Going back to school after the easter break

There is a book on this which seems to get a good grip on the issues, albeit from an American context, with different descriptions of school environments and infrastructures.

It is "Asperger Syndrome and Bullying Strategies and Solutions" by Nick Dubin, who is a psychologist in Detroit, who has aspergers, and drew inspiration for the book from his own experiences of being bullied. It does raise the sorts of issues parents should look out for. It is published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers in 2007 (ISBN 978-1-84310-846-7).

Chapter 1 describes his own experiences, and chapter 2 headed "Easy Targets: Children on the Autistic Spectrum" looks at the underlying causes - which he labels low frustration tolerance (sensory overload), monotropism (not being able to multi-task and being over-focussed), motor-difficulties, gullibility, auditory processing delays (takes longer to analyse something said), problems with reading non-verbal clues, special interests, lack of dating experience (right from early teens apparent naivity about sex in AS children gets picked on), cultural illiteracy (not knowing enough about social culture of their peers to be able to participate), lack of imagination (that ever present attribution, but which he translates as understanding the rules of imagined games), and odd use of language.

OK that's a huge list of issues. In the jungle of school, NT kids have to manage all of that to be accepted. Children on the spectrum haven't a hope of keeping up, so they get picked on for not being able to conform. 

The rest of the book looks at solutions and empowering, but just tends to be in American school contexts.

One of Nick Dubin's illustrations from his own experience is the door handle problem, to which I can concur, as it gets me all the time.

Well I'm pretty sure everyone gets this problem once in a while, but people on the spectrum get it a lot. If a handle or a key or a switch operates unconventionally most times it will fool someone on the spectrum. For some reason, if you have autism, you will keep trying the conventional or expected direction - you just wont try the opposite of expectation. It is something to do with focus.

What happened to Nick Dubin was his teachers made fun of his difficulty with doors, making him open doors for the class, knowing he'd get stuck every time, and making fun of him for it in front of his classmates. A number of the doors in his school turned the opposite direction, towards the opening side of the door, from what you'd expect. He couldn't ever work this out, despite being repeatedly made fun of for this by teachers.

And I'm afraid to say teachers will do this a lot, even with a disabled kid. Don't know why it isn't sorted in professional training, but it just seems to be something that happens a lot, maybe not with doorhandles, but with other foibles or difficulties an AS kid may have.

There is a book on this which seems to get a good grip on the issues, albeit from an American context, with different descriptions of school environments and infrastructures.

It is "Asperger Syndrome and Bullying Strategies and Solutions" by Nick Dubin, who is a psychologist in Detroit, who has aspergers, and drew inspiration for the book from his own experiences of being bullied. It does raise the sorts of issues parents should look out for. It is published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers in 2007 (ISBN 978-1-84310-846-7).

Chapter 1 describes his own experiences, and chapter 2 headed "Easy Targets: Children on the Autistic Spectrum" looks at the underlying causes - which he labels low frustration tolerance (sensory overload), monotropism (not being able to multi-task and being over-focussed), motor-difficulties, gullibility, auditory processing delays (takes longer to analyse something said), problems with reading non-verbal clues, special interests, lack of dating experience (right from early teens apparent naivity about sex in AS children gets picked on), cultural illiteracy (not knowing enough about social culture of their peers to be able to participate), lack of imagination (that ever present attribution, but which he translates as understanding the rules of imagined games), and odd use of language.

OK that's a huge list of issues. In the jungle of school, NT kids have to manage all of that to be accepted. Children on the spectrum haven't a hope of keeping up, so they get picked on for not being able to conform. 

The rest of the book looks at solutions and empowering, but just tends to be in American school contexts.

One of Nick Dubin's illustrations from his own experience is the door handle problem, to which I can concur, as it gets me all the time.

Well I'm pretty sure everyone gets this problem once in a while, but people on the spectrum get it a lot. If a handle or a key or a switch operates unconventionally most times it will fool someone on the spectrum. For some reason, if you have autism, you will keep trying the conventional or expected direction - you just wont try the opposite of expectation. It is something to do with focus.

What happened to Nick Dubin was his teachers made fun of his difficulty with doors, making him open doors for the class, knowing he'd get stuck every time, and making fun of him for it in front of his classmates. A number of the doors in his school turned the opposite direction, towards the opening side of the door, from what you'd expect. He couldn't ever work this out, despite being repeatedly made fun of for this by teachers.

And I'm afraid to say teachers will do this a lot, even with a disabled kid. Don't know why it isn't sorted in professional training, but it just seems to be something that happens a lot, maybe not with doorhandles, but with other foibles or difficulties an AS kid may have.