Possible to get a Dr.'s note to pass speech class?

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j5689
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28 Sep 2010, 7:05 pm

I'm wondering if Asperger's is enough to allow me to get a Dr.'s note to pass speech class, we already had to do an impromptu speech and I was WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY worse than everyone else, I was standing up there my legs felt like they were gonna fail, I had cold symptoms, I couldn't stop getting itchy and all this other crap, I could barely finish the speech, if you could even call it a speech, I couldn't think or anything. Everyone else could completely coherently put out a thought in the class.

And to top it all off, I think I overloaded as soon as I sat down, and I don't even do that that much, not even sure if it was an overload, I just remember I could barely move and think a little bit for like 10 or 15 minutes



314159
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28 Sep 2010, 7:43 pm

I don't know about a doctor's note, but you may be able to get a disability accommodation. If your school has an office for disabled students go talk to them. I've recently registered with mine - I'm in college. Verification from my doctor that I do have Asperger's was required. Most of the accommodations will do me very little good, and seem aimed at people with a physical impairment or severe mental handicap, but a few look like they'll be helpful. Yours may include further planning time for public speaking or another solution. It's worth a try. I don't know if it's an option for you, but you may also consider alternatives to speech class. I was able to take interpersonal communication to gain the credit instead - no public speaking required. It still was roughly as enjoyable as pulling out my fingernails with pliers, but I passed and I doubt I would have passed regular speech.

For what it's worth, if you were capable of verbal speech you did better than I would have - I'd consider it a success. If you were capable of coherent speech then you did great. Compare yourself only to yourself. Comparing yourself to NTs in social skills isn't fair to either, any more than it would be fair to judge an NT on their ability to be silent more than 10 minutes or live in isolation. Chattering monkeys.



Lene
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28 Sep 2010, 7:59 pm

The best impromptu speeches take the longest preparation. Did you have time to practice beforehand or where you just given your topic on the day?



j5689
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28 Sep 2010, 9:30 pm

Lene wrote:
The best impromptu speeches take the longest preparation. Did you have time to practice beforehand or where you just given your topic on the day?

Yeah, you just walk up to the front of the room and he drops you a subject. And he just had to give me politics but I won't go into that story

314159 wrote:
I don't know about a doctor's note, but you may be able to get a disability accommodation. If your school has an office for disabled students go talk to them. I've recently registered with mine - I'm in college. Verification from my doctor that I do have Asperger's was required. Most of the accommodations will do me very little good, and seem aimed at people with a physical impairment or severe mental handicap, but a few look like they'll be helpful. Yours may include further planning time for public speaking or another solution. It's worth a try. I don't know if it's an option for you, but you may also consider alternatives to speech class. I was able to take interpersonal communication to gain the credit instead - no public speaking required. It still was roughly as enjoyable as pulling out my fingernails with pliers, but I passed and I doubt I would have passed regular speech.

For what it's worth, if you were capable of verbal speech you did better than I would have - I'd consider it a success. If you were capable of coherent speech then you did great. Compare yourself only to yourself. Comparing yourself to NTs in social skills isn't fair to either, any more than it would be fair to judge an NT on their ability to be silent more than 10 minutes or live in isolation. Chattering monkeys.
Yeah, the accommodations wouldn't have suited my needs that well so I decided to not pursue anything IEP or otherwise special ed related at my college. When my mom was looking through classes for me, she said unfortunately I couldn't take interpersonal communication instead of speech for my major(computer engineering technology) for whatever reason.

The thing is in this class, it's like they expect everyone to be able to get up and perform a confident speech with minimal nervousness to get a good grade. And the teacher also seems to almost assume that everyone is taking the class because they actually want to become a better public speaker.

It's so wrong of a class, and as a requirement. That and all the other irrelevant BS classes like English and other such stuff are starting to make me think college isn't for me. The whole reason I wanted to go to college was to get girls anyway, and it doesn't look like that's gonna happen so I may just as well go to a tech school. Doesn't matter to me if I get paid less and don't get promotions from going there, at least I would feel like my classes were worth something and I could therefore pass them. I don't feel like putting all this effort toward something so hard and irrelevant



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28 Sep 2010, 10:29 pm

Sorry, I don't think it would be fair to be able to pass a speech class just because you have Asperger's. Speech classes aren't normally made requirements, anyway. What do you need the class for (if you don't mind me asking)?



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28 Sep 2010, 11:40 pm

I aswell do not think having AS should excuse you from speech class.

Speech class is to teach people how to become moderately proficient public speakers, and public speaking is a major fear among NT's anyway.

You are going to have to speak in front of a lot of people at some point most likely, either to give a presentation or to pitch ideas at meetings so it's very important you gain some experience doing that.

You should speak to your speech instructor about the fact that you have more difficulty than the average student due to having AS.

You may consider dropping the class and taking it with another instructor who might teach it differently. None of my speech instructors ever made us do speeches that we had to think up on the spot. In fact one of them gave us a sheet entailing the format she wanted our speech to be in and we were allowed to read from our paper if we had to.

You should also try not to care so much about what other people think. Especially during speech class. Most of your classmates aren't listening because they're too busy worrying about their own performance.



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29 Sep 2010, 12:23 am

j5689 wrote:
It's so wrong of a class, and as a requirement. That and all the other irrelevant BS classes like English and other such stuff are starting to make me think college isn't for me. The whole reason I wanted to go to college was to get girls anyway, and it doesn't look like that's gonna happen so I may just as well go to a tech school. Doesn't matter to me if I get paid less and don't get promotions from going there, at least I would feel like my classes were worth something and I could therefore pass them. I don't feel like putting all this effort toward something so hard and irrelevant

If you are doubting your want to be in a 4 year university, start exploring other options now. Don't make the same mistake I did. If you just want to do a tech school degree, a local community college would probably have one at a much lower price than whatever school you're at now. Or if you're at a community college right now... don't transfer to one of those chain colleges that put out commercials on late night TV. They're all crap.



Chipz
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29 Sep 2010, 12:27 am

Why are you in a speech class then?



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29 Sep 2010, 6:36 am

314159 wrote:
I don't know about a doctor's note, but you may be able to get a disability accommodation. If your school has an office for disabled students go talk to them.


+1

If anything, if you have problems speaking in public, you NEED to take more classes that force you to learn how to. However, if the professor knows you have issues that make it hard for you to do so, your grade should be based on your effort and how much improvement you manage to show. An NT generally has no problem showing expected improvement. Someone with a condition that makes any public speech difficult likely won't show the expected amount of improvement.

Likewise, a skilled instructor who knows you have a condition can give specific advice that will help YOU improve your skills.



Lene
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29 Sep 2010, 8:50 am

j5689 wrote:
Lene wrote:
The best impromptu speeches take the longest preparation. Did you have time to practice beforehand or where you just given your topic on the day?

Yeah, you just walk up to the front of the room and he drops you a subject. And he just had to give me politics but I won't go into that story


Sounds pretty tough alright. Often people feel they did worse in situations like this than they actually did.

Also, you can still practice at home; get your parents/friends to fire out random titles at you and practice talking about them. You need to do it a few times to get confident at it, and you may need to plan a generic opening and conclusive line, but it will make a difference and (imo) will stand to you in the long run a lot more than using the aspie card.