Welcome to From the Spectrum podcast. This is a podcast about autism. It is my goal to explain
what is autism. I plan to use a mixture of scientific literature, personal experience,
and opinion. With opinion, I will explain why. I fill the way I do and give examples. I will
provide links to various references for each episode. For each episode, we will discuss various
aspects of autism. The From the Spectrum podcast will mostly avoid causes of autism,
and I will try avoiding the increase of diagnoses of late. This is like playing tug-of-war with
barbed wire, and I don't think I want to travel down that path. For today's episode, we will cover
autism and education. Any conversation around education ought to be taken serious. The conversation
about education is dangerous. It's touchy. Autism in education adds to the heated discussion.
There is so much going on in education, even within a single school building. Many types,
many differences with curriculum, learners, educators, corporations, staff members, rules,
and regulations. With autism, autism will grab attention of those involved. Staff, for the
most part, even educated staff on the topic, are uneducated. Education cannot and should not have
much weight on their opinion. Undergraduate level to, well, all the way up the highest degree,
some of this population needs to reconsider their involvement. In the show notes, I mentioned the
podcast is for the lay public and professionals. Mostly in education, they are distributed
somewhere in between. It is my goal for this episode that others involved with people with
autism can receive further information so they can make informed decisions, either for themselves,
or for their loved ones. Parents get hitched on their opinion, their meaning school staff.
What's coming out of the school building? Which should count, but it needs to be considered.
Their knowledge, their education, their experience of autism. Is it enough? And one, should consider
the goal of the school is to have the child docile and behaving correctly to the school's definition.
As much and as fast as possible and whatever is needed to make that happen. At times, humans
have enough. They want solutions, answers, they want things taken care of. And to qualify my
comments. Undergraduate level, teachers to support service type, or even master's level. Staff are
not qualified to understand autism's full complexity. Few are. Now, I realize unless it is a school
psychologist in which they should still be questioned, diagnosing autism does not come from here.
It takes specialization, certain licenses, but more importantly experience and the ability to
remove implicit biases. To quiet those when dealing with the other person, the person with autism,
or the suspected autism. However, it only shows the vast and deeply rooted biases these adults
will have. Remember, humans love to take control, feel like they are helping, and humans love to
have their beliefs confirmed. Already, if you are in education, you probably have underlying
wants or desires to help. Feel like you are providing something to the children or students
and the parents. Further, you are in the school building handling these situations for long hours
and enough could be enough. It feels good. It provides a sense of purpose and confirmation
of competence, a relief in the job, and the daily duties. This opens up negative beliefs and worries
for parents and guardians, and it is a good path, a reliable path for stuff, for treatments,
for information to be misplaced or incorrect. And it provides a path for something common
in our society. An appointment with PCP and one or more prescriptions. And that is hard to reverse.
If anything, doses will increase or more prescriptions will be prescribed.
As a side note, we'll just take a hard pause here. Go into your search bar and type in CAGR,
Compound Annual Growth Rate. This is what that stands for. CAGR of Antipsychotics
for 2023 to 2030. Society loves to prescribe medication. That is our first line of defense.
Children and adults get prescribed antipsychotics, antidepressants,
psychostimulants. We are giving these things to children to sit down, behave, and act right.
Do what you're told. I think our era will be known as the overprescription era or the great
prescription era or something along those lines. Psychostimulants and ADHD has a sharp increase.
Hopefully, this will clean up closer to, let's say, 10 years from now than 100 years from now.
Now, can we sustain this paradigm? You can search Rockefeller Medicine or Rockefeller
and Medicine Men, Medicine and Capitalism. Further, the top revenue business types from 2023,
three of the top five business types include Medicine and Health Care. These are all cleared
profits revenue. That was a long turn from the school and staff not being educated for properly
understanding what is autism. However, everything I just mentioned is directly involved with the
situation. It is our first line, our first option. Similar to the health care rant and that not
working, what we are doing in education is not working. Autism or not. The worst thing the
government has done is not remove itself from education. They tried. They seemingly, seemingly
failed. So next. Okay, the school day. Already, the structure of the school day conflicts with
autism. The entire structure is completely opposite of autistic phenotypes. Both criteria A and B,
the social communication and interaction and the repetitive restricted behaviors.
