What Happened Today at School?

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My son is 7 years old and is autistic. He use to be non verbal. But he speaks a lot more now. The problem is trying to decipher what he means.
Today he rode the bus home. He is always excited when he gets off the bus. He immediately starts stimming. Today the bus pulled up and as usual he got off really excited. But as soon as we reached the front door he became upset. He was super sad. It broke my heart. We got in the house and I had him sit down. And I tried to find out what happened. I thought he was upset about the bus ride. He said no. When I asked about school he got upset. He was mad and wanted me to leave him alone. I think he just wanted to go downstairs and decompress. So I let him.

But my heart was heavy. So I went downstairs and asked him to tell me what happened at school. He said Mrs Barz made him touch her chest(he used another word). I was shocked. I never described a woman's anatomy to him. He should not know that word to describe a woman's chest. He got mad again. Told me he can't tell me or bad things will happen. (this line bad things will happen is from one of his TV shows-he scripts). I asked him to write on paper what happened. He wrote 'I am sad. The love of me is bad and is ruined'. He wouldn't tell me anything more. He just wanted his ipad. I am lost. I want to believe him if it is true. But he also says he chased a kangaroo on the playground or that he spoke to a Zebra last week. I told my husband and he is contacting the principal but I am not sure what to do. If I ask 'Did someone touch you?' He will say no. If I ask 5 minutes later he says yes. I asked did someone hurt you when he got off the bus. He said no one hurt me. Has anyone ever dealt with this communication issue? I don't want to plant ideas in his head. I try to ask questions carefully. I just don't want to wrongly accuse someone. The staff at the school has done so much for us. But at the same time if he is being hurt I need to know but don't know how to get him to tell me.

I'm so sorry. That sounds horrifying! Keep a couple of things in mind. First off, remember literal language. So, if he was asked to touch someone's breast (that ain't a bad word) he wasn't touched. He was asked to do the touching. If he does say that someone touched him, it could be touched on the shoulder. Just remember the exact meaning of the words that you use with him and the exact words he uses back. Reduce NT/autistic translation errors.

I think it's essential to teach children correct words for private "parts" and private functions. We need to be talking about good touch and touch that makes us uncomfortable. Our children need to know that they can come to us and tell us about this stuff, and the best way to do this is to show them that we are OK hearing that. And then you have to BE OK hearing that.

NT kid get all kinds of sex and body function talk from the other kids on the playground. If your kiddo has been ABA or similarly trained, he might never to get a chance to act out like this. These "mis-behaviors" are an important part of childhood. Yet somehow, we think it's a good idea to train kids away from that - maybe because it violates our adult sensibilities?

Autistic people, in general, do grow up into adults who have sex. Learning about healthy relationships and unhealthy relationships best starts early - like at 4 or 5 years old. Pretty much as soon as they start to have an awareness that mommies and daddies are different under their clothes.

There's a curriculum through the UU and UCC church called "Our Whole Lives" which contains age appropriate materials, children's book suggestions and similar content to start this kind of conversation. (It is not specifically Christian.) It's supposed to be a class, but you could use it for ideas for your home.

My humble non-parent (but I was a teacher) opinion on what to do next is that you did the right thing, talking to the principal. They probably have a school therapist who might be able to help him communicate what happened. In the mean time, it's pretty obvious that the principal should enforce a rule that he never be alone in a room with one adult, and especially the teacher in question. This is for his safety as well as her's.

somanyspoons,

Thanks so much for your response but I feel you misunderstand me or maybe I you. Which I get a lot because I am an adult with autism who never had speech therapy. I do get my verbiage wrong at times. I also don't pick up on hints very well. I am very straight forward. What I got was that you are assuming I am afraid to discuss sex with my child. I am absolutely 100% not. I chose as his parent not to speak about certain body parts and sex because of his maturity level is slower than other kids. However, I do discuss that no one should ever touch his private parts and he should not touch theirs. The teacher did not ask him to touch her breasts. She asked him to touch her 'boobs'. Which is a word he does not know. He said he got scared and tried to bite her. I was trying to be discreet in my early post so I did not offend anyone. He does not play on a playground with other kids. As a matter of fact he refuses to play with the other kids. He stays inside with an aide. Yes he could of learned the word 'boobs' from another child. But that is why I am asking has anyone dealt with this communication issue when trying to find out if your child is a victim of another person? That's all I want to know. My mother was 5 years old and molested by her brother. She went to her mother and she didn't believe her. I want to make sure my son knows I am always on his side no matter what. But my son is autistic and struggles with his words. Apparently I do too. Sorry for the misunderstanding.


PS: I forgot to add that he was very specific when speaking about these things. Which he NEVER is. That is why the bells in my head are going off.

Good luck with this. I hope the communication with the school goes well.

My wife just got training in dealing with these issues as a teacher, and only when we had discussed that very good training (provided to teachers by the Y) did we come to understand how truly terrible the middle school had been about this stuff.

I don't know what to say but that my heart goes out to you and your boy.

I hope this isn't as bad as it sounds and ends as well as it can.

Thank you! The principal got back to us today. She spoke with the sub. It all makes sense now. The sub teacher came around the corner and said 'BOO' not boobs. This scared him. It was not malicious. But it sent him into a full melt down. He was just leaving to go home when it happened. And he said those words 'I am ruined' right after she scared him. It is just so hard sometimes to understand him. It can be down right frustrating because I really do want to understand what he is saying. I usually have to keep my sentences short when speaking to him. Sometimes it will take him 5 minutes to respond to a question. I am just relieved it was nothing serious.

