Thinking Differently (and not only about autism)
It is time to register for spring semester classes at the college where I teach: Over the summer I took on some administrative duties and have a long list of students to advise. I know the students who are in their first year of college but not all those who are sophomores, juniors, and seniors and on Friday around noon appeared a young woman who said that she was a double major in Mathematics and Economics. She kept apologizing as she had only contacted me yesterday for an appointment.
Due to the double major, figuring out what combinations of courses she might take along with a special research seminar took two computers (an aging desktop with the scheduling software and my laptop to look up the latest version of the spring semester schedule), a paper copy of the schedule, two copies of the undergraduate course catalogue, and paper and pens. The student kept apologizing even as she was looking up sections and scribblng notes and I emailed the chair of the math department and a Dean to check for sure if this could count for that, if “BL” was an equivalent code for a “BA” course, if the student could take on an overload. The student noted courses at some times and I entered them into the computer. She mentioned different courses that all met at the same times and, for several minutes, no matter how I often I pointed to the screen and read out the course number and time, she kept insisting on signing up for different courses that all met at the same time. There were two students waiting (one for 15 minutes already) and I was on the verge of telling the student that she needed to figure out a draft version of her schedule in advance.
The student dropped her pen and paper and the course catalog got knocked around; she apologized again for scheduling the appointment at the last moment and it occurred to me that she just could not see how to arrange all of her courses into the right combinations. I took out a pad of paper and started making a list with columns for the courses, the times, the days, the professors and slowly clarity emerged.
“I’m sorry I scheduled the appointment at the last minute,” she said on her way out: I told her I’d have longer office hours most days next week and to come back with any questions.
Might this student be on the spectrum—-maybe, maybe not. More important to me was that my understanding of how being autistic, or having some sort of learning disability, could cause a student to appear careless, disorganized, even lazy, when in reality the student was extremely conscientious of her schoolwork, thoughtful, bright. Perhaps she had waited till the last minute to schedule her courses because she feared having to go through the process?
Again, I would doubt very much if this student was more than mildly on the spectrum. But it did help enormously to think differently about her: For the rest of the afternoon, I made a point of writing out lists of courses and times for each student, to show them what courses they had taken and what they needed to take—this is a small example of how a little understanding about sometimes hidden disabilities can help. The November 2nd Associated Press even suggests that
…many experts believe these unsociable behaviors [sucking on clothing, agggressiveness] were just about as common 30 or 40 years ago. The recent explosion of cases appears to be mostly caused by a surge in special education services for autistic children, and by a corresponding shift in what doctors call autism.
Autism has always been diagnosed by making judgments about a child’s behavior; there are no blood or biologic tests. For decades, the diagnosis was given only to kids with severe language and social impairments and unusual, repetitious behaviors.
The Associated Press article is entitled Autism ‘epidemic’ largely fueled by special ed funding, shift in diagnosing. A diagnosis of autism can provide a child with more services from a school district; parents are much more hesitant to accept a diagnosis of mental retardation:
… autism has become culturally acceptable — and a ticket to a larger range of school services and accommodations.
In 1990, Congress added the word “autism” as a separate disability category to a federal law that guarantees special education services, and Education Department regulations have included a separate definition of autism since 1992.
A little better diagnosis can go a long way: If you have the services and the educational program, they will come.
Lisa Jo Rudy at About.com has a post on the AP article, Is Autism on the Rise Because It’s Socially Acceptable?
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POSTED IN: College, Diagnosis, Epidemic, Stereotypes, Work
16 opinions for Thinking Differently (and not only about autism)
Tanya
Nov 4, 2007 at 1:06 pm
As a mom of an ADHD (inattentive type) child, I suspect inattentive ADD and a lack of executive skills for this student.
She’s lucky to have you an as advisor and that you recognized a need for some organization.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Nov 4, 2007 at 2:18 pm
Thanks, Tanya — I am suspecting there are more than a few students like this. I think I am going to have the whole course catalogue memorized by the end of the week, after the registration period ends!
bev
Nov 4, 2007 at 2:44 pm
I appriciate your insight and compassion toward the student. I suspect that having Charlie in you life has made these things easier to see. I know that for myself, the more I understand about autism and about other developmental disabilities, the less I am able to judge anyone. I stop to think now, about people who are not autistic, but have what some would see as “behavior” problems, if some of these might be neurologically based, rather than character defects. Whether this is true or not for any given case, it nevertheless makes getting along with people considerably easier.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Nov 4, 2007 at 2:53 pm
Since I’m in an academic community, I’ve suspect that there are more then a few—including professors and staff, too, along with students—who havesome kind of disability/difference. And when I’ve thought that “something” might be why someone insists on only doing XY and Z at certain times, etc., it has more than helped. Thanks much, bev.
laurentius-rex
Nov 4, 2007 at 3:16 pm
What bloody well narks me, is that I could teach NT’s better than NT’s teach NT’s, because I am not as blind to other minds as NT’s are.
There’s your irony, all my anger of the construction of incompetance by the incompetant, the inedible in pursuit of the ineffable and it’s effing bollox that what it is.
I will say it now and loudly, the school of education at Birmingham is full of people who should be drawing a pension rather than teaching because all they do is transmit personal cultural bias under the pretence of objectivity, so rankly unobjective it is cheesy.
Ready to jump ship to another school, I have had it with these half wits.
