Spiralling brain!

I am studying online for a psychology health and wellbeing masters and last night it sent me spiralling because there was a lecture on "atypical behaviours" 

It focused on autism but then had a whole slide about aspergers and I was pretty shocked that 13 years after this stopped being used as an official diagnosis I was being taught about it as a medical condition at postgrad level.

I emailed the psych online team and the disability team and said how appalled and behind the times they were and inluded links to the autistic society page explaining why Asperger isnt used anymore as he was a Nazi who literally murdered autistic children with higher support needs. 

But then also to fully put the icing on my sadness cake, to quote the lecturer she then said "empathy appears to have gone awry in people with autism" I dont know about any of you but im pretty sure every autistic person is very individual and to be put in a box that we are all the same. I felt sick! That people supposed to be eductaing at such a high level have got is so unbelievably wrong! Me personally, I feel things so deeply and soak up everyone else's emotions and am one of the most empathetic people and use this daily working in a 90 bed care home. 

Mainly just needed to get my sadness down on paper and maybe I might receive a reply quicker than I so far have from my university! 

  • I think this is a big problem. There are a lot of people that studied autism a long time ago that are not teaching others about it or being responsible for diagnosing it. They are not up to date on their information yet are passing it on to the next generation and causing some people to not get diagnosed. It's no wonder there is so much misinformation out there.

  • inluded links to the autistic society page explaining why Asperger isnt used anymore as he was a Nazi who literally murdered autistic children with higher support needs. 

    Just to clarify, Asperger's was removed from the diagnostic manuals for clinical reasons, not because of the historical facts that came to light about Hans Asperger.

    Whilst some people who were originally diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome / Asperger’s prefer to continue using it, some others don’t - in some cases due to the revelations about his complicity.

    NAS - Asperger Syndrome

  • You could ask to speak to the head of department of the faculty that includes your course. If you check your uni's website, it should list all the faculty members.

  • This is extremely saddening! I just didnt expect to have to be educating people who are preofessors and have phd's when I thought I had paid to educate myself further after being out of formal education for 20 years.

    I dont know rhe answer to your question im afraid as didmt properly understand (sorry)  but they teach many different subjects and I am doing one of the few online courses the uni offered. 

  • Unfortunately, many teachers don't keep up their research in every aspect of a course they teach and it sounds like this course hasn't been rewritten for years. There are other problems as well - is your university a teaching uni only in this subject or does it engage in research? If it does, it depends what areas the lecturers research as it is likely that only those may be kept up to date. 

    A close friend of mine was an academic at senior grade but due to cuts, was doing unpaid principal (next grade up) work as well as academic admin for her sub-department, on top of her normal job. She was also pressured to continue with research - if only she was given the time! In the end, she was glad to retire early. Since she left, nine years ago, there have been deeper cuts. If the academics in the psych dept don;'t have time to kleep up with research, they can't update the course. It's shoddy and lets down the students, but such is the state of the academic sector.

    In addition to that (if it wasn't enough!) departments are merged to save costs, and lecturers can end up covering a subject for others due to vacancies. It's always worth checking out a lecturer's credentials in the subject they are teaching.

    Oh, and add into the mix - like other humans, academics can be lazy, narrow-minded and arrogant.

  • Thank you! I genuinely just didnt know what or who to speak to about this. I have no friends who are diagnosed and it can be pretty lonely and scary when things like that come up and you are just staring shockedly at anorhers ignorance! 

  • I think somethings gone awry with empathy in psychology lecturers!

    Don't these people ever listen to themselves and think about how what they say comes across to people who hear them?

    Has your lecturer ever spent any time talking to autistic people? Does she realise that when you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person, not all of us?

    I think a lot of austiic people are very high levels of empathy, I would say you're more typical of autistic people than your lecturers are willing to believe, I think many of us suffer with such high levels of empathy that we have to shut down and take some time away from others, just to get away from the storm force auras. 

     She sounds like such a stupid bovine! Thats me being insulting whilst remaining within the site rules.