Thank you so much Adamantium!

Such good news!

You never know with these things. My kids are both very verbal, with large vocabularies and I still find getting some approximation of "what really happened" is like searching for Higgs boson signatures at the Large Hadron Collider.

I am truly glad your mind has been put at ease.

Thank goodness! I'm glad you figured that out, and that he wasn't being molested. You must have been so relieved.

I do think there is some communication problem here. The word "boobs" is also not a sensitive word that would cause offense. It's a word that even small children usually know. If your son was neurotypical like my nephews or like the NT kids I used to teach, he would be making boob jokes around 4 years of age. (You should hear what comes out of my 3 year old's mouth! He will run up to you, say "butts!" and run away squeeling with laughter.)

A BIG hole in the way we educate autistic kids today is that we ignore words and ideas that we think aren't age appropriate. It gets even worse as they get older. We'll often avoid any topic that we think isn't good for their assumed developemental age. Which means that we have 15 year olds who have never been told about sex, even though they are fully functioning, if you take my meaning. But the truth is that NT kids are learning this stuff behind the scenes the whole time. The taboo is about talking about it with adults, not about kids talking to each other. This leaves autistic kids particularly vulnerable. Because they don't learn with other kids and we don't teach them directly. The estimates of how many kids/adults with developmental disabilities get sexually abused is huge - the highest number I've heard is a full 49%.

This is in part because we adults never teach autistic kids to say NO! In fact, a lot of the therapies we give them insist they always say yes, no matter how much something feels wrong. That's a real problem when you are faced with a sexual predator. So, even though he is very young, and working very hard on other things, this is a great time to start to protect him by teaching him about good/bad touching and his rights to his own body and privacy. And yes, that it's OK to say boobs.

I'm so glad he doesn't need it this time, but maybe it's a good wake up call? Not just for you, but for anyone else who googles this topic and comes across wrongplanet. That's why I post here. It comes up on searches, so it seems important to get solid information out there.

Here's a webpage on the matter for anyone reading this who is interested. http://www.thearc.org/page.aspx?pid=2457

I am also very glad everything turned out OK. One of the things that is scariest about a child who does not communicate in a clear way is exactly this type of scenario.

I also want to echo Somanyspoons, in how dangerous all the emphasis is on compliance. The issue is not usually compliance as much as knowing when and when not to comply, and not being frozen when you have to take action.

Not complying seems so easy, but for autistic people it is often only easy when something in their brain triggers that compliance to be impossible. It is hard when it doesn't, even if you know something is wrong.

First off all:
Why would an adult who is accused of something automatically be believed, when she offers an explanation with a word that sounds similar to a word your son uses?
If something would have happened it would make sense that she would lie and make a story up.

Children who are known to lie about stuff or tell fantasy stories will be less likely to be believed, even if they tell something that is true. That makes them vulnerable to people with bad intentions. If someone wants to do something bad to a child, it makes sense to pick a child who can’t tell what happened because the child isn’t able to express himself well. Then the adult with bad intentions knows that even if the child is able to tells the truth there’s a big chance people don’t believe the child anyway.
I would try to find out if there are any children or adults who have seen what happened and who can confirm the story of the teacher. If teacher’s story is true it would make sense that people have seen it happen.

You’re the one who knows your child the best.
Trust instincts when your alarm bells go off.

Sometimes people with autism don’t have access to the words the need.
Then they can only use the words they’ve picked-up somewhere. Sometimes they can only tell what happened with lines from a tv show. He might have seen seen a tv show where someone was touched inappropriately.
The first line after someone is touched inappropriately in a tv show is usually:
“Don’t tell about this, or bad things will happen”.
“The love of me is bad and is ruined’ and 'I am ruined' are things that touched inappropriately could say in a tv show.
So your child does use 3 different to tell you that he touched/is touched inappropriately I think that’s pretty impressive for a 7 year old who struggles to express himself.

The teachers story uses “Boo” as a word that’s similar to the word “Boobs” that your son used.
These words are very similar.

Maybe you can find out what happened without using words.
May you can ask him to draw what happened.
Or you can draw both stories yourself and see how he reacts too both drawings.
You could also ask him to show what happens by using dolls that represent him and the teacher.
Or you can make a video recording where you re-enact both stories and she how your son reacts.

Some children with autism only hear/understand/ process one word of a sentence.
Here are 2 samples of sentences and what such a child might hear/ understand/processes
Sentence: “We are going to school.”
What the child hears/understands/processes: “school”
Sentence: “You don’t have to go to school tomorrow”
What the child hears/understands/processes: ”school”
So both sentences mean the same to this child.

Even if the teacher’s story is true:
Your child still says these words:
‘I can't tell me or bad things will happen.’
'I am ruined.'
'I am sad. The love of me is bad and is ruined.'

Those words are probably still true for him, whatever happened.
I Think believing something can have a great impact somebody, whether it’s truth or not.

No matter what happened:
I think it’s important that your child knows that he can talk about anything and that nothing bad will happen because of that.
That he isn’t ruined.
And that “The love of him” is good.