Third Party Observation and diagnosis

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Last night I was reminded of an event that occurred when I was approximately ten. After pondering it, I drew some conclusions: See what you think, discuss....

A friend I met through work told me that he works with someone who remembers me from Junior School. I vaguely recall her, but not well. She recounted an event she witnessed. She recalls a time when I was being bullied quite severely.. mostly by being kicked. The bully in question managed to kick his shoe clean off his foot and hurl it across the playground. She clearly recalls his shouting "WAIT THERE!! !!" at me, then stomping off to fetch his shoe. Despite her urging (which I do not recall) to run away, I stood there and waited until he had come back, apparently entirely because I was told to wait. Other than that, she also observed that I was "really weird."

I only vaguely recall the event, but have no reason to doubt her account in its accuracy. But it has lead me to a few conclusions.

1) Doing as I was told blindly, despite the danger to myself, merely reinforces my belief in my autism.
2) How many other horrible things happened to me that could have been avoided if I had known not to blindly follow instructions like a pillock...
3) If that sort of thing was obvious to others, but not me, does it not follow that third party observation is a very good way of diagnosing Autism? Should the accounts of other children be studied when considering Autistic behaviour, rather than just the accounts of parents and teachers?
4)Do NT kids really have that good a set of radar for "weird"?
5) Is it reflective of a lack of theory of mind that I can recall well events that occurred TO ME or INVOLVING ME, but have no similar recollection from that age of events occurring to other people, in this vein?
6) If an 8yr old girl could observe all this, where in the name of living f**k were the damned teachers, and how the bollocks did they miss such things?

Thoughts...?

4) Yes.

6) In the staff room, gossiping about how weird you were. I work in a school. I know.

My teachers used to discuss me. I know because my english teacher at the time was really nice to me. and told me how older teachers of mine used to ask how I was. I think they worried about me, and were frustrated that I didn't seem to be excelling like I should have been.

elderwanda, did you complain? I hope you did!

In my last job people disliked me and I didn't know why as I had been neutral and polite toward them, but had spent most of the time concentrating on work. But I talked about it with my dad and he said that they were angry that I didn't talk to them much because they thought that that meant I disliked them. When I entered the job my first priority was learning how to do the job. Other people's priority is making the people they work with like them. If you don't do this people think you actively dislike them. If you're a playground supervisor you have to get in with the other playground supervisors first and all your attention is on that. And then you have to continue to bond with them else they will take offense. This might work in other jobs where you are doing something that doesn't require your full attention but when watching children it's not acceptable. If they were really watching the kids they wouldn't talk as much. I bet if I was a playground supervisor I would be chastised for being too "pro-active" about stopping bullying and things like that. They've got to learn social skills themselves you know! Not by anything so simple as being taught them via discipline, but just leaving them to make them up themselves! Personally I think the only reason they have have playground supervisors is to say they had them there if anything really bad happens. They don't actually do anything otherwise. I bet they are just for insurance purposes. My experience at primary school with them was crap, I came up to them complaining of bullying and more often than not I was the one who got blamed because I was the "weird kid", and they weren't paying attention.

I work in a (secondary) school, and our teachers certainly do gossip about pupils from time to time. But they're also very concerned for the pupils' wellbeing, above and beyond just what they "need" to be. We do have quite a high proportion of kids with SEN so perhaps that makes a difference.

Just to stress, modern teaching technique may have improved somewhat in twenty odd years. Though judging from the experiences of my son (also autistic) at school, I'm not confident of that.

Hi MacBeth:

I'll answer your questions as well as I can:

1) Doing as I was told blindly, despite the danger to myself, merely reinforces my belief in my autism.

It could be an indicator of autism, but not necessarily. You might have been too scared to move. I was an abused kid. If my abuser had said "Wait there," I sure as hell would have done so, not because I'm autistic, but because I feared the consequences of doing anything other than what he said. That's what traumatized children often do. It sounds like if you'd run, the bully would have caught up with you and pounded you even more.

2) How many other horrible things happened to me that could have been avoided if I had known not to blindly follow instructions like a pillock...

Hard to say. But your story is the kind that led me to get my daughter to karate class every week for seven years. Trust me, no one messes with her now.

3) If that sort of thing was obvious to others, but not me, does it not follow that third party observation is a very good way of diagnosing Autism? Should the accounts of other children be studied when considering Autistic behaviour, rather than just the accounts of parents and teachers?

It can certainly help. I have a friend from high school whose observations are very important to me.

4) Do NT kids really have that good a set of radar for "weird"?

Oh, my, yes. Their frames of reference can be quite narrow, so anyone remotely outside their idea of "normal" is considered "weird."

5) Is it reflective of a lack of theory of mind that I can recall well events that occurred TO ME or INVOLVING ME, but have no similar recollection from that age of events occurring to other people, in this vein?

Not necessarily. Kids are often absorbed in their own worlds, especially if they are being bullied or abused. I don't have a lot of recall about what happened to other kids, but it wasn't the autism. It was the abuse at home. I was a bit preoccupied with my own survival. From what you've said about your school experience, it sounds like you were too. If you're being bullied regularly, it would be hard to widen your focus enough to take in other people's problems.

6) If an 8yr old girl could observe all this, where in the name of living f**k were the damned teachers, and how the bollocks did they miss such things?

I'll echo what others said: They were yacking. I see this all the time with both parents and teachers at my daughter's soccer games. They all yack with each other. Constantly. For the whole game. They don't even watch the game. Someone's kid scores a goal, and the parent says, "Oh, wow, who scored that goal?" It's ridiculous. I generally stand on the sidelines and actually cheer the team on. It seems the adult, responsible thing to do, given that I've shown up to support my kid, but I'm just a weirdo Aspie with subpar social skills, so what do I know?

I was suspected autistic as a child on grounds of being terribly defiant (among other things), basically I would always kick, scream, bite and do exactly the opposite of what other people would tell me to do (I think it's called oppositional defiant syndrome). I noticed that it is a lot more typical of autistic kids to do what you've described though.

as to third party observation- when I told my best friend that I'm suspecting AS and gave her a list of AS-behaviours she was astonished at how much that explained about my childhood behaviour (we've been best friends for 22 years). I was always considered a little weird on the playground and my friend had to rescue me from trouble a lot. she still has to explain my behaviour a lot to other people and she always tells people to ignore certain things about me before she introduces me to them (I didn't know that untill a few months ago... feels weird, but makes my life a whole lot easier )

I often doubt AS myself but the more I hear about how other people perceive me the more I think there must be something to it.

3) yes
4) yes