Can anyone help me?

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I have spent many years working alongide children on the autistic spectrum, and now as I come to the end of my teacher training degree, have chosen to focus my dissertion as a investigation into provision for children in UK mnainstream schools. Specifically, i will be examining what provision is available, and assessing how well this meets the needs of children with autism, when faced with the challenges of a mainstream classroom environment. I would like to use this information to develop recomendations for schools. If you think you could help, or know someone who could, I would be more than glad to hear from you. My hope is that this work will develop into something that will have a really positive effect on the way our children are educated - and the wider the spectrum of experiences and opinions I can gather, the more successful this will be.

I do not want any personal information, I am simply interested in any memories you have from school where they did/did not do something that effected your experience of schooling.

Thankyou

Michelle Logan

I'm not Autistic, but I am Aspie. Hmm, well a recent memory for me was when, during last years exams, I was given Extended time and put into a separate area (not that I minded), but what happened was that I didn't get the extended time at all, and so got lower marks than I could have achieved. Another one is that the school is slack on telling my new teachers each year about my AS, and it causes some trouble when I have mini-meltdowns in frustration.

If you wanna know about our troubles, just hang around WP and get to know us. Places which will yield good examples of stories involving school will be the Parenting, Haven, and School forums.

I live in NZ, but the curriculum and the way things are run should be similar to the UK's I'm assuming.

Hi, SF.

I'm not officially diagnosed, so I don't know whether or not my input will be of help. However, I'm 40, so there wasn't the AS diagnosis back then anyway. I was highly gifted in a good school system, but there wasn't an official gifted program back then either. One thing I remember as a great experience was a sort of ad hoc gifted program that the teachers and school librarian put together for me and a few other kids. I think it was when I was in second and third grade. Anyway, periodically, I'd get to leave the classroom and go work on special projects -- writing and illustrating a story, which was then laminated and "bound," creating an "animated" film strip (see how old I am!), that sort of thing.

I guess you could call it an enrichment program. I so thoroughly enjoyed the individual attention and the creative outlet this provided me. Also, although I did like elementary school on the whole, and got on okay enough with my peers, I was terribly shy and always a bit on sensory overload. Thus, the opportunity to get out of the "noisy" classmroom and have time at the library to just really focus in a quiet atmosphere, with periodic talks with the librarian, then time to work alone, was a rejuvenating break for me every time.

Hope that helps you! Good luck with your dissertation; I am sure you will do good things.

DD

My story is log DogDancer's!

I'm ALSO self diagnosed, and am close to 44. There wasn't an AS classification. I was gifted, but there was no program, etc... They asked if I wanted to skip grades, but I had ENOUGH trouble with bullies nearer my size. ONE bully actually STOPPED when he found out that he and I were MATCHED! Same height/weight/bicep size. It had to be more than a coincidence, I'll never forget the look of utter shock on his face.

Anyway, I kept asking for harder work. I LOVED learning, and I don't think I even got a B early in my school experience. But only some of the english classes offered a chance at self directed instruction. 8-(

One thing that would make school ****FAR**** better is to provide some kind of programmed instruction at least 5 grade levels beyond the current grade. BESIDES, it would help EVERYONE!

Steve

Regional, state and federal standards should govern how schools administer special education. I'm talking access to education, not the curriculum. I don't know about the UK, but here in the states, districts and even school can vary widely. Schools can be equipped with information about special needs but refuse to provide access to them. Personal opinions about morals, social norms and attitude often get in the way of professional duty.
For example, a principal that has never been trained or educated about autistic traits makes a judgement about an autistic child, which leads to restricting or denying access to regular education.

Thank you for caring!

I am female, 53, self dx (I would not trust any shrink - generally being and familiar with NT issues - with my brain.

Issues:

1. I was different, that attracts bullies. With poor social skills too, this was troubling.

2. The classroom is subjective, even in grading. I was intelligent but nonetheless a poor student.

3. I learn differently. I do not retain rules of thumb, names and dates, nor any other random data. If informationis fed to me in such a way that I can make a multidimensional matrix of data points connected by logical relations; I can recall well. Otherwise it is akin to memorizing an eye chart. Usual methods of teaching did not always work with me.

