If NTs are so good at noticing and reacting to social cues...

[Misty Avich]

...Then how come professionals often miss or misinterpret such obvious emotions often?

My colleague has an 11-year-old son with ADHD and anxiety, and has just started at a new school. His teachers didn't know about his condition and he became very distressed in one of his classes. He had a panic attack, burst into tears and ran out of the room. But the teacher just gave him a detention and labeled him as obnoxious.
I think this is odd, because he's a shy child and has a few quirks and often looks nervous. So surely couldn't the teacher recognise from his body language and the type of student he is that he was just in distress? She had to be told that he has ADHD and anxiety by the principal, because although ADHD isn't always recognisable without the stereotypes you can still tell he is nervous and is a little different and has some learning difficulties. But most teachers very seldom notice such obvious signs in children that there might be something wrong. Even I can tell the difference between an obnoxious child and a child who is in distress. And teachers are supposed to be trained at understanding the different needs, plus their "excellent natural ability to pick up even the subtlest of body language" (if they, the teacher, are NT) should help too.

I think it's a human trait to only see things from your own perspective unless told otherwise, but there are still so many Aspies out there who believe it's only an autism trait.

Also I've noticed other times, in everyday life, where an NT needed to think before interpreting whether someone was being literal or joking.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

(1) One must not assume the teacher wasn't on the autism spectrum (diagnosed or undiagnosed).
(2) One must not assume the teacher wasn't under the influence of cognitive bias.
(3) One must not assume the teacher had sufficient training with regards to identifying so-called neurodivergent and anxiety-related behaviors, as such behaviors are not universally expressed.

Keep in mind, many of us have been to medical professionals for one reason or another as children through adulthood, and very, very few would recognize autism. I use the example of my own experience where I work at one of the largest children's hospitals in the US. We interact with autistic children every day. Yet, I worked side-by-side with my co-workers for over 30 years and not one pulled me aside and said anything. I've seen videos of me talking, whether it be conversations or standing up and lecturing, I clearly recognize the differences in my speech patterns (prosody and dyspraxia). Even when I brought up my diagnosis to my physician, he was confused and had no clue.

The point being, because a teacher, a medical professional, might have had a lecture (not likely) or written a report on the topic of autism, ADHD, etc. (not likely) during their training, we must not make assumptions that "they should have recognized it." "But, they're trained professionals." NO, THEY ARE NOT.

My advice would be (1) if you have a child with a "condition", make sure the teachers and health care professionals are aware from the beginning, and (2) understand that if a child is having "behavior issues", is undiagnosed, and the teacher or medical professional is not sufficiently trained in recognizing certain conditions, it is highly likely that their cognitive biases will prevail and the child's behavior will be misinterpreted.

Most of us live and work, every day, with neurotypicals who misinterpret our behaviors and intentions, mischaracterizing us. It's highly likely that they recognize all the subtle nuances of our behaviors, but it simply is misinterpreted. It's one of the main reasons why we struggle with creating meaningful interpersonal relationships.

 

[Misty Avich]

This wasn't the first teacher to misunderstand his behaviour, and they can't all be on the spectrum. There's a greater chance that they're NTs.

Also in the UK it is a known requirement that teachers must cover special needs during their training. My husband's brother is a teacher and he said autism, ADHD, and other mental health and behavioural problems are all mandatory and are covered in the training they have to do, just like health & safety, fire safety, equality and all that.

I've heard of a teacher yelling at a foreign girl because she couldn't speak any English yet. It wasn't her fault, she got lost in the school and was obviously worried but a teacher thought she was just being obnoxious and shouted at her. She signaled that she didn't know any English and was close to tears, but the teacher seemed ignorant to it. Yes I know the teacher "could have been on the spectrum" but let's just say he wasn't, as he most likely wasn't.

 

[vergil96]

It's because "social cue" in the context of autism means a specific set of difficulties and behaviours such as eye contact, reflecting facial expressions, literal underatanding, not speaking or "monologuing", not noticing some nonverbal cues, not knowing when your turn to speak is etc. They all result from an excess of stimuli and sensory processing. It doesn't mean all possible social difficulties and it doesn't mean NTs are any good at empathy or "being social". For example, NTs can be very bad with babies - a baby can't tell them what he or she feels.

 

[Hypnalis]

You're setting the bar for teachers way too high. And over-estimating NT's abilities to read body language.

The teacher should have been informed of the child's diagnosis by school admin. If the child isn't diagnosed, the fault lies with the parents.

