Learning

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Does anyone think any neurotypical behaviors interfere with one's ability to learn? If so what ones?

Now, in contrast, does anyone think any Apsergers behaviors interfere with the ability to learn? If so, what ones?


For instance, I think the concept of herding interferes with a neurotypical learning because that's the reason teachers often say, "don't hesitate to ask any questions," and why people who do have questions refuse to raise their hand and ask. Now, that would only be a decent theory if Aspies were the type to ask questions in class more so than NT's.

I think, on the other hand, Apsergers Special Interest works in two ways. We do learn about our interest, but at what opportunity cost? In other words, what did we fail to learn because our attention was fixated on something else?

For AS:

Not being able to talk. I'm a good speaker usually. When I can't utter a single word then suddenly due to my AS, teachers were always totally confused and claimed the most hideous things such as that I stayed silent on purpose or so.

Pragmatic difficulties. You're answer may be correct, your presentation may been very thought-through and you may be a good worker but teachers and classmates don't want to hear any of that (and might think you have learning difficulties) because you don't make the appropriate face, stand and move all wrong, don't adjust you tone of voice and don't say the appropriate things at the appropriate time so that you appear rude, crazy or annoying.

I can't think about non-autistic things this week somehow. Very autistic time right now.

I could not learn in a classroom or study group, environments seemingly favored by NTs. When I am in a classroom, I am distracted by every person, sound and movement, and the lectures are not presented in a manner that is conducive to my learning style. I needed to take the material and learn it on my own time without distraction.

My style of learning is more thorough and I have a deeper understanding than NTs. But I find the time spent in a classroom to be a waste of time and my style of learning is not efficient. While NTs seemed to be focused on studying for a test, I was always focused on mastering the material. I would get locked into my study habits and I would have a hard time adapting to changes later in the semester.

Short form... those further from the spectrum synthesize; those on the spectrum associate and analyze. Two different processes often finding different results in interpersonal situations, but each has strengths in raw intellectual development.


M.

this is my experience also.
as for changes later in the semester.....In spite of doing very well at uni, i dropped out twice because it all seemed so bloody meaningless, regimented, bureucratic and constricting.
I am very individualised in my learning and studying - and a class or group situation is also a waste of time for me. ihave a career as an artist and i haven;t even been able to fit into art school - which is pretty free. I follow my own internal logic with regards to education and how i live. it is highly ordered and systematised but the whole approach is according to my own processes.

Much of my final year at school was spent doing the work at home - with the blessing of the headmaster - who understood i could dux the exams but needed to do it my way. he was cool.

Definitely the teamwork, "find yourself a partner" and "get yourselves into groups" aspect. It's embarrassing when I can't find anyone and it's painful when I have to go around asking and people reject me. It's even worse when the teacher looks at me in a peculiar way because I can't find anyone free.

I've often found this method of working very inefficient even if it's great fun for everyone else involved.

I've either been ignored or leeched off of by other people.

I have found some discussion helpful (for social and person education particularly), but only when it was informal and wasn't a major project that was to be graded.

For graded assignments, I've found it far less stressful to work on my own away from noisy distracting crowds, in my own time, with my own resources at my own pace. At least then, if I make a mistake, it's entirely my fault and I can hold myself accountable for my own actions because it's all under my control.

I confess that haven't enjoyed having to share materials with others or having to fight over pieces of equipment in a crowded room. I've had to maintain an almost Zen like composure during these times. People yelling about what they did at the weekend and not concentrating on the task in hand (even further on in my education).

I've read recommendations about studying in groups for tests at the last minute. That kind of suggestion makes my skin crawl: it must be very stressful feeding off of other people's anxiety. I study best alone.

Sure, I can work alongside people and aid people one to one if I absolutely have to. But groups of four people or more: I just can't keep up (even if I know most of the material)!

Working with others, I've found, is considerably more difficult than working alongside people.

Talking of feeding off of everyone else's anxiety:

What's been even worse has been people deliberately chatting when they're waiting outside for an exam. It's awful. I've even seen mature students do it. I'm trying to remain quiet and calm, but everyone just yabbers away. In every study guide I've ever read, the message clearly states:

"Resist the temptation to talk to your friends before an exam. This will make you more anxious."

So guess what everyone else apart from me does?


When I have remained quiet and calm and tried to seek sanctuary in a quiet corner, people have asked:
"Are you okay?"

And I'm thinking silently:
"Yeah, I was absolutely fine until you asked, now you've completely shattered my concentration."