4. To be reading/comprehending at college level in 4th grade is difficult: A. Many of my answers were beyond the answer given in the teacher's workbook, whether I was right or wrong I was effectively wrong. B. My bookish understanding was out of synchronization with my actual experience.

5. I was not pretty, sociable, athletic. I had my intellect - period. But I was not given the data nor the support to value that. I retain a core of low self esteem and confidence.

6. No one but another aspie can truly comprehend the magnitude of our difference and the life experience that we do. A young aspie NEEDS an adult aspie mentor.

7. Teachers ought know how to deal with auties and aspies and be told when the next class contains one of us.

8. Much of conventional wisdom - including some points of dx - about us are wrong. We generally do have a sense of humor, and imagination, and the capability to daydream.

9. I doubt that any attempt to push me into "society" would have had good results.

Other kids were evil to me. Evil, cruel, heartless, and inhuman. I occasionally came to adults with the problem, and they would give me stupid advice and tell me to learn to deal with it on my own. Just so you know, it doesn't work to "just walk away." I first considered suicide at age 7. And I don't believe that bullies behave the way they do because they're abused at home or something. They have overinflated self-esteems and they desperately need discipline, not encouragement.

Do whatever you can to keep the other kids from picking on, bullying and making fun of them. That was probably the worst part of school.

I am 37 yr old diagnosed with Aspergers. I think one thing that is harming today's Aspies is the fact school personnel do not understand what Aspergers is. For that matter they do not truly understand what Autism means. Too many equate it with a child being low IQ and/or having temper tantrums. From what moms have told me their Aspie kids these days are often shoved into the special education classes with the ret*d kids or they have teachers actually refusing to let their child in the classroom so they have to homeschool the child or else commute long distances to another school where the teacher will accept the child. Just like Kim said, at least here in AZ, there is no hard and fast rule on how educators deal with developmental disorders in kids. One thing that is so logical is seems obvious, but apparently isn't is that you don't put high IQ kids in with Downs Syndrome kids. This will slow the mental growth of the Aspie. It will also stigmatize them.

I was in a mainstream class but did not even fit in there. For whatever reason I was not allowed in the gifted class in elementary school even though my IQ was 165. Yet I was actually punished, in the form of being given a failing grade or having to write sentences, because I would work ahead of the class. I would get bored waiting on the rest of the class to finish reading their chapter or complete work so I would go ahead and finish the rest of my math workbook or read the entire text book. So I was punished for being smarter than the other kids. I also had photographic memory and could remember every comma and semicolon in a sentence when we had to write out our word definitions from memory. The teacher automatically thought I was cheating but I never did cheat. I just had different abilities from other kids and that's how I remembered by "photographing" an image of the information in my brain. I also had synethesia which I was punished for because I was termed as being "difficult" because I believed every letter had a corresponding color and that colors came out of people's mouths (which they do by the way, some people just can't see it).

It seems to be majority opinion among educators that they insist parents medicate their children with Aspergers or ADHD. I see autistic kids today that are doped out of the minds. I was never medicated for being "different" and I still do not take any psych meds as an adult and have managed to do fairly well in life without SSRI's. I don't think a child will be able to adapt to the NT world and learn how to deal with people and other stimuli if they are doped out of their brains and are too groggy to analyze things.

I am 31 (and am diagnosed with Adult ADD..but have some aspie symptoms..i think..anyway..)

I have memories of not only being constantly constantly bullied by the other kids for every aspect of my behaviour, but some of the teachers as well.
I recall two teachers in particular who singled me out from the rest of the class for being different...(and it was when I was an age where I had no idea what I was doing wrong)
One was a pre-school teacher who would systematicly isolate me from the other kids and come up with these weird punishments for me..which typically involved isolation...for some reasons that I could not understand..i would find myself being forced to sit at a table with the chair pushed all the way in against my chest while the other kids were playing..again...I had no idea what I did to receive the punishments but they happened pretty much every day...but I didn't go to that school for very long.