 

[vergil96]

The teacher should have been informed of the child's diagnosis by school admin. If the child isn't diagnosed, the fault lies with the parents.

Does that change anything though? I have had the exact same situation in informal context (having panic attacks) and no amount of factual explanation in clinical terms reaches some people. In my experience, if someone didn't have an empathetic attitude in the first place, they interpret all explanations as quarreling or attention seeking (yuck!). And the more highly someone thinks of themselves in terms of knowing psychology, e.g. they have a degree in education, psychology or something similar, the less they are willing to listen (know-it-all attitude: I know better what you feel than you do! while having too little knowledge).

To sum up, I doubt that a stamp from someone qualified wpuld change anything? Or does it?

 

[Neonatal RRT]

This wasn't the first teacher to misunderstand his behaviour, and they can't all be on the spectrum. There's a greater chance that they're NTs.

Also in the UK it is a known requirement that teachers must cover special needs during their training. My husband's brother is a teacher and he said autism, ADHD, and other mental health and behavioural problems are all mandatory and are covered in the training they have to do, just like health & safety, fire safety, equality and all that.

I've heard of a teacher yelling at a foreign girl because she couldn't speak any English yet. It wasn't her fault, she got lost in the school and was obviously worried but a teacher thought she was just being obnoxious and shouted at her. She signaled that she didn't know any England was close to tears, but the teacher seemed ignorant to it. Yes I know the teacher "could have been on the spectrum" but let's just say he wasn't, as he most likely wasn't.

Then likely, cognitive bias and misinterpretation, as well as inadequate training. It's not about NT vs ND, per se. It's a much larger issue you've identified.

Another example. I am a respiratory therapist. I KNOW asthma. A physical education instructor will have been specifically trained in recognizing a child with asthma symptoms, pull the child aside, and have the school nurse administer medications. This is what is supposed to happen. Yet, when you ask a physical education instructor, and we have done this outreach teaching, "How does asthma present? Show me." Most will act out the most extreme version of asthma, and not all the subtle early signs that are needed to recognized and intervene BEFORE the child is in serious respiratory distress. I've spent many a long hour teaching. "I don't remember being taught this." This is important to recognize. Inadequate training.

Similar experience with health care professionals who deal with childhood autism, yet fail to recognize it when the same kid comes back as an adult. There's a serious lack of education and recognition.

Within the context of a busy, sometimes chaotic classroom situation, where the teacher might be struggling to maintain control and discipline with a large group of neurotypical children, one could imagine a development of a cognitive bias that "I am going to deal with the group" and not the individual. It's a common thing to have a few kids acting out, and the whole class is disciplined. Now introduce a child with a mental health condition, diagnosed or not. Unless that condition is extreme, or particularly odd, the teacher might not separate that behavior from anything else that is a "distraction within the classroom".

You may have identified yet another symptom of public education. This embracing of "sameness". This mindset that we are all going to teach and test same way, to all children. We are going to teach the same subjects, with minimal curriculum options. We are going to discipline the same way. We are going to push them through like cattle through a chute. If we lose a few to private schools and home school, then so be it. If there is a bias towards female learning versus male learning, or vice versa, so be it. If there are a few children who have special needs or conditions, adapt, overcome, or fail, but we need to keep pushing them through the system.

 

[Misty Avich]

Then likely, cognitive bias and misinterpretation, as well as inadequate training. It's not about NT vs ND, per se.

Exactly - NTs can misinterpret each other too. I don't think NTs have super excellent skills at correctly understanding everything people do and say, but it's usually how Aspies describe NTs as, that they can basically work out your name just by your body language, like body language is the window to one's mind and identity, which I actually find freaky.
On autism forums I often read something like most of human communication is based on body language than words (can't remember the ratio percentage). So if this is the case then surely NTs should "just know" who's who.
Like when there was a man with Tourette's syndrome in the high street one time. I've never met anyone with Tourette's and I don't have experience with Tourette's but I could still tell his yelling out rude remarks was due to a condition, but everyone else was taking it personally, saying "how dare he?" and "who does he think he is saying things like that?" and "someone needs to teach him some manners!" But he wasn't making eye contact, he was blushing with embarrassment, and his anxious body language screamed "I can't help it, I don't want to say these things!" But the more people stared the more nervous he got and the more obscenities he involuntarily yelled out. People stared even more and I felt like yelling "can't you see he has Tourette's?" But I was too shy. I know that most people have heard of Tourette's.
But NT people can be ignorant and think that anything different from them is done deliberately to upset them.