Before we move on, maybe you need to know criteria B a little bit better. Please research what criteria
B looks like. If you think it is odd or different type of behaviors, then you are evaluating it with
limited critical thinking. Maybe you are offended because your capacity to think is limited.
Maybe you view life through a narrow lens. And maybe that is easier. It limits the conflict,
the agitation or frustration underlying learning. All types of learning. All forms of learning.
When learning happens, there are underlying thoughts and feelings associated with agitation and
frustration. And maybe you like to dismiss that consciously or unconsciously to return to a
comfortable state. Remember something that keeps us within ourselves. Autism, something that keeps
autistics within ourselves is the amount of possibilities and interest. Just enjoyment of those.
Remember, are you even interesting? If no, in comparison to our fixated interest, if no,
we are content with the incredible amount of thinking capacity we possess. Autism gives us
the ability to be comfortable within ourselves. And this accelerates our abilities, our superpowers.
Again, you can sum it up by, are you like the so called normal people or not?
So, back to the school. The classroom typically involves 20 or so, sometimes more, sometimes less.
But nowadays, people are not going into education and people are leaving education. Finding teachers,
special needs teachers, especially, or just general education teachers is hard.
So, 20 or so students to make it easy. Remember criteria A. The classroom requires a social
dynamic, a speech and language dynamic, and of course, sensory processing dynamic. Three strikes.
Three strikes against autism. And that is just criteria A.
Next, the school day typically studies a single subject for 40 to 50 minutes or so,
depending on the age, but typically 40 to 50 minutes and then switches.
40 to 50 minutes on the next subject and switches and repeat all day.
Criteria B. That's it. B3. Episode over. This is all you need to know about autism and education.
Those are complete contrast to autism phenotypes. It does not work for us.
The teacher, and this is not a shot at them. The teacher is seemingly best prepared,
best suited to teach the masses, the general abilities of the students.
Now, education has seemingly made strides to accommodate. I guess we can say things like 504s
and IEPs, smaller class sizes, and scheduling breaks and so forth.
A major consideration is each person involved has their own opinion, has their own expectation
of how it should go, what the child needs or should do, or how the child should be treated,
or act, and so on. And each individual involved has their own knowledge, sometimes or most times,
a limited knowledge of what is autism. Higher education or any type of degree does not have
a single autism specialty. You can't get a degree in autism. And even if you could,
there's a saying about meeting a child with autism or an adult with autism, for that matter.
If you've met one child with autism, you've met one child with autism.
So, to break that down, because I'm not sure if you interpret that, each person with autism,
each autistic has their own form, has their own problems, and superpowers associated with this
phenomena. It's so unique. Okay, elementary school. In elementary, I had trouble reading and keeping
up. It was the 80s, and I remember being put in a small group, three or four of us, with a teacher's
aide. We would read short passages, short assignments of some sort, and come back together as a group
to talk about it. The comprehension part. I remember sometimes the group was tasked to read it twice
before discussing it. I always finished last. I learned to not read it, to pretend, and I would
look around and say, I was finished after the group finished. Mrs. Blazy was the name of the
teacher's aide. I remember one day on the playground, she taught us to say, thank you, and not thanks.
Thanks doesn't have the same meaning. I remember she was handing out chocolate kisses. Back then,
you could do this, and making the students say, thank you. Anyway, when reading in small groups,
it was very stressful. For two reasons. I want to discuss two reasons on this. One,
reading creates our visual thinking. The movie's being created in our heads. This adds time and a
step. This creates delays. The visual thinking is captivating and required. This is common with
autism. Remember Temple Grandin, Thinking and Pictures, three chapters two and three. In addition,
Temple Grandin has a newer book out called Autism and Education, in which she discusses the reading
to visual thinking, the visualization of what the context is, the content is, and how that delays and slows us down.
Second thing is, do you even know when reading, we activate our speech and language?