Then..I had this first grade teacher who was always dishing out ruler swats and verbal abuse..and this weird punishment where i was made to "sit on the wall" in front of the class..you squat against the wall with your hands by your sides and eventually your muscles start to cramp up and it hurts..most kids who got this (I was the only girl)..would start to cry..I am pretty sure that teacher was psychotic. She frequently called me a "little idiot" and I remember her jerking me around roughly by the shoulders when I went left when I was told to go right (still have left-right problems to this day)

So these were probably abnormal teacher relationships, but they left a huge impression on me..and later on when I had a hand at working with kids briefly (something I wouldn't mind doing again if I got the chance) I was always very careful when I had to discipline them because I remember what it was like and am aware of the way that kids may not even know what they are doing wrong so punishment in that context probably seems confusing and bizarre to them.

Hi,

I was bullied througout my education. The teachers did nothing to stop it - they either pretended not to notice, or they told me to 'stand up for myself'. I tried to explain that I didn't understand what this meant - I needed them to tell me how to stand up for myself, i.e. what words to say, how to say it, how to stand, how to do body language etc. but they wouldn't and also at our school you were punished for answering back. If I said I couldn't understand, the teachers had no comprehension of AS so didn't believe that I couldn't understand so just thought I was being silly, pathetic and attention seeking.

A problem is that teachers are not trained to spot symptoms of AS etc. Friends of mine who are now training to be teachers say they have no training in ASDs or even dyslexia (there is still the common myth that dyslexia purely affects your reading and spelling - there are actually different types of dyslexia that can affect different areas of your work). They are also not trained to recognise when a child is being abused at home - which I was. Not only did they not recognise this, they actually gave one of my parents a job at the school, so there was no escape from the abuse.

I did very well academically, although there was no 'gifted' programme that I knew of. I asked my parents if they could help me find such a programme, or if I could skip a year or go to a better school, but they said 'no'. They just wanted a 'normal' child and couldn't cope with the fact that I didn't fit that mould. In fact, at the age of 8 it was me phoning local schools to try and find a gifted programme or an independent school that would take me on - and it should not have been my responsibility!

Certainly, the bullying has to stop! And the answer is not to make it the victims' problem by sending them to counselling or assertiveness training. Firstly, this doesn't necessarily work with AS because our brains are wired up differently, so 'standard' counselling doesn't work for us and can actually be damaging (as I have experienced), but also the bullies are the ones at fault. I think it is very dangerous to send out the message that it is the victims' responsibility to change and not the bullies when it is the latter who are in the wrong and who are behaving unacceptably.

A huge problem for me was the enforced social interaction. At 'playtimes' I was forced outside, even though I had no desire to 'play' games with the other children. They either bullied or ignored me and I didn't understand games - I just wanted to read a book or study or practice my music. Even if I was ill I was still forced out to 'play' which I didn't understand. I would just wander around with nothing to do. And even if you are on your own, people won't leave you to be. They will make fun of you for being on your own and not playing with anyone and for not having any friends. Making children who can't and don't want to 'play' mix with other children when this is difficult and unpleasant for them is, in my opinion, a form of cruelty.

I also had problems with team sports - and all of the sports we did during PE were team sports. I didn't understand the dynamics of being in a team. Also, I was dyspraxic (although this was not diagnosed until adulthood despite my having the obvious symptoms) and I have visual problems. The other children bullied me because of this and the teachers did too. We were told that team sports and play times were important because they teach you social skills and to work as part of a team. Actually, they don't! There is not teaching involved, they just throw you into the situation and you sink or swim. It would be the equivalent to just giving you a book aged 18 months and expecting you to just be able to read with no tuition whatsoever. Obviously that wouldn't work - so why do they do this with team sports and playtimes? I guess it's because they don't realise that not every one can learn social skills instinctively. And if you are one of the people who can't, they won't help you, they just force you to interact with other children because they just think it is a matter of exposure - they don't realise that some people just can't acquire these skills, and not only that, but that they will be persecuted by their peers for it.

The teachers did very little to help me. Because I did well academically, they didn't really bother with me. And when I did have difficulties, their attitude was 'you're intelligent so there's no excuse'. It was just considered as misbehaving - they couldn't get it throught their heads that you can be intelligent but still experience problems and have a disability.