 

[TBRS1]

I taught high school for 30 years.

I wasn't diagnosed with ASD until a couple years before retirement.

If a kid was even fair at masking, I would have never recognized ASD - ever, because:

1. I was not a diagnostician. I was never trained, in any way, to diagnose anything (I have a degree in education. What degree does a clinical diagnostician have, and how many hours per week does the clinician spend writing and executing lesson plans?). Can I tell if a student has some issue? Yes. Could I tell you what it was? No. Honest, true fact - even someone skilled in diagnosis will miss 90% of the symptoms of ANYTHING in a non clinical setting (i.e.: unless looking to diagnose, people are not viewed as if under a microscope awaiting diagnosis).

2. I had to work with 30 different students every hour. A clinician deals with 1 person per hour. It is unfair to expect a classroom teacher to diagnose something under these conditions. Even parents - who, I imagine, see their kids for a few hours per day - frequently miss signs of all kinds of mental health issues.

3. I would have loved to be able to help people who need it, or "be there" for those who need help. It's why I got a master's degree in education, and engaged in continuing education (paid at my expense) for 30 years. I'm a pretty good person, but maybe people imagine I should be able to do magic. I can't. Pretty sure the majority of teachers are also human.

4. I saw and worked with many students with a variety of issues, ranging from victims of incest to drug addicted negligent parents - on a daily basis. I'm glad to have done that. Did I miss things? Oh hell yeah I did. I'm human, not superhuman. So are all other teachers.

 

[The Pandector]

In my underinformed opinion, the problem lies between speed and confidence. NT’s assume that everyone is like them and everyone else, whereas ND’s are forced since diagnosis to deal with the fact that some people have different but legitimate understandings.

So, I think the typical typical grows confident and sizes people up on the fly. This quick-fire look-and-react becomes a set pattern, and they become closed to other understandings. NT’s have little incentive to think twice about their evaluations of other people’s behavior, so everybody gets judged by NT standards.

 

[Hypnalis]

To sum up, I doubt that a stamp from someone qualified would change anything? Or does it?

I don't believe anyone can reasonably expect a professional teacher to diagnose someone with ADHD and Anxiety while they're responsible for teaching a class with other students.

For context, that's actually illegal where I live - we're quite picky about people taking on medical responsibilities unless they have the appropriate training and certification. Teachers are expected to pass any concerns on to specialists for assessment.

The school and/or the parents should have informed the teacher.

If we wind back to the scenario:

* Teacher has a new student in their classroom, with no information that they're not "typical"
* The new student starts acting up in ways that cannot be distinguished from "normal inappropriate behavior". Presumably causing moderate disruption to the class (but there's no evidence in the OP).
* Teacher does whatever is usual and required in that education system and school. This probably doesn't include "no action", nor an intervention using specialist resources (e.g. school nurse).

Clearly providing the teacher with advance warning of a potential issue would change everything.
Teachers are indeed trained for such things.

But they're not trained to perform a full psychological assessment of every new student, and shouldn't be expected to try.

To me, the entire original scenario sounds like one or more of the parties who actually created "the risk that became an issue" are trying to shift the blame onto an easy target (the teacher).

BTW: NT's aren't that good at "reading social cues". They're much better than we are, but that's comparing with a very low base. Plus the difficulty increases in proportion to the number of people involved.

NT's miss most social cues, and they're not good at identifying the nature of atypical behavior. They're just good at identifying that a given behavior is atypical, and "turning away" from it.

 

[Judge]

...Then how come professionals often miss or misinterpret such obvious emotions often?

Having spent many years in working in the insurance industry, it's no accident why medical professionals must carry malpractice insurance. And why their premiums can be outrageously expensive.

An issue that sadly goes far, far beyond the scope of issues like neurology and neurodiversity.

 

[kenaij]

In all fairness. Most teachers (atleast in the Netherlands) are not properly trained when it comes to neurodivergent children. Or basic human behaviour for that matter. I work at a school with teens and young adults aged 11-24. My job is best discribed as a mix of a janitor, TA and Social worker/counsoler. The amount of times I see where the teacher simply do not understand the behaviour of the children or why they behave and react to situations is uncountable. There are some very good teachers. Who do understand different children have different needs. But in general they are just their to talk about their subject and get paid at the end of the day.
I attended school to become an elementary school teacher (but did not finish it) but in the two years I attended very little was taught about children's behaviour, but almost everything was taught on how to pass on information to young minds.
My direct colleague has ADHD, and I am most likely autistic. And funnily enough most of the times we understand the 'trouble' children way better than their teacher or other NT people at the school.