Speech and language process is an implicated and common problem with autism. I was in speech and
language whenever I was a child. However, anyway, when reading, our speech and language silently
speaks to our brain. We speak to ourselves silently to teach the brain. If you know about
criteria A, and if you combine these two other factors, reading and comprehension, is difficult
compared to others. Now, I just want to take a slight turn here and mention, now, imagine
reading out loud. Imagine the difficulties now. That is extra steps, that is choppy and broken
languages, that is reading the words, the text on the page, visualizing it, processing it through
visualization, and then recruiting the speech and language to form, verbally speak, what is being read,
then seen, out loud. I am 43, and just last semester, I butchered this. It was awkward,
but I don't care, but it was strange for this to happen the first time in this cohort.
Anyways, out of those two factors, both are driving forces against my abilities.
I don't read much, because I can't keep up with it. It just takes me so long.
However, I have other special techniques. I won't go into them in detail. We kind of
touch on them from time to time, or mostly every episode, probably. But mostly, it involves the
visual thinking and some patterns and anticipation. In fourth grade, I am thinking it was the fourth
grade. It was not the third grade, because it wasn't Mrs. Miller or her classroom. And remember,
that was my Vietnam War novel year. I am still in contact with Mrs. Miller.
Anyway, the fourth grade, the class was sitting in a circle, and each student around the circle
got the next letter of the alphabet. The student's task was easy. Name, five nouns for that letter.
As we moved around the circle, early on, I counted. I tracked which letter I would get.
I wanted, and I needed, to rehearse it. Amazingly, I was going to get S, same as my last name.
In addition, the letters were across the top of the chalkboard. If you don't know what that is,
a chalkboard, then search it. This was simple. Each letter had three pictures of the nouns for
each letter. Each letter had three random pictures of nouns. S had sailboat, sailor, and school.
I remember the picture, and the alphabet hung across the top of the chalkboard.
I had four of the five nouns already, and I began rehearsing, speaking them to the class.
Finally, it was my turn, and I said nothing. I just sat there. The teacher and students were shocked,
and gave me something like, oh, you know it. They also started to encourage me. Like, come on,
you can get it. This caused me to act like I didn't know the five. I acted like I was thinking. I was
on it. But I wasn't. I just wasn't going to speak. Time's up. Not that there was a time limit,
or anyone else experienced this. The teacher and students named five, and I awkwardly sat there.
I cannot explain it. It was decades ago. It was the mid to late 80s.
My troubles with education would continue, and only become more challenging each year.
Today, I still have challenges with spelling and subject verb agreement. Now, I realize,
subject verb agreement is not necessarily uncommon in society. Remember my comments on the English
language. It's a little pretentious and lazy to me. I am unsure what came first. My struggles in school
or giving up. But I had no confidence or trust I could do anything in school besides art.
All levels of education, from elementary to high school, I excelled in art classes.
Typically, typical brains go from general to detail. They look at the whole picture first.
We see details, and not that that others don't. We go from detail to general.
When I worked in an engineering department, we would call something like that reverse
engineering. The slight details come first and come fast. I remember looking at pictures while
doing the ADOS II mod 4 and just being caught on slight details of pictures whenever I was supposed
to be moving along. In high school, I barely made it. Mentally, I quit. And physically, I nearly
quit a couple of times. Quit school for good. I couldn't keep up in class. And with each class,
those generalized class requirements. And in that environment. In high school, I changed schools.
Then I changed back. But I had to do an alternative school first. Pathways to success.
The alternative school was my senior year. And it was known I might not have enough credits
to graduate. Alternative school was the first time in a long time. I thought I could do it.
Pathways to success lasted through the beginning of the second semester of my senior year.
So it was close. One objective is proving I could do general education classrooms.
Prepping me to return to those classrooms. Alternative school was a small class. We had four to five
students. It was slow paced, reduced subjects, one teacher, and a quiet classroom. It was great for me.
Then I was integrated back into the general classroom. General classrooms.
My troubles returned. On paper. And on record, official record. I did make it.
At the end of the semester, my senior year, teachers would call students up to review their grade.
This was standard. It was the old great books. Nothing electronic. Students name listed in rows.
Assignments listed in columns at the top. And scores listed across the row. With accumulated scores
at the end. A newer male teacher called me up. 58%. And asked me, you might not graduate, right?
How does that make you feel? I didn't know. And after a long pause of looking at the 58%,
I honestly did not know. Eventually I answered back. I don't know.
