Studious Girl
Does anyone else find discussions about autism in school to be super awkward? Especially if no one in the class knows you're autistic. It's like overhearing a bunch of people gossiping about you when they don't think you can hear them. Even when the information they're giving about it is accurate, it's still super awkward
What are they saying in school?
Yeah awkward
my current job
I know that when autism comes up in an otherwise unrelated conversation, it can take an awkward turn. I speak from experience:
Me: People still fucking believe it.
(the English teacher shoots a Death Glare, as a few other students express surprise)
English Teacher: ...why don't you step outside?
...though, admittedly, that was rather careless on my part. Also, despite the aforementioned Death Glare, he was rather lenient on his punishment. All he said after that was "I understand why you did it, but let's just try to reign it in next time."
edited 1st Nov '16 6:38:15 PM by WilliamRadarStorm
The possum is a potential perpetrator; he did place possum poo in the plum pot.
"Sucking it up" to pass as non-autistic
This editorial shows perfectly how the whole "autistics must learn to deal with the fact that we're the minority; society will never change to accept us" worldview is broken and harmful.
Many argue that all people have to do this “sucking it up” to some extent. After all, we cannot just act however we wish when we are in public. I agree. However, autistics have to do this to such a greater extent that it prohibits many of us from being employed because we simply cannot “suck it up” long enough each day to be gainfully employed. For me, it means I must pay strict attention to how I schedule my life. I must employ sensory regulating activities and much quiet time in order to be in shape to be able to “suck it up” when I go out the door to work away from home.
I think my life is the best it can be at this point in time. I hope the lives of younger autistics have broadened possibilities as we go forward into the future. I hope more autistics are able to be the person they are, utilizing the supports and accommodations they need, without society insisting they hide their very essence at every turn. I look forward to autistics having everyday lives with things so many take for granted – going to school, being part of the community, having meaningful jobs with living wages along with meaningful relationships. This is the stuff of a satisfying life. All people should have access without society’s requirement of “sucking it up” before a ticket is extended by the majority to those of us in marginalized groups.
Stuff like this is why I'm so damn grateful to the organizations trying to help autistics find and keep jobs, to convince employers to hire us and to understand us, and also to the increasing visibility of autism in popular fiction (even if that fiction needs a lot of work).
Very few of us can change to fit society. Society must change to accept us. Like it did for gays. Like it did for religious minorities.
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![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I read and reread WilliamRadarStorm's comment, and couldn't find anything wrong with what he just said.
... Oh, it's the use of the Precision F-Strike, isn't it?
↳ Redirecting to Mvfl G.
Yeah, it's the cursing in school. College would be much more likely to accept such language, at least used sparingly.
My friend pointed me to this video of a 5-year-old whose knowledge of US presidents, and whose mannerisms, strongly struck her as suggestive of autism/Aspergers.
Take a look and see what you think:
Studious Girl
I love that kid! I've watched every video of her on Ellen like multiple times. She's so charming and adorable. I noticed that she did act oddly for her age, but I always chalked it up to being very smart. But now that you bring it up, that does make some sense...
Ditch the bad therapist - a mother's horror story of ABA therapy
For reference sake, "Big C" is the nickname used for the author's 3-year-old autistic son.
First lie.
She starts running drills. He moves through them fairly quickly, but it is quite evident he is a little wound up, which is actually a sign that he is tired. It’s the mania before the crash. The therapist attempts a game of Hungry, Hungry Hippos, but she screws up repeatedly (seriously, it’s not hard) which flusters Big C immensely. After only one game (which takes, literally, a minute) she puts it away and goes back to “table time” asking him to do a series of tasks for rewards. Today’s rewards are cheese, Craisins, and iPad time.
She never comes back to any games. So much for a “fun” session.
By 4:50 pm, twenty-five minutes in, I can hear the meltdown begin. I am frustrated because he should have had a break already. That was something repeatedly discussed, but I don’t go into the room because I recognize he needs to work through the tantrum before seeing me.
It isn’t until hours later, when I watch the video of the session (something I insisted on a week prior) that I learn what I describe next. Had I known sooner what was actually going on in there, I would have intervened sooner.