I don't think that integration in mainstream schools works. I would much rather have gone to an ASD only school - especially somewhere with a gifted programme and/or where I had the option to skip grades.

I was doing GCSE maths work age 9 without any problems (my Dad taught me this in an matter of 30 mins!) and yet I was not allowed to skip grades - I had to linger with my peers even though I was academically ahead at that time and had no interest or ability to socialise - so was not actually gaining any benefit from being stuck in the same year as people of my age.

I was also not allowed to stay after school and study. I found school distracting because of the other children and because I have sensory processing issues - so the loud children and the various smells and bad lighting were distracting and at times painful - but no-one cared. Teachers also couldn't understand that I didn't want to be touched by anyone - they would just do it anyway, or make me hold hands with another child - they didn't care that this distressed me.

I was not allowed to study as much as I wanted to at home either. My mother would stop me reading for more than a few hours a day and would limit my music practice which annoyed me because many parents struggle to get their children to do this at all, and rather than seeing the good in me - i.e. that I took studying seriously - It was just taken away from me . My parents just wanted a normal child - not a 'gifted' child - despite the fact that most parents would surely see this as a good thing!??

I also found school very patronising and couldn't understand how other (NT) children didn't. I did not want to play silly games - I wanted to read! I didn't want books with loads of pictures in and no real literary or intellectual content. I didn't want stupid fictitious stories. I didn't want to spend afternoons 'colouring in'. I wanted to learn languages, and tried to teach myself, but it was hard as no-one would help me or even buy language books for me, and there were none at the school. I also hated those stupid stories with 'morals' at the end. I saw the 'moral' coming from the opening line of the story and found these patronising and offensive. I also hated children's TV. I would much rather watch the news or a documentary. I hated the stupid school programmes we had to watch that made you sing songs about the letter 'd'. What is the point of that? I knew the letter 'd' existed and how to write it thank you very much, and couldn't believe I had to waste an hour watching a stupid programme about it in what was supposed to be a place of learning. They even made us sing the songs. I hated singing in front of other people and the out of tune wailings and shouting that passes for singing in primary schools hurt my ears. If I covered them to shield the pain, I was disciplined.

I just wanted to be left on my own to study. I didn't want to 'play' or watch silly TV programmes or read to other people or have stories read to me. I feel that had I been allowed to be myself and also had access to a gifted programme (especially a gifted programme for people with ASDs) I would have done far better in a far shorter amount of time. Instead, I was forced to pretend to be an NT which damaged me both at the time and to this day. I also would hopefully not have been bullied by both pupils and teachers.

I also think that it is important that people with ASDs are taught, for at least some of the time, but teachers with ASDs because they are the only people who understand what it is like.

Also, there are loads of books and courses that teach NTs about aspies and auties (although some of them create a very negative view of us!). But there are no classes or books that give an objective account of NTs and that analyse their behaviours.

I think this is because the NT way is considered the 'right' way and is almost considered 'sacred' - so it is not okay to point out that it is just a set of behaviours and assumptions that can be described by a person or in a book, just as any non-NT behaviour can.

I believe that this is a big part of the problem. NTs won't accept that they are just one type - they assume that because there are more of them, they are 'right' and anything else is wrong and needs to be corrected. And if you can't be corrected (or don't want to be) it is considered that you deserve everything that you get. And the paradox is that this means that anyone who is not NT never can come close to it - even if they want to. If NT behaviour is not described in an objective way - both its good and bad points - then it is not ever possible for someone who is not an NT to ever learn it properly, or to ever learn successfully how to interact among NTs. It also means that NTs will always regain dominance, despite the fact that they are not any better than or superior to anyone else!

girl17000 that is a brilliant exegesis on being AS in an NT education system.

I have to wonder if "Lord of the Flies" was authored by an aspie.

Also, to shelly fairy: I personally do not always have the fastest response to a question - my mind may take a while. I will get to the best answer though.

esprit d'scalier

Successful bully intervention is a big one. The teachers really need to be on the lookout and also need to be open enough with the autistic child so that the child feels comfortable coming to them and letting them know if anything's going on.