Later I found out when the final grades were handed out on the paper grades, the report cards.
Nothing electronic. The grade was changed to a 62.5%. A D minus is the letter grade I have
on that report card. I have my high school transcripts because of everything we're discussing today.
As a reminder of what occurred to me. It's not an excuse. It's just reality.
And at the time, the male teacher called me up and showed me the 58%. Assignments and grades
were finished. And that year, earlier in the year, it was mid second semester. I took it late.
I took the SAT. A component of the education plan for me was preparing me for post graduation.
Either an unbelievable path to applying to colleges or different employment options.
So they had me take the SAT. I scored a 640 on the SAT. 640. A part of the autism assessment
is a full psychological assessment. I have scores and abilities from this assessment
that puts me into very superior ranges relative to the population comparisons.
Very superior. High averages to very superior on many different items. And some abilities or
inabilities that are low average to extremely low or words like impaired or severe ranges.
We have superpowers and super deficits. How is how are the schools and the educators supposed
to facilitate each one of these? So the child, the student can excel in these environments.
It doesn't seem fair to either one. Some of my superpowers from the assessment,
high average to very superior includes processing speeds. Remember the rate of information.
The sensory processing phenomena. The fire hose of information as Diceroth called it.
That EI conversation. Know that in some environments, in some context, this is superior.
This is a superpower. This is better than most of society. But in some environments,
it is a super deficit. Struggled. I cannot be in those environments. Understand that.
Also, visual reproduction. Remember the details first. A test called trail making.
I received high average to superior in processes like scanning, sequencing and switching speeds.
Remember autism has rigid thinking. B3. So rules are rules. Mostly as long as they are clear to us.
We define a clear rule set and we do that. That is one of the jobs of the proof frontal cortex.
Understanding rule sets. And then recruiting. What is necessary? Remember that activating
and inactivating things. Also, organization and planning on the CEPI test was very high.
Superior. I forget the language used for that test. And then some super deficits include
working memory. Remember the keeping up that processing. Some information into visualization.
This complicates our short term or that working memory.
General adaptiveness. Conceptualizing. And of course, socialness and leisure are severe.
The outside world is chaotic. Generally speaking, education is arranged around the middle, the average.
This is where the majority of the population falls. And one final conveyance of some troubles that I have
and other students out there will probably have too. And you can make sense of this with the biological factors and the processing complications we've discussed today.
Taking notes in the classroom. I cannot take notes. Remember the challenges with spelling and visualizing the content.
And my penmanship is awful, which hurts this. Spelling and the penmanship are kind of indirect forces here.
But keeping up with listening and understanding the information being conveyed and writing them down.
I cannot keep up with that. I cannot do it. However, some of those other superpowers that we have discussed.
Supplements that. So I don't need to do the note taking like the typical students do.
I've mentioned that I started a higher education grad school program recently. And before I started, I made a goal of keeping notes.
That way I can keep up with the class and because I anticipated some troubles with this. So I made a goal. I really deliberately worked at trying to keep notes.
Well, that did not last and I did not fight it because I wasn't going to change it. I just stopped taking the notes.
Now in stats class, I could I could write down some formulas that were important, but anything else, I could not.
Now I just typically watch people take notes and learn that how amazing it is. I'm constantly amazed by watching them take notes.
However, with those other superpowers, I have not failed or it has not hurt me one bit.
So I am thankful for that. I am thankful for our superpowers, our sensory processing and visual thinking. It is a strong use.
As we wrap up today, I hope you learned something about what it's like for someone with autism navigating the education system.
Regardless of a young child to all the way up to an adult in grad school, problems are across the board.
Each stop, each level, there are massive amounts of problems. However, there are techniques and differences that can be utilized that can serve the autism with great benefits.
This is the direction, the focus that I hope others can take, recognize and take.
Don't try to change someone with autism because they are different than you.
If you are listening and enjoy the episode or enjoy the podcast, please feel free to leave a review or rating.
In podcasting, reviews, ratings and downloads are huge. And I very much appreciate your feedback.
If you would like to contact me, please email at info.fromthespectrum.com.
Thank you for listening to From the Spectrum Podcast.