Basically, I feel like I am watching my son suffer a sort of mental torture. I’m not exaggerating. She makes promises and doesn’t keep them. She makes demands: “Touch the table, go ‘Ba!”, match the red card, find the circle, touch your nose, what’s this boy doing on this card, blah, blah, blah,” running drill after drill, then not making good on the promise for a break.
Big C tells her early on, “I’m tired.” I am so proud. He is using his words instead of simply having a meltdown.
She doesn’t care.
“Do this (another random, out-of-context task), then you can have a break.”
Lie.
Big C tells her, “My butt hurts.” He wiggles around and tries to stand, but she restrains his seat so he can’t.
“You just have to work through it.”
Are you kidding me?
He keeps trying to put his head down.
“Put your head up.”
He closes his eyes.
“Open your eyes.”
He starts flailing his arms, getting more and more agitated with every passing second.
“Hands down.” She grabs his arms and places them on the table.
He starts to get angry. “Don’t touch me!” Good for you, buddy. Tell her what you want.
She ignores him. She continues to poke and prod him until he is literally sobbing.
“What do you want to work for? Do you want to work for cheese? Do you want to work for water?”
Work for water?!?
“I want my Mommy!” He has already told her this repeatedly, but it falls on deaf ears. He tries to get up, but she won’t let him.
“You have to work for it. Do this.” She taps her nose.
“No!”
“Do this.” She taps her nose again. After a few more times, he does it. He wants her to stop and is smart enough to know it is the only way to make it stop.
But it doesn’t work. Instead, she says, “Do it nicely.”
My three year-old son is completely exasperated at this point. He has no idea when the end is in sight. I sure as shit don’t, and frankly, I don’t think the therapist knows either. She seems to have completely lost herself. It’s like she’s trying to break him.
And she does. At this point, he is going through all of these crazy motions, tapping the table, touching his nose, putting his hands down, matching colors, describing actions depicted on cards, all with snot and tears dripping down his face.
Finally, after 45 minutes, he is allowed a break. He runs out of the room and collapses in my arms, sobbing.
And the therapist has the gall to tell me she has no idea what set him off. Even though he told her he was tired, he told her his butt hurt, he told her he wanted to see him Mommy. Even though he completed every task she asked, even though she kept lying to him, promising him a break that would seemingly never come. And she couldn’t tell me what “set him off.”
It's almost as if he's come to realize that these things are just simple compliance drills at this point - no longer having any relevance to the real world. He has to jump through hoops for the instructor.
In those videos I showed you earlier, kids older than 3 are going through compliance drills and don't seem to be fighting them, and also seem to be less intelligent. This boy, at 3, is learning faster than some other autistics had at ages such as 7. It makes me wonder what I was like at this boy's age. As I said before, I have no memories of being 3 or any earlier age. My memories of the institute are from third through fifth grade. And at those ages, yes, I do remember seeing kids going through drills like you saw in those videos: "Touch black." "Good, you touched black." "Touch white." "No, that's black. Try again."
Grr... <3
I am beginning to fail to see the point of compliance drills. Someone help me.
The point is to make kids obedient, with the obvious issues involved
You do need to get kids to pay attention in order to educate them, so I actually don't have a problem with that. However, they can go way beyond what is needed, and end up training them like dogs.
Currently inactive
Either it's the whole ABA system that's messed up or the therapist's just incompetent, I'm actually kind of glad I never went through the whole ABA thing.
Anyway, I fail to see how touching his own nose will help Big C in the future.
↳ Redirecting to Mvfl G.
Studious Girl
But they're literally teaching Big C that his words won't help him and the only way to get out of something painful is by having a meltdown. That's the complete opposite of what he should be learning.
And no child would be able to handle that for 45 minutes without a break. I remember reading an article a while back talking about how autistic kids are expected to go through therapy for hours and hours a week with very few breaks while neurotypical kids in a "typical" preschool are given breaks all the time to play with their friends and have snacks and take naps. I've worked in childcare, and I know what happens when toddlers aren't given breaks. Autism does not give a child super powers of endurance. No three year old should be expected to go through 45 minutes of that with no break. That is beyond what any child could handle, autistic are not. It's like all the most basic rules about child development go out the window when working with autistic kids. His "meltdown" wasn't just because he was autistic, it was because he was fucking three
edited 7th Nov '16 7:02:01 AM by Cailleach
Yes. This is very true.
