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Educating the Autistic

Ken

Well-Known Member
V.I.P Member
My first awareness of what autism really is was when watching, in passing, a news cast where Greta Thunberg was giving a speech and mentioned she was autistic (2019). She did not fit what I thought autism was, so I started researching. That is when I discovered that all my life mysteries was because I am autistic. For that, I thank Greta for opening my eyes to my life.

But there are still some sub-mysteries. I did horribly bad in school. All grades. I finally managed to graduate, but just barely and with more than one repeat year. I was diagnosed as retarded and having learning disabilities. The mystery of this is that I could learn things I was interested in on my own. I could study college textbooks and get it. I became a successful self-taught electronics design engineer. I then deduced that I did not have a learning disability, but I have a social disorder. At least for me, teaching is a social thing, and anything social generates and exaggerates anxiety, making it very hard to be taught. Therefore, I assumed school was too social for me.

But then, during my family moving to a new house, I had to change schools for half a school year. The interim school was a giant integrated, very diverse school. My “regular” school was small, segregated and deeply bigoted. The teachers were my only bullies. Anyone “different” was bullied. The teachers at the big interim school were very nice. No bullies there. I made decent grades there.

It seems that a common symptom of autism is social disorders. But it appears that many autistics, including Greta Thunberg, has no problem being taught - no problem with school. I am curious how many on this forum do/did well in school or being taught.

I do feel confident that my social anxiety is an impediment to being taught but was that my sole issue or was a larger part my learning disability due to the small, backwards school with bad teachers?

Since that Greta Thunberg video, I have made huge inroads in figuring out my life, but there are still a few pockets of mysteries yet to learn.
 
It does sound like you've worked out the answer to this to an extent, because you note you did fine in the nice school. Nasty biggotted teachers were the problem, I would think. So sorry that happened to you, @Ken.

Clearly you were not and are not retarded. It may also be worth considering that our different processing makes interfacing with NTS harder, we don't always get what they mean, and perhaps their values seem different too, what I mean is, it may not be mainly or only anxiety, I know it isn't for me, I am not anxious but I still find it hard to learn through being taught. And sometimes I think what I learn isn't what they meant to teach.

Isaac Newton was exactly as you describe, and did very poorly at school initially, as they didn't capture his interest. He liked to make models and do experiments.
 
In high school and public school just got by college, improved considerably, taking something I enjoyed. Quality courses staight A Student wanted to prove a point marks mean nothing. Nobody cares once you graduate. all that matters is on the job performance.
 
I enjoyed learning things in school but the institutional school setting, classrooms, students, school day, etc was terrible for me. With my autism and ADHD and inability to filter stimuli it was sensory overload for me.

Overall I hated my school experience from 7th grade through high school worse than just about anything I can think of. I say this with zero exaggeration: The last day of high school was and still is one of the happiest days of my life.
 
I acually enjoy school now getting an A is easy. my dad went back to university while in his 80's took a history course got an A which the professor told him she never gives out. he died so after. he lived what he wrote about, I guess the various tests were easy. I remember he had a entourage of young students when he left class. He was a real extravert
 
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I did well in early elementary school. I was the girl always a little ahead of my peers. I went to three 3rd grade classes in three different states but I still did well. The trouble started in 4th grade. I am not sure what happened then.

I was in the same school where I had finished 3rd grade but by the start of 4th grade I seemed horribly behind.
It was almost as if I was dropped into a place I didn't understand. Like being in a foreign country. That would persist until I finally dropped out and took my GED middle of my sophmore year. I dropped out of school and took my GED test the same day. I passed with a B.

I think puberty plays a role here. A change in hormones may have heightened already existing social anxiety and what may have been anxiety induced OCD.

In any case I never caught up and my mother and teachers never caught on. I seemed to be incapable of expressing any of my thoughts or worries without experiencing judgement and condemnation.

Later, as an adult I realized I have dyscalculia but in school I was just "lazy" and didn't try hard enough.

There were other issues of abuse too. But though I tried to talk to my mom about it she said I was "very good at lying and very manipulative". There is just no way for a kid to get any kind of help when your most trusted adults simply fail at being parents.

My school was small but the teachers were not unkind. I think they resisted labeling me or having me assessed for learning difficulties because I still tested well. My grades were low because I seldom did any work but I got mostly As and Bs on my tests. A cunundrum indeed.
 