I went to a private school, so that may make it differ from public school. But it seemed like all my teachers really cared about me. And the administration was always careful to place me with a homeroom teacher who they thought I'd connect with. They also consistently tried to place my friend in my homeroom every year.

The biggest help to me was when a teacher took an honest interest in me and encouraged me. I always performed well with praise and so having that praise willingly forthcoming kept me making excellent grades and feeling pretty happy.

My grade school experience was very good. But for those auties who are getting stressed, relaxation breaks away from everyone, somewhere quiet, etc., are vital. A stressed autie is an unhappy autie.

And that's the biggest thing: if the school system and teachers could really work on reducing the child's stress, I'm sure a lot of other things would start falling into place.

My school was quite supportive in terms of bullying issues, but not as much in actual learning support.
I was at a mainstream (though grammer) school for years 7-13. I wasn't actually diagnosed with AS (or even knew about it) until year 11 or 12, though I have other learning disabilities which did me get help.
I was bullied verbally rather than physically by a large number of people in my year. When I had bad problems with particular individuals, the school was good with sorting it, and problems with those particular people decreased. I did though have problems telling apart friendly teasing and actual verbal bullying - something which my respones to when taking to other students probably didn't help. It seems I was quite lucky having read messages on these forums in that my teachers actually did take an interest in helping me - and in learning more about my AS/other problems.
In some cases they took it too far - I can remember an instance of one teacher who seemed to think that anyone who talked to me was bullying me - not what I wanted.

The main benefit in the learning support was that I got 25% extra time in exams - something I still get in university. I'm not sure however whether this is more connected to my other learning disabilities rather than AS. Other than that, the support wasn't much help. My only memory of the disability officer is that when she was covering a class for an absent teacher, she decided to pick that time to talk to me. I did not appreciate having to talk to her about it with 25 other students within earshot, and though this was an isolated incident, I think privacy is important.

In comparison, support at university is much better.

I am 60, so a history lesson. I had some very good teachers, they had no problem at all with me or any other student. They still hold my highest graditude.

I had some human failures who were very screwed in the head for teachers. I do not think they should hold a title of honor, they were Mommie Goddesses. They were hopeless failures, who only in a classroom were not told to shut up, there they were a supream being.

They were also union, and could not be fired for less than murder. Most nut cases control themselves because there are people around. Not in a classroom. They are it, and children are never listened to.

They had power, they would fail students just to give them hell for another year, what the teacher puts in her book is the final word. Others they would pass who the teacher in the next grade found knew nothing of what they should. Good teachers hated them, and belonged to the same union. To do thieir job, prepare the child for the next year, they had to cover two years.

They had personal standards of the profession, and for making the Mommie Goddesses look bad, they were punished. It dragged the profession down, lowest common denominator, State Employee, Union, job for life and retirement. They made it so the good could not practice.

Fifty years later the only way to get rid of them is close the schools. Many schools in New Orleans were turning out Eighth Grade students with a Third Grade education. They did not do well in Ninth Grade, so most dropped out, problem solved. Other schools refuse to hire them because they are on the verge of being closed. Good teachers will only work Private Schools with high standards.

State supported public education with civil service and union employees is just garbage. Standards will always be set by the union so the lowest dues payer has a job for life. This has nothing to do with education.

Every other business lives or dies by it's product. Those who fail should find another line of work. If the paycheck was based on performance, how much the children learn, good teachers would make more, and the bad would be quickly weeded out.

I never had a problem with good teachers. Several have become famous for going into the worst schools and turning out National Prize winning students, not one or two, but whole classes. They did this with Blacks, Latinos, girls, and won national math and physics contests.

There is nothing wrong with real teachers, or with the students, all problems with education come from the State, Civil Service, and Unions.

Give a real teacher a room full of AS students, they might just take over the world. The point of public education seems to be destroying possible competition.

As one of the upper educated, the 25% or so that go to the University, your greatest fear is 50% going to the University. It would destroy you job oppertunities. You would lose your exclusive class status.

You will write you report on an American computer, with an American operating system, because the brightest and best of England left and came here. Your school system caused the problem. Now you are shooting for a job in administration, a position for life suitable to your class.

My advice is learn Arabic.