*!"What Kind of Schooling Did You Get?"!*

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I don't think it's a matter of condescending teachers either.

I think it may be the result of highly sensitive/introvert people at the most impressionable age ( brain still forming etc) modelling themselves on one of the main adults in their lives, an adult who is behaving in a very odd way , with what are essentially impaired social skills, because of the power structure itself, ( school, and childrens unemancipated state), which says that the children must sit still, must do what the teacher says, must keep quiet except when teacher says, must do this and that, AND which allows/practically induces, behaviour in the teacher which an independent group of people ( other adults for instance) would walk out on in all probability.

Your learning to read may have been a side effect but you did learn to read early.

The disparity between NTs and Aspergers/HFAS clumsiness..... ok, thinking... maybe it's because of the difference between introvert and extravert brains once again. Maybe the brains which are more active even at rest , and which learn best when there is relatively little stimulation, little activity, are more receptive to exactly that element of school work, the reading and writing . Whereas the extraverts brain "switching off" in periods of calm/less activity will simply not engage with the material, therefore not compromising their motor skill development. It's just a thought. I don't know.

Or maybe highly sensitive brains are more vulnerable to disruption of developmental pathways; in which case schools are even more of a tragedy .

I think that the description of Aspergers behaviour is so similar to that used by "most adults put in a teaching position" that it looks like modelling.
I am not suggesting that there aren't genetically determined differences between how peoples minds work, just that much of the social skills impairment, which so constantly puts the "Aspergers/HFAS" person at a disadvantage in life, might be the result of modelling on adults actions/manners when in a position of dominance/control which significantly distorts/deforms social communication.

If there brains don't 'engage' with the material how do the pathways for reading form?



I didn't mean that they teach subjects at the same time, I meant that teachers exhibit an equal interest in multiple subjects (one after the other) where as aspergers children tend to focus on one or two topics to the exclusion of all else. We don't swap back and forth between multiple equal interests at predetermined intervals, we obsess about one or two things until something else catches our attention, and then we completely ditch the first thing - or at least many of us do as children, control of the attention mechanism comes later.



You may have a point. Teachers played a big role in my childhood (obviously) and it is not unreasonable to assume that at least some of my behaviour came from following there example. However, it's a big leap to go from that to blaming all aspergers traits on teachers. Granted, many of my childhood attempts at social interaction consisted of cornering some poor unfortunate and attempting to mesmerise them with my rapid-fire delivery on bees, ants, electricity, how magic tricks really work, or whatever else had captured my attention that week, but I was doing this before I encountered formal education (school merely altered the style).

I will conceed that modern education is (or at least could be) counter-productive in what it teaches aspergers children about social behaviour, but I am not convinced that school causes aspergers traits.


Aside from anything else I was under the impression that aspergers is genetic.

What i'm suggesting is that Aspergers/HFAS may consist of a genetically determined highly sensitive/introvert type brain ( seeing as 97% of WP members who take the Jung-Myers Typology test score as introvert this is not impossible) under pressure from environmental factors, including school which unfortunately teaches highly maladaptive social skills to the most vulnerable.

The list i posted at start of thread, (which describes so uncannily accurately the behaviour of people when in the role of teacher), covers almost all of the diagnostic criteria for Aspergers, leaving out only
1)the "Theory of Mind"/empathy issue which is increasingly coming under attack from psych/health professionals/researchers as having little solid foundation, and
2)Sensory issues/ difficulties, including allergies/food intolerances; the consequence of being highly-sensitive in an increasingly noisy, fast moving, constantly changing, chemical polluted, etc, environment, and
3)Stimming/repeated body movements which could perhaps be compensation for disturbance of the proprioceptive system , as a result of enforced immobility in early childhood .... ?
.......for example all those children who want to crawl but who are not allowed to because they will "dirty their clothes" and so have to stay sitting in their pushchair/hammock/sling-on-wheels-thing, until can walk. Restrictions of activity which may be literally disabling people ).

I agree that if you were "a little professor" character already BEFORE going to school, and did not have pedagogic/teacher-style parenting, then it's difficult to see where that particular kind of behaviour would have come from if not directly the result of genes.
However an enthusiastic desire to impart knowledge that fascinates you, aged 4, is perhaps not a pathology, may in fact represent a highly healthy interraction with the world! Soon discouraged, stamped out, or learned to be out of place in children who have nothing to say (of importance) in our society?
Or the primary childcarer ( usually the mother) encourages it under the impression that listening to/tolerating the monologues of children is a good thing, which might be the case if it was healthy, or really respectful to listen to another person like that. But in fact it isn't , and is indulgence by the one in power which rewards ( and thereby teaches) poor social skills.

What adult amongst adults has time to listen to a 4 year olds data? Very few. It is only overly-available adults relating almost exclusively to children who have the time.



PS: I just remembered that aspergers are supposed to be in some way disinclined to "show, share" their lives/belongings etc . Which sounds like teachers again, who do not, usually, bring their private lives and belongings into classrooms. Hmm. No personal talk.

I have always been to standard private school scooling and done well there.

Standard school. Though there were some special Ed services offered to me, I turned most of them down.