capriwim wrote:
b9 wrote:
you can not live a life where no one notices a problem with you if you are autistic, and it seems unbelievable to me that someone can read a pamphlet that resolves their life's questions at 20 something years of age.
all through my youngest years i posed a major problem to the main stream school system, and it is impossible that i would never have been noticed as someone who needed to be placed in an alternative situation,
You say you were a worry to your parents. This implies that your parents cared about you and took responsible action. From what you say, it seems also that the health authorities paid attention, and were aware of autism as a condition.
With many of the older generation of people on the spectrum, people may have noticed a problem but lack of awareness and understanding, and sometimes lack of parental care as well, means that the problem was seen as the child being bad. Or the parents may have been ashamed, seeing the 'problem' as stigmatising, and trying to beat it out of the child, or hide the child. Values and understanding and awareness change over time, and today society is a lot more accepting and understanding of disability than it was in the past.
In my situation, I was noticed plenty of times as a problem and someone who needed to be placed in an alternative situation, but when that happened, my parents moved house to escape the situation. My mother was neglectful and abusive, with problems of her own, and as far as she was concerned, I was a problem child who was naughty. She did not want anything looked into further, because, like any abusive parent, she was afraid her own abuse would be exposed. My father worked long hours and lived in a lot of denial - he wanted to see his children as successful and 'normal' - he refused to believe it when my school advised that I needed to be put into a special school.
And then came the problematic fact that I have a very high IQ. I was sent to an educational psychologist, who tested my IQ and then declared that I was a gifted child and that my problem must simply be boredom, and a failure to understand that teachers are authority figures. Back then, if you had a high IQ, you were seen as okay!
Rather than judge others for not having had a diagnosis at an early age, an alternative perspective would be to be thankful for parents who were concerned, and health authorities who were aware of autism. An early diagnosis is a very fortunate thing to have.
Good points, capriwim. Autism was definitely associated with a low IQ in the 80s and early 90s, when I was in school. I was bounced back and forth between gifted classes and special ed ones because my processing problems slowed me down verbally while my visual memory allowed me to learn info as soon as it was presented to me in writing. Once I learned to read lips (on my own), I didn't go back to special ed and was completely under the radar.
Also, for the first half of my schooling, I was in private schools - which simply don't have the support network that public schools do. By support network, I mean things like school psychologists, counselors, and the same procedures for detecting learning disabilities. There were fewer teachers who weren't necessarily educated in how to work with kids with special needs. And even if they had been, there simply wasn't a category for aspie kids yet. In public schools we have so many staff and teachers who are prepped to notice things like learning disabilities or developmental disorders as part of their licensing process. Unfortunately, in private schools, this kind of knowledge/certification is not required. So, even today, it is perfectly possible for a kid to go through private schools without anyone picking up on, or following through on unusual behavior patterns.
One thing that can contribute to people not being diagnosed early is the smaller class size in private schools. When I was in kindergarten, I was in an extremely small school and was the only kindergartner. My teacher worked one on one with me all year and taught me to read. My mother still firmly believes that had I been in a regular class, I would have fallen through the cracks and had the same reading problems that my dad and others on his side have. So I didn't have to be labeled with anything in that environment. My teacher adjusted her teaching style to teach me as an individual.
Also, people in my family did notice problems with me but we were in absolute poverty with no heater and profound domestic violence. They were concerned about my obsessive behaviors and mutism, but honestly, my problems weren't life threatening and there were bigger problems to handle at the time.
13 Jun 2010, 2:58 pm
