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How does degree of autism affect education?

longman

This seems an excellent forum for gauging the experiences of young people on the spectrum, and their parents, where the impact of the autism is much more manageable.

Some people don't get diagnosed until late teens or early 20s. They get through a lot of bullying, segregation on academic or behavioural grounds but still emerge to be diagnosed with autism or aspergers. Some children are diagnosed as very mild early on but their school experience isn't necessarily a doddle.

The autistic spectrum is often portrayed as a continuum, but this isn't strictly accurate. The presence of different symtoms and manifestations varies widely in its effects on individuals. Someone can be deemed mild, when some aspects of their autism are still severe, but the majority are sufficiently mild to enable them to cope better.

In strategies to help children in education, is it always certain that the measures we adopt to help do not prevent environmental factors which, even if uncomfortable, go some way to modifying the overall experience.

Can we learn something from people on the spectrum deemed milder or manageable in terms of their experience of education?

It would be useful perhaps to hear from parents with children designated mildly affected whether the educational experience was comparably mild, or whether there were real hardships that "mild" didn't prepare them for?

Parents

  • Hi Fish,

    I've seen this written in the literature somewhere, but it is also my own experience. I integrate to some degree socially, I just get into lots of difficulties and misunderstandings, especially over time, or if stressed or if it is noisy. What I understand of this as an adult is that if you appear to integrate but don't conform all the way, your non-conformity is read as being deceitful or conniving. It also makes you a target to those who see a way iof getting a laugh out of your social clumsiness.

    Thinking back to when I was 11 I think much the same thing was happening. Children pick up on differences that are much subtler than would arise for someone with more marked social integration problems. That gives them permission to tease, manipulate and entertain themselves with the difficulties a mild AS encounters, whereas there would more likely be teacher disapproval of them taking advantage of someone with more obvious difficulties.

    There is also the guilt factor. I experienced a lot of self doubt, embarassment at my apparent social failings. There was no obvious explanation. My difficulties were too subtle for my parents or teachers to pick up, they could only see the outward expression of my difficulties, which seemed to be for no good reason.

    Bullying of mild AS is subtler. It isn't easy for teachers to see the cause. I likened my experiences to "the last straw". Basically I became acutely distressed after very minor incidents of teasing, but what teachers couldn't see was the cumulative effect (because they weren't around when that was happening). The bullying went on in the classrom when the teacher was out the room, in queues and walking in lines (which was what happened a lot in my day), at lunch, in the playground, in the changing rooms, in the toilets, in the bus queue - all places I couldn't withdraw from.

    So when you say the school knows about it I do wonder if they do. Bullying of people with mild autism is not the same as conventional bullying. Kids quickly realise that the complexity and frequency of small hurts and threats can generate meltdown for very little effort and little fear of discovery. Meltdown is entertaining.

    The reason I raised this is I think there is insufficient understanding of what mild means in terms of bullying

Reply

  • Hi Fish,

    I've seen this written in the literature somewhere, but it is also my own experience. I integrate to some degree socially, I just get into lots of difficulties and misunderstandings, especially over time, or if stressed or if it is noisy. What I understand of this as an adult is that if you appear to integrate but don't conform all the way, your non-conformity is read as being deceitful or conniving. It also makes you a target to those who see a way iof getting a laugh out of your social clumsiness.

    Thinking back to when I was 11 I think much the same thing was happening. Children pick up on differences that are much subtler than would arise for someone with more marked social integration problems. That gives them permission to tease, manipulate and entertain themselves with the difficulties a mild AS encounters, whereas there would more likely be teacher disapproval of them taking advantage of someone with more obvious difficulties.

    There is also the guilt factor. I experienced a lot of self doubt, embarassment at my apparent social failings. There was no obvious explanation. My difficulties were too subtle for my parents or teachers to pick up, they could only see the outward expression of my difficulties, which seemed to be for no good reason.

    Bullying of mild AS is subtler. It isn't easy for teachers to see the cause. I likened my experiences to "the last straw". Basically I became acutely distressed after very minor incidents of teasing, but what teachers couldn't see was the cumulative effect (because they weren't around when that was happening). The bullying went on in the classrom when the teacher was out the room, in queues and walking in lines (which was what happened a lot in my day), at lunch, in the playground, in the changing rooms, in the toilets, in the bus queue - all places I couldn't withdraw from.

    So when you say the school knows about it I do wonder if they do. Bullying of people with mild autism is not the same as conventional bullying. Kids quickly realise that the complexity and frequency of small hurts and threats can generate meltdown for very little effort and little fear of discovery. Meltdown is entertaining.

    The reason I raised this is I think there is insufficient understanding of what mild means in terms of bullying

Children
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