Florence
Nov 4, 2007 at 3:54 pm
I think organizational skills and executive functioning should be addressed with all students whether they are on the “spectrum” or not. Some colleges do offer a transitioning program for such students, but like you said, they need to be classified in order to qualify for the services. I didn’t get my “act” together until college myself with the help of a few “organized” friends.
laurentius-rex
Nov 4, 2007 at 4:04 pm
I marvels me that there exists in Birmingham, a school of Education, who research into Education, teach about Education, but there are none who I have met yet who can really do it.
Where has all that cognitive research gone, when old buffers still stand at the front of the room talking the same rubbish they have done for years oblivious to whether anyone is there or not, because that is what they have always done, and because that is how they were taught and they have not only the lack of ToM, but the second of the triad too, lack of imagination.
It marvels me indeed!!! *^&$^$^&$
It saddens me because all that is happening is that there will arise another generation after them who will do the same.
The rot has to stop somewhere, and it has with me, because they have not seen the half of the havoc I intend to wreak yet.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Nov 4, 2007 at 4:24 pm
Getting an education degree here in New Jersey has become increasingly a matter fulfilling credentials to state requirements. Students who do not decide early in their college life to be a teacher have to take a heavy load of education classes, along with student teaching loads; public school teachers have to submit formal lesson plans. It takes planning worthy of a military strategist to figure all this out…….
amy
Nov 4, 2007 at 4:28 pm
All right. To take it one step further, then: Why must you have a label or disorder in mind before you can accept the behavior?
Look, I think there’s a rubric that’s much simpler. It goes like this: Be generous in your supposition of whether or not people are being jerks, because you have no idea what’s going on with them, and you may not be in possession of the gold standard of appropriate behavior. Be tolerant up to the point where things will start to get more expensive or screwed up than you want, and then politely draw the line.
It’s much simpler than running around with a magnifying glass and a DSM-IV.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Nov 4, 2007 at 4:35 pm
The magnifying glass might one day be necessary to read the course schedule, due to what I suspect is an already-presenting diagnosis of “getting older” or just plain old “aging.”
amy
Nov 4, 2007 at 4:36 pm
heh.
Misha
Nov 5, 2007 at 4:40 am
This student sounds so much like my daughter who has ADHD. She’s incredibly disorganized and needs continuous notes and lists and visuals to help her get through the day. She’s completely lost without them. J needs them just as much; visuals moreso set up on a day to day calendar to get him through his daily routines. Getting the Boardmaker program was one of the best things I did. It’s interesting to watch how each deals with their organizational skills, or lack there of, knowing they have different diagnoses but that this is one area where they both benefit from having visual aids and daily lists.
RAJ
Nov 6, 2007 at 11:23 am
I wonder how you arrived at the description of your student being ‘on the spectrum’. There are five diagnostic categories in DSM-IV for a valid autiism spectrum disorder.. Your student does not appear to meet any criteria for any ASD yet you still refer to her as being ‘on the spectrum’.
This sort of innapropriate labelling only points out your own bias, to see autism everywhere, even where it does not exist…
Cliff
Nov 6, 2007 at 11:37 am
I could see a potential interpretation with the focus being on a focus fixture, though I think the correct interpretation rests in a more ADHD-like issue. That sounds a lot like my sister, who is ADHD, and the visualization works on that. But I could see why that might be interpreted as such.
Cliff
Patience
Nov 12, 2007 at 9:15 am
I really do think that the diagnosis of autism is on the rise because it’s socially acceptable, to quote from the article’s title.
I’m nearly 23. I’m bright, was articulate at a very early age, and have a huge affinity for patterns. I also stim (privately, after my mother became upset at the behaviour, or in very discrete ways), am a synaesthete, and am socially awkward. I have never been diagnosed with an ASD, and I don’t think I really qualify. But, on the other hand, I certainly do have some of the traits seen in Asperger’s. Since autism has become my research obsession (yes, I see the irony), I’ve learned that a lot of the things I do normally are apparently not normal, in a NT way, at all. Yet, when I suggested the possibility of being part of the broad autistic phenotype to my mother–knowing that I have blood relatives who are officially on the spectrum, too–she outright rejected it. To her, autism is still MR with a savant skill. I would suspect that to the parents of most of my peers, unless they have direct experience with ASDs otherwise, their ideas about what autism is are similar.
And yet, I think that kids who are like me–socially awkward, very smart, and with repetitive behaviours–are probably being diagnosed as being on the spectrum today. Their parents are aware of the possibility, and may be looking out for autism to the point that kids who fall into a grey area between ASD and NT are being given a diagnosis and label to secure educational access for them. Because these parents are worried about autism, any and all signs of ASD are noted and reported–signs that would have been overlooked as being simply quirky or a loner a generation back.
Essentially, autism becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and diagnosis. As people are told that autism rates are on the rise, more people become aware of autism, and more people who previously would not have been considered at all are placed on the spectrum (either legitimately or simply for educational extras). I’d bet that the kids who are then diagnosed with an ASD then tend to show more autistic behaviours (because their parents are definitely now looking for such).
This would also neatly answer the “Where are all the autistic adults?” question, too. We/they never recieved the diagnosis in the first place because it was not available to us (either because of lack of knowledge about autism, or lack of breadth available in the diagnostic criteria). Further, because I suspect the cohort who have been overlooked have quite mild ASDs, we/they’re not likely to ever be diagnosed unless otherwise treated for a mental illness.
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