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Autism Vox

If You’ve Seen One Child With Autism……

by Kristina Chew, PhD on February 3rd, 2007

If you’ve seen one child with autism, you’ve seen one child with autism.

True, yes, and yet not true.

What do you think?

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Club 166
Feb 3, 2007 at 8:04 pm

True, yes, and yet not true.

I agree!

You can’t treat kids with autism the same way you treat NT kids or kids with emotional disturbances.

On the other hand, I’ve seen many more offenses in so called “autism experts” trying to treat any kid with an autism diagnosis exactly the same.

Medically speaking, autism is a disorder, meaning a collection of symptoms. It is also a spectrum disorder, meaning that different people will exhibit various aspects of the disorder to differing degrees.

Too many people try to “shoebox” each autistic into a box.

I think it’s fine to start with a general understanding of what being autistic entails, but then I think it’s essential to look at each individual to ascertain their strengths and weaknesses.
Jez Rourke
Feb 3, 2007 at 8:52 pm

True. As I always like to say. Autism is relentless in many ways, not the least of which being that it refuses to bend to generalization. The spectrum is big and wide and tall.
Anne Ramalho
Feb 3, 2007 at 9:22 pm

I am a curriculum coordinator at a Middle/High School in Taiwan. Our school is private, so we get quite a few children with `problems’ (seems few have been diagnosed, or have parents willing to share the diagnosis). I am not facing the problem of `too many people trying to `shoebox’ the students into boxes’, but rather, not enough people willing to admit they may need special ed. I have no formal training in educating children in the Autistic spectrum. I have, however, done a lot of my own reading on Aperger’s, as we have a few children in our program who seem to have this syndrome. All the children have these features in common; very infrequent eye-contact, no seeking of social interaction, anxiety if routine is changed, a limited understanding of social `norms’ i.e. body-space :) and all-consuming topics of interest. Academically the children are not coping in the mainstream program, and some are being pushed to the limit by parents who want them to be `normal’. We have no class aides, and the teachers tend to use discipline in dealing with them. For instance, one of our students gets very anxious if a door is either fully open, or closed. It must be open a few centimeters only. It was a real struggle to get his teachers to accomodate him in this very simple request. There is very little to no understanding of this syndrome among most Taiwanese teachers. I would be very grateful if anyone could send me information in traditional Chinese on teaching children with Asperger’s Syndrome. My work e-mail is anne@kcbs.tpc.edu.tw
PS Thank you for all the information you provide, Kristina.
Jennifer
Feb 4, 2007 at 12:53 am

True and not true.

True in that there are general commonalities, but not true in that they are manifested very differently.

For instance, differences in sensory perception/integration seem to be present very often. However, while E. is distressed by loud noise, A. thrived on it. I vehemently dislike the sensation of hair on my ears and wear my hair up everyday; M. dislikes the feel of “scrunchies” in her hair and wears it DOWN everyday.

And so on.

…and that’s not even addressing differences in learning style, social skills (as perceived by NTs), and so forth.

I think ultimately “autism” is as general a label as “super market.” It gives you a basic idea of what you will find, but what particular items, brands, store layouts, etc. (strengths, challenges, needs, talents, etc.), will vary from chain to chain (the always-hairy and often inaccurate “functioning level” in this analogy) and even location to location (person to person).
Kristina Chew, PhD
Feb 4, 2007 at 1:16 pm

LIke the analogy Jennifer—-what “brand” of autism does one have or one’s child have….
Lisa/Jedi
Feb 4, 2007 at 2:33 pm

It seems to me that the question can be seen as a microcosm of the rest of the world, - we all have differences & we all have similarities, so if you;ve seen one person, you’ve seen one person. :) People tend to group themselves & others by similarities, which can be pretty benign. It’s when the focus becomes grouping people based on their differences from us, that things can become toxic. My autistic kid has some characteristics of “milder” forms of autism, such as hyper-verbal skills, & some of the more “severe” forms, such as head-banging. I have found that reading about the experiences & perceptions of autistic adults has beenn very helpful to me in helping my kid, so there are definitely commonailites among the autistic. But to classify him based on one set of skills or difficulties & then ignore the others (because they don’t fit a specific group stereotype) would be very harmful. So I guess I’m basically in the “yes” camp…
Ballastexistenz
Feb 4, 2007 at 3:02 pm

It’s true and not true, like you said.
Julia
Feb 4, 2007 at 9:16 pm

I’ll echo Lisa/Jedi, and take it in specificity just a little farther — if you’ve met one of my kids, you’ve met one of my kids. If you just look at language, they are all very different in development there.
Shannon
Feb 5, 2007 at 5:12 pm

More not true than true, I’d say…
First off, the nomenclature is confusing: what do you mean when you say your kid has autism - is it classic autism, PDD-NOS, Aspergers, what? Two kids with ASD can look completely different even to the not-so-casual observer. An autism mom acquaintance of mine was convinced my daughter did NOT have ASD, because our two girls could not act more differently. (Her daughter is mellow and plays quietly for hours, mine runs circles around the room and throws tantrums. Her child has sensory issues and mine doesn’t, but her child speaks in perfect sentences while mine struggles.) But even the “professionals” make mistakes in thinking all ASD kids are alike, and it causes them to misattribute certain behaviors. For example, my daughter sometimes inappropriately turns off lights. Because so many ASD kids have sensory issues, they incorrectly assumed she had light sensitivity issues. In reality, she only flips off the light when she’s mad at you - it is one of her “provacative” behaviors that often precede a full-blown tantrum - light flipping, chair tipping, throwing toys - anything to distract you from asking her to do something undesirable or to irk you so that you understand she is mad. Careful observation would have shown that, but unfortunately many overworked professionals do not carefully observe our kids. They too frequently assume all ASD kids are alike and jump to the easiest, most common answer.
Shannon
Feb 5, 2007 at 5:14 pm

More true than not true, I’d say…
First off, the nomenclature is confusing: what do you mean when you say your kid has autism - is it classic autism, PDD-NOS, Aspergers, what? Two kids with ASD can look completely different even to the not-so-casual observer. An autism mom acquaintance of mine was convinced my daughter did NOT have ASD, because our two girls could not act more differently. (Her daughter is mellow and plays quietly for hours, mine runs circles around the room and throws tantrums. Her child has sensory issues and mine doesn’t, but her child speaks in perfect sentences while mine struggles.) But even the “professionals” make mistakes in thinking all ASD kids are alike, and it causes them to misattribute certain behaviors. For example, my daughter sometimes inappropriately turns off lights. Because so many ASD kids have sensory issues, they incorrectly assumed she had light sensitivity issues. In reality, she only flips off the light when she’s mad at you - it is one of her “provacative” behaviors that often precede a full-blown tantrum - light flipping, chair tipping, throwing toys - anything to distract you from asking her to do something undesirable or to irk you so that you understand she is mad. Careful observation would have shown that, but unfortunately many overworked professionals do not carefully observe our kids. They too frequently assume all ASD kids are alike and jump to the easiest, most common answer.
Shannon
Feb 5, 2007 at 5:15 pm

Ignore my first post - the first sentence typo made all the difference!
Anne
Feb 5, 2007 at 11:45 pm

Is there any group of people about whom you would say, if you’ve met one ___, you’ve met them all?
Kristina Chew, PhD
Feb 6, 2007 at 9:38 am

I would have to say no, indeed. I guess the question becomes a bit more loaded when the subject is autism due to differences of opinion and perspective about services and treatments.