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Mcrakin
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14 Nov 2013, 5:29 pm

I am in college and I have PDD-NOS
I have been having problems in a couple of the classes I am in. I have been told that I am interrupting class and asking too many questions, I find this especially ironic as there is a sign on the wall that says :there are no stupid questions". From what I understand, currently the problem is that when I am taking notes I will miss the last couple of words they say every now and then and thats what they are getting tired of I think. I ordered a recording device 3 weeks ago but it has not come in the mail yet so I ordered something different in the mail today and had it expressed shipped. I am hoping by recording my lectures I will be able to stop asking questions. I want to give my teachers a little bit of information but I am not sure what I should tell them. I do not want them to think I am trying to make excuses.



b_edward
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14 Nov 2013, 5:57 pm

Some of the following are a little bit of a tangent from your original story, but, problems regarding the asking of questions are one of the plagues of being on the spectrum.

I will go up to a group of peers who are talking freely, and I already know, I have to either interrupt them or stand there forever or until someone says (condescendingly) "hey if you have something to say, spit it out.". But if I interrupt them, they will get irritated.

Then, of course, they don't understand why you are asking the question. The things that you care about, the things that matter to you and are worth asking about -- it doesn't make any sense to them. In reality, it does not mean your question is invalid. But it does mean your question is not respected.

Then they usually answer the wrong question. Then when you try to clarify it, they think you are pressing the issue. You aren't. You are just clarifying. And sometimes you just know that somebody who is higher up in the social pecking order would be able to ask for the same clarification without being criticized for it.



CosmicKitten89
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14 Nov 2013, 6:00 pm

Teachers don't like questions because it disrupts their class. They want you to ask after class since they want to make sure to give out the entire lecture first. But then you forget what you were going to ask, don't you? Is it hard to write it down? And really, what's the point of just lecturing something you could read in the book? They take a long time to get to the point and that loses me, the lecture is at a different frequency from my own mind and I find it more engaging to just zone out in my own thoughts. That's what I hated about college was that they don't like to discuss with the students, they just blab blab blab through the entire lecture...

Perhaps you have a hard time learning things from other people speaking? Why can't you just get special permission not to attend the class and get a note taker to take notes for you and read the book? Or record the lecture on your own?



DrSuess
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17 Nov 2013, 2:32 pm

If I understand you correctly, you are asking your instructor to repeat something that had just been said, so you can get it in your notes. You sound like a responsible student with a bit of a delay in your auditory processing speed. I commend your dedication. Depending on the frequency of your questions though, I can understand why your instructors might get annoyed; you are disrupting their train of thought.
Recording the lecture so you can go back and fill in the parts you missed sounds like the perfect solution. It can be time consuming however. If you have an iPad, I suggest you check out the app Audionote. It costs about five bucks and I think it's fabulous! You take your notes on your iPad while it is recording the lecture. Each time you hit return and start the next note, it records the time. Then, when you're reviewing, you can touch that part of your notes where you missed something, and the recording starts at that part of the lecture. This way, you don't have to listen to the entire lecture all over again.



thewhitrbbit
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18 Nov 2013, 11:28 am

I can see how a professor would get annoyed with constant interruptions. Questions are not bad, but if it's the same "can you repeat" over and over, it could be a problem.

I second the recording the lecture; however, you may want to talk to your disability office. In most US states (If your in the US) there are laws regarding the recording of people. Where I work, we give our students a memo authorizing the recording, but they are still required to notify the professor per the law.

We recently had a situation were a professor threatened to have a student arrested for wiretapping his class. The student notified him about the recording, and he called the Disability office screaming that he had the student detained and he was going to press charges.

Ultimatly it was worked out because he wasn't going to win and because the student notified him, no law was broken.