I've even had members of staff approach me when I've tried to get "into the zone". It's off-putting, distracting and unnecessary, so why do people do it?

I've had to resort to extreme measures to avoid interpersonal contact before exams such as sticking my head into lockers and pigeon holes and being silent.

I've had a "no-post mortems" and "Can we change the subject please?" policy too which seems to drive everyone crazy.

Some people even wanted to steal my equipment before and even during the exam. I kept my vow of silence until the end. I didn't give into any pinching or prodding because borrowing equipment from others was against the rules.
Do they even read the rules?

Everyone just wants to natter all day long all the time.
Why aren't they all exhausted?
Why don't they all get throbbing headaches from it like I do?

As far as AS impairing ability to learn, since our IQ scores seem to be all over the map from some parts very low to some very high, a grat number of us have co-morbid learning disabilities. My BF has several. Also, executive functioning problems hover over us. (EF=ability to plan and organize)

Also, the amount of overwhelm we might feel in a classroom could impair learning.

As far as NT impairing ability to learn, well, in school, trying to manage socially amongst NT's distracts from learning schoolwork. This also creates anxiety, which affects schoolwork.

In the real world outside of school, these same factors apply.

My learning hasn't been greatly affected by my Asperger's. I guess it gave me difficulty learning to speak and I can still be very quiet.

Teamwork could be a problem, it has been rather hard for me to get in groups or partners.

I have almost no self-awareness about my systemizing behavior. I'm one of those who can't move on to the next chapter until I answer all my questions. I think that this is what they call being "preoccupied with parts" of the system.

When I study, I have to study systematically from the ground up, know all details and have like a personal relationship with concepts and the structures formed in the knowledgebase.

This means I was a monster-studyer in school, doing all the practice exercises, reading and taking notes, exhaustively.

I also couldn't answer questions on tests unless I felt confident in the answer. I can never B.S. my way through the answer. This is really difficult for engineers because often the solutions to real-world engineering problems are suboptimal and you have to just make things fit as well as you can, within a certain tolerance or confidence level.

For all of the above reasons, I really got into modeling and simulation, being what I think is a good fit for my systematic AS traits and my inability to formulate solutions if some parts of the system weren't fully understood by me.

I think I want to go into a biomedical direction now. I've become interested in medicine and I think that I will have more motivation and achievement if my work matches my special interests, and I would prefer to work in a medical business environment. So I am thinking of biomedical engineering, like medical imaging or maybe computational neuroscience.

In terms of the actual mechanics of studying, not having a place on campus was very, very difficult for me because there was no place to keep stuff and I was constantly disoriented. I will never again go to a huge school where parking is difficult and there's no way to walk away from your stuff for an hour or so. Most of my day on campus was managing where I could study, how to pack my stuff, etc.

It's almost impossible for me to work with others, when they are going to cut corners or cheat!! ! I've had mental anguish over my inability to cheat when teammembers were taking us in that direction.

Before you all dismiss me as a work-alone "kill-joy", there is one team activity (I know it's not strictly work) that I have enjoyed.

It's the Parachute Game.


(for illustrative purposes only)

Mushroooom!

You'd probably call it an "NT social-bonding ritual" or something.

It does however involve a rather colourful piece of material and very simple, easy to follow rules. You don't actually have to hold hands and dance in a ring with everyone because you're holding onto the chute. So:

A. You don't feel left out because you can't find anyone to work with

B. It involves an interesting material, so you can learn about air resistance at the same time

C. You feel important because when your name is called you can run under the chute alone.

D. It's fun because it's unambiguous.


This is "messing about" at it's finest.
Sometimes these "normal folks" do get it right.

I can easily see that. I think my biggest problem wasn't face expressions as much as the monologue. While my monologues have helped me write a paper and so forth, in speech in classes (not speech class), I got a lot of weird looks. I remember even once in the military, we had to sit through a bunch of briefings for 2 weeks of FTAC, and I thought it was polite to always ask a question or two to the speaker. That way they know you listened and showed some interest. That annoyed the other guys in my class so much. I even had to use it in a deal on their behavior that I would cease from asking questions if they would operate as a team and ask some questions just out of being polite. It's funny, an Aspergers class leader teaching a bunch of NTs how to operate as a team. Ironic, yes.

I will say I got passed that annoyance of speeches by making friends with a girl in my class, NT, who was exceptional at talking in front of groups of people. So I had her do my talking for me, with me sitting right next to her. I do find that helpful anytime I can have someone front my ideas for me. But you don't always get that luxury.