I've seen someone say that nonverbal autistics who are unable to write, but are able to communicate with devices that say built-in phrases should be given a phrase that says, "Kiss my ass", or it would never be truly their authentic voice. He said that when he tells people that, they're not happy to hear it.
I also wonder if the whole idea of autistics being unusually good at school is, in some cases, due to receiving this type of intensive therapy when they're little. Like, they're forced to sit still longer than kids their age normally do, and if it doesn't break them, they're ready for school in that sense.
I know I was able to read at age 4, but I was taught. My older brother could read at age 3, and he wasn't taught, and also doesn't count as being autistic (not enough symptoms, just a couple very mild ones). They wanted to make sure I was ready for school. That said, how come I was able to learn to read at age 4? Was I just lucky? Or is it normal for 3 and 4 year old kids to be capable of learning to read at such an age, but the education system just isn't built around it?
Studious Girl
Have you seen that new show Speechless? I've only seen small snippets of it, but I absolutely adore how the kid with cerebral palsy still manages to be profane despite being unable to speak. He has a gesture equivalent to the finger even though he doesn't have the mobility to flip the actual bird. It'll do a lot to dispell the infantilizing idea that disabled people are somehow more "innocent" and "pure" than other people. We're just as filthy as everyone else and it's time people realized it!
Studious Girl
I actually have a lot of strong opinions about early childhood education. It's my belief that preschoolers really shouldn't be taught to read yet, because the time and instruction needed to do that take time away from other parts of their development. The opportunity for free play and all the benefits that come along with it (creativity, the ability to work with others, executive function, etc etc) is vanishing in classrooms because the emphasis in on hammering in academics from preschool onward. There are a lot of important things that a young child needs to learn in order to ensure healthy development that don't involve sitting still at a desk for hours and being lectured at. You don't really get that many extra benefits from learning how to read at 3 as opposed to 5. Not allowing kids to have time off for free play is much more detrimental to them.
edited 7th Nov '16 8:19:15 AM by Cailleach
I watch no TV, and I hadn't heard of Speechless, but I'm glad to see shows like that dispelling myths.
I wonder how many people also see the disabled as sexless - that is, having no sexual feelings. Because I can certainly tell that we are not!
I have strong opinions about education as well, seeing how, uh, dumb much of society is, and how so much of school life is about dodging the bullies and forming alliances with the popular kids and other stupid shit that has nothing to do with learning - hell, actively takes away from it. I wonder if schools were like this before the Industrial Revolution or not. The Computer Revolution (my term for the internet and AI changes occurring) is likely to change schools again, but human (or allistic?) nature is unlikely to change. However, school itself will at least have to change the teaching method.
Studious Girl
Many. The answer is many people. Which is another myth that needs dispelling
Yeah, I think part of what bugs me about ABA so much to, is going into Early Childhood Education and how much it ignores from it, how much it interferes with it even. I mean I'd hate it even if it wasn't but still, like it really outlines what's wrong with it if you pay attention.
edited 7th Nov '16 9:25:14 AM by phantom1
Grr... <3
This annoys me as a programmer. If you are not willing to write communication technology that is turing complete and easy to use, you are hack at interfaces.
Or, in other words, no is the second word you code.
This is correct. There is no real difference between verbal and written communication.
The strongest counter-evidence is that modern parents attempt to teach their children reading at those ages.
Almost amusingly, I read one parent's experience of raising a severely autistic (or "low functioning") child, where once he hit puberty, holy shit.
She said, "If there was any question as to what my son's sexual orientation would be, we now know. He is heterosexual." He as always acting sexually inappropriate - totally impulsive, horny, and not knowing the social rules are a bad combination.
Describing symptoms is better than naming a condition because the latter depends on the other person to be familiar with the condition and its symptoms, and also does not allow you to clarify which symptoms you have.
It does make sense to ask a new partner to follow a few basic instructions once you figure out a short set that will help a lot. Like "please tell me what you are feeling because I can't read emotion."