 

[vergil96]

I don't know how someone wouldn't be able to tell a panic attack and crying from acting up. You literally look at someone's facial expression and know if they're suffering. Unless someone has eyesight issues or a large problem telling apart facial expressions, that means they shouldn't be working with people. It also doesn't take much mental capacity to not be an agressor to someone who is suffering a lot.

 

[vergil96]

I don't think there is an excuse to yell at someone for expierincing panic or crying. You're hurting someone for no reason. Period.

If you kicked a dog for squeaking in pain, that's the same kind of cruelty. And there is no excuse like "but the dog was resisting a vaccine". You don't hit dogs. Period.

I'm frankly disgusted by looking for excuses for such behaviour. If someone is aggressive and lack basic social skills, they shouldn't work with children.

 

[MildredHubble]

If a child bursts into tears and runs out of a classroom, you do not have to be a diagnostician, psychologist, have received special training, be aware of autism, etc etc, to know that child is distressed. Tears do not usually get displayed when someone is being deliberately badly behaved.

If a child is visibly distressed, the right and proper thing to do is calmly talk to that child to ascertain what happened and to find a way of helping them avoid such distress going forward.

It is far more convenient for a teacher to write off a child as a difficult, awkward trouble maker instead of trying to help that child. Teachers ARE trained in the UK to be aware of potential learning difficulties or potential safe guarding risks (in other words are the child's actions a potential indicator of an abusive home).

Some kids are badly behaved, they know what they are doing and they enjoy doing so. But kids with problems that lead to distress might lash out or meltdown as their ability cope with strong emotions has not fully developed yet.

Kids are not born into this world pre programmed with the knowledge to deal with this sort of thing. People forget that this knowledge and skill set is acquired over the course of childhood and adolescence and even then is constantly being up dated as new experience is gained.

The teacher has failed to deal with the situation appropriately. There are no excuses for their behaviour. They are a trained, grown adult. As far as I'm concerned her behaviour borders on abuse.

 

[Misty Avich]

Um, I wasn't saying a teacher should diagnose a condition in a child lol. But I feel a teacher should be able to differentiate between a child being bratty and a child having learning struggles. I don't mean the teacher should have known the child's conditions just by looking at him, as I'd already mentioned in my OP but obviously got missed. But the teacher could have sensed by the way he was acting that he wasn't being difficult, he was in distress, indicating that there could be a possibility that he might have a problem that needed addressing instead of ignorantly dismissing his behaviour as an obnoxious lout. His emotional reaction said it all for a start

 

[kenaij]

A lot of teachers do not put in the time to asses WHY a child is acting. They simply care if THEIR class/lesson is being disturbed.
I know it is a bad way to go about it. But sadly. Atleast at the school I work at it is the truth.

 

[TBRS1]

Um, I wasn't saying a teacher should diagnose a condition in a child lol. But I feel a teacher should be able to differentiate between a child being bratty and a child having learning struggles. I don't mean the teacher should have known the child's conditions just by looking at him, as I'd already mentioned in my OP but obviously got missed. But the teacher could have sensed by the way he was acting that he wasn't being difficult, he was in distress, indicating that there could be a possibility that he might have a problem that needed addressing instead of ignorantly dismissing his behaviour as an obnoxious lout. His emotional reaction said it all for a start

You are right. The teacher should have noticed that the child was in distress. That IS an important part of the job.

But there is also harsh reality. Did the teacher see the child in distress? Or did the teacher only see the student leave the classroom?

Ideally, the teacher would have seen the distress.

Realistically - these kids over here are throwing snot balls at that kid. I gotta deal with that. This kid came back from the bathroom, and looks like he/she is gonna O.D. I gotta deal with that. This kid asked me to look over their thesis statement. I gotta deal with that. All those cell phones? I gotta deal with that (or get fired) Etc. etc. etc.

I bet that, despite trying really hard, I missed a lot.

 

[MildredHubble]

A lot of teachers do not put in the time to asses WHY a child is acting. They simply care if THEIR class/lesson is being disturbed.
I know it is a bad way to go about it. But sadly. Atleast at the school I work at it is the truth.

If they prefer to not have their classes disrupted, they should put some effort into understanding why the disruption occurs. If they don't care about the "why", they don't really care about the disruption either. All part and parcel of being a teacher in my opinion.