self-worth any good.

‘‘They have autism but they have normal or above average intelligence so they’re very aware of their difference.’’

The state government says Western Autistic School will continue to operate at Laverton in its own right.

So presumably, Melbourne’s west will go from having no P-12 school for children with autism, to having two specialist schools side-by-side in the same same suburb.

Gill says there is no simple answer when it comes to how to best educate children with autism.

‘‘The spectrum is so broad, from your little non-verbal kids right through to your super-great Asperger kids.

‘‘What we need to look at in education is a range of options for different needs.

‘‘There isn’t one option that is right.’’

LAUREN is as beautiful and mysterious as the Girl With a Pearl Earring.

I say hi, but she doesn’t respond. Her mother Anna Brasier explains that’s just how Lauren’s autism is expressed.

‘‘Some people can communicate quite well, others can’t,’’ Brasier says.

‘‘Simple things, like the day-to-day or knowing what to do or how to say hi to someone and looking at people — they have to learn it by rote.

‘‘She doesn’t like crowds. Sometimes she’ll cope, like when we go to Highpoint [shopping centre], she’ll cope but she’s so busy concentrating.

‘‘Even though she talks to us all the time, when we’re out in public, she won’t talk to us.

‘‘Someone once said, if you can imagine the brain like a road map or the CBD, where you’ve got the streets going this way and that way and you want to get from A to B — you know you’ve got to go whichever way you’ve got to go.

‘‘In autism, some of the streets have been rubbed out with the wiring of the brain ... you’ve got to show them the way, pretty much, how to get there.’’

Lauren, 10, spent 18 months at Western Autistic’s Niddrie campus before being ‘mainstreamed’ at Wembley Primary in her home suburb of Yarraville.

Her Naplan results are average or above average but Brasier says ‘‘it’s a struggle to get the intelligence out of her’’.

Already the mother-of-three is planning for her middle child’s transition to secondary school.

Brasier says the family will most likely move to Melbourne’s east so Lauren may attend a school that falls somewhere between specialist and mainstream.

‘‘The next hurdle for us is high school,’’ she says.

‘‘High school’s tough for anyone and there is a private high school out in the eastern suburbs, in Hawthorn.

‘‘I’m told the fees are quite exorbitant and the waiting list is, like, 10 years long, but they cater for children that are in between — [that] are higher functioning, not at the special school end; kids that would be too articulate for a special school and not intellectually disadvantaged, but kids that just couldn’t cope with their normal high school setting.

‘‘I think the people that are making the decisions, they need to understand what autism is. You can’t do a one-size-fits-all answer for it because it’s not like that.

‘‘It’s not like someone who’s, say, a paraplegic in a wheelchair: they go and build ramps and accessibility and all that.

‘‘It’s not a visible disability.’’