ASD is a pervasive developmental disorder. Pervasive in that in multiple developmental problems are present. A typical Asperger's kid may seem "gifted" but have trouble socially with other kids, be clumsy, etc. I would have done much better in a more suitable school environment. I have my early school reports with social problems and poor attention to the teacher noted. I also have visual problems which made me a poor reader even with glasses. My hand-eye coordination is off-the-charts bad, but I suppose that is not a school concern. A optometrist eventually noticed my problems and I got some visual training therapy which probably help a little. Somehow I kept up with mainstream classes.

Greta, was an eye opener to me too. Although I knew I was ASD, self-diagnosed based on reading about Asperger's long before it started getting diagnosed, her openness led me to discover the autistic community. It is still most online but I would like to see more local community develop.
 
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I only did good on two subjects, art and medicine. Everything else was just bad and I hated it. Did not fit into any group, skipped school a lot due to not fitting in or having a clue as to what they were teaching. My parents didn’t care and were gone by when I was 12 so finished school early in night school. Night school was much easier, just the kids that had a difficult time and back then, pregnant girls. No I wasn’t pregnant but did work full time since I was a kid starting at that time. Stupid kids don’t finish school on their own at night while working full time. I’m proud of myself now, but still didn’t like school until I was an adult.
 
I was very inconsistent, doing excellently in some areas of interest and poorly in others. But then this was also a time of isolation and aching loneliness which contributed to my distraction.
 
My first awareness of what autism really is was when watching, in passing, a news cast where Greta Thunberg was giving a speech and mentioned she was autistic (2019). She did not fit what I thought autism was, so I started researching. That is when I discovered that all my life mysteries was because I am autistic. For that, I thank Greta for opening my eyes to my life.

But there are still some sub-mysteries. I did horribly bad in school. All grades. I finally managed to graduate, but just barely and with more than one repeat year. I was diagnosed as retarded and having learning disabilities. The mystery of this is that I could learn things I was interested in on my own. I could study college textbooks and get it. I became a successful self-taught electronics design engineer. I then deduced that I did not have a learning disability, but I have a social disorder. At least for me, teaching is a social thing, and anything social generates and exaggerates anxiety, making it very hard to be taught. Therefore, I assumed school was too social for me.

But then, during my family moving to a new house, I had to change schools for half a school year. The interim school was a giant integrated, very diverse school. My “regular” school was small, segregated and deeply bigoted. The teachers were my only bullies. Anyone “different” was bullied. The teachers at the big interim school were very nice. No bullies there. I made decent grades there.

It seems that a common symptom of autism is social disorders. But it appears that many autistics, including Greta Thunberg, has no problem being taught - no problem with school. I am curious how many on this forum do/did well in school or being taught.

I do feel confident that my social anxiety is an impediment to being taught but was that my sole issue or was a larger part my learning disability due to the small, backwards school with bad teachers?

Since that Greta Thunberg video, I have made huge inroads in figuring out my life, but there are still a few pockets of mysteries yet to learn.

I had some challenges early on due to some bad teachers, some bigoted. I nearly failed the third grade despite being advanced for my age. I hated school until I was enrolled in a private school, where it was concluded that I was “gifted”, with strong interests in math snd science. I did not interact with other students though, and basically constructed a virtual wall between myself and everyone else. I ended up graduating 2nd in my class in high school, and received a scholarship to a university. I still did not interact much socially in university, but I excelled in studies. I enjoy learning things of interest to me, and have continued attending universities until age 55.

It sounds like your anxiety towards learning was caused by bad teachers, which should not ever happen. I am glad you succeeded despite that. I did not know I was autistic until a few years ago, and I will be 63 next month.
 
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I really struggled in school at first - I was failing most everything. I was pulled out of class and evaluated in 3rd or 4th grade, and found to be gifted. Then I was placed in special classes. Academically I really improved (went from failing everything to taking honors and AP classes and passing them with flying colors).

I always thought I had some sort of unidentified learning "disability" (maybe "difference" is a better word). I didn't really understand what the teachers were trying to teach me, I had to take the materials I was given and figure out for myself how to reach the right conclusion (especially in math, where I demonstrably think differently than most people). I can't for the life of me remember dates, etc. Early on I struggled because I couldn't understand what was expected of me, and my executive function was bad enough that I couldn't remember to bring my homework home, etc. (I was assumed to be "lazy" of course, and punished accordingly.)
 

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