I will say people that inspire me for me to find my groove in talking... The woman who played Bill Cosby's wife in The Cosby Show. She articulates so well. Also, I love watching the blonde tough cop in the Police Academy movies talk (real life, not acting). The best inspiration for all, eye contact and all... Lucielle Ball. That's what you are doing anyway right? Entertaining. And, the chic from Sound of Music. She has an awesome manner at etiquette and communications.

OMG. you sound like me when I was in high school. See, in grade school, I was a straight A student. But, I was at a Christian School that worked from what was called back then Lifepacs. I noticed Paces are a new popular one now a days. Basically, my teacher was a babysitter. Everyone sat in their cubicle learning on their own pace. The books were for each subject, and you start with like 601 for the first book for sixth grade. The goal was to finish all the books starting wtih a 6 before the end of sixth grade, but if you didn't, you started 7th grade where you left off. It was that way for each subject. So like I was always a grade or two ahead in math and english (aka language arts), but on beat with the rest except a little behind in history (aka social studies) and science. And, each book was like chapters you read on your own, then little exercises you did and checked the answers on your own, and then a quiz that the teacher hands you (not part of hte book except for a paragraph to take the quiz) and in some cases, the teachers graded it. Sometimes they would let you grade it. Sometimes they had other classmates grade it. The only lecture was Wednesdays Chapel. They did make us take notes through it and checked it, which also taught us notetaking without requiring it all the time.

But then, junior high, I was placed in public school systems. My grades dropped from all A's to B's C's and D's. I maintained about a B or C average up to my senior year when I made friends with a smart girl who was always pushing to make a great GPA. She really helped me in areas I had problems learning, and helped me with the idea that grades are just as important as friends. Then I didn't get straight A's again, but I was usually looking at all A's and one or two B's.

In college, I really noticed how much easier it was for me to learn on my own than a professor lecturing me. I do well in classes where the tests are based on textbook knowledge. Tests based on lectures I tend to fail. I also do best with essay questions because I do know a lot about the subject but not always the specifics asked in multiple choice. I also if I hate the textbook, I go buy another one I do like (like blah blah blah for Dummies). And, I always had issues with multiple choice anyway because I can't seem to figure the best answer. When they say "best answer" that means best "neurotypical" answer. Of course, being Aspie, just about every question I see at least how more than one answer can be right. What's worse, when the teachers write these tests themselves and they suck at writing. I hate that more than anything. I don't know how many times I'll answer an ALL BLAH BLAH BLAH as false for the teacher to turn around and say, Well I didn't mean all. I meant most. It's like seriously, with a Master's Degree sometimes more, how do these profs get through it with their shotty writing skills? Again, more proof you don't have to know what you are doing to get that piece of paper that says you know what you are doing. College is the biggest hoax of the century.

It does interfere when I am doing a course that demands I learn in a specific way. Attending lectures in rooms with fluorescent lighting is very taxing and interferes with my learning. Having to watch powerpoint presentations makes me dizzy and again interferes with my learning. Also, I learn by reading, so lectures are really counterproductive. I am not good at auditory processing when it comes to listening to someone explain a new concept - I can't take it in that way, so I get confused and overwhelmed.

I'm great at learning if I have control over my environment and can be alone, in silence, reading. Long distance learning is ideal for me - except for the fact that inertia is also an issue for me, so it's often very hard to get started on my studies and slot them into my day, while also having to do other things, like housework, paid work, cook my meals, etc.

In PE and group work I've never done well. PE I 'refuse to accept help from other students.' It's not help, it's being patronized by condescending narcissists.
Group work, people have accused me of being awkward. Some of the more understanding ones let me do my own section, and then when it's presenting it, they don't have a clue what I'm doing and just watch like all the other audience, and then do their piece. Some of the less, have made me do all the work and stuff...
Maths, I have to cover my ears, close my eyes, to work out simple sums like 81+94 or something. I can do this easily in my head at home, or out of class, but not in a class environment.
French is my own arrogance towards the language.
In ICT and Science I exceed everyone, but in ICT the teacher's behind me, IMO. Science, I can absorb everything the teacher says, and comprehend it .
It's only two subjects, but I don't care. I wouldn't care if I was only good at one subject. I'd just hate to be mediocre at everything(though when it comes to PE, Music and the likes, sometimes I wish).
EMZ=]

i was not very good at PE.

when it comes to group work i was not very good either.