Wednesday 11 July 2018

Autism Paranoid Rant

I tend to think a little outside the box because i was raised by those who were on the spectrum before it was even viewed as existing,. plus ive raised those on the spectrum as well. I come from a family where autism runs rife , its such a huge spread of a diagnosis that i think all of us have some of the traits , but only those of us who are a problem in some way, usually with schools, end up stuck with the label .
 I have an Aunt in her 60s who has spent most of her life in care , back in the day she was merely viewed as retarded as a toddler, put into a special school then graduated to a Mental Asylum . She was pregnant in her teens , had no idea of how it had happened and her perfectly normal son was taken and raised by another aunt.  She now lives in a sheltered housing scheme  and spends her days happily playing internet bingo for hours , visited by my generation and her son . The older generation , my mothers, have simply ignored her existence for most of her life . You put people like that "away" as my mother says , she also had another Cousin much the same who also had the same life pattern , put away as a child to be forgotten about .  My mother arranged for my Aunt to be sterilized after the birth of her son , thats how things were done back in the 60s .
Lets fast forward to now the enlightened age, so called , once again im noticing some rather odd happenings , the rather high incidence of children being labelled with different Autistic Spectrum disorders in schools . My grandson has been signposted as autistic at numerous points in his school career , usually when a teacher cant cope with him , hes a damned handful, far older than his nine years, think street smart teenager with a gob .  He grasps concepts far beyond the other kids , has an interest in making money and politics and does not conform , hes very much an individual . Having raised his mother and her brother , plus inherited Mr Bah Humbugs genetically disordered pair , i dont bat an eyelid . Theyre great adults who think outside the box.
 Young Baldrick attended the same junior school , he was a violent aggressive nightmare there , he will have problems all his life , but hes doing sort of ok at the moment .
But the big problem we have is that after 2 years of a wonderful young teacher , who loves my grandson to bits , accepts his odd,etc etc . Well next year he has the old witch from hell as his teacher she taught Young Baldrick back in the day and was assaulted by him on a couple of occasions . when he was in nursery she made my grandsons life a living hell , she insisted that he should be statemented on numerous occasions, we refused, the situation just got worse and worse. Till he went up a year and suddenly he was fine with a different teacher .
There is no other school , the headmaster is to put it nicely a bit of a spineless nobody . He loathes me and the fact that i know far more about the autistic spectrum than he does , for an uneducated guess my grandsons problem is GAD  Global Anxiety Disorder , put under pressure he panics then you get a full on meltdown . Other than that hes educationally far beyond his peers, when he finds an interest in something hes obsessive , he excels at all things sport . But I admit he can be a handful if hes bored.
The teacher he is going up to has the older generation attitude to Autism , they should all be stuffed in a special school , not cluttering up her classroom of normal children. My grandson should have the official label stuck on him then so she doesnt have to bother making any effort . Next year at school is going to be fun but not for my grandson .
Discuss ................

10 comments:

  1. When I was as school these children were classed as disruptive, the teacher usually put them outside the door and they then proceeded to make faces and the class throught the glass. Most of these kids went on to big things my Grandson included.
    He lived with me from age of 14 - 18 when he went to Uni. He was a nightmare and did just about everything in the book. He's now at the top of his work for Universal in London. Maybe he should have been given a 'label'?.
    All these troubled kids need is the right kind of love and understanding and sadly in this world there's not much of that around.
    Briony
    x

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  2. I worked for many years in a psychiatric hospital, not on the nursing staff, but in admin and we mixed quite easily and normally with the patients. I'm sure that there were a few who shouldn't have been admitted as they were sociable with everyone and you could have a good conversation with some. There were a few who weren't like that however.

    In the grounds there was a children's psychiatric hospital and it was so sad seeing them there and being told that some of them never had any visitors. The parents or guardians had washed their hands of them having left all responsibilities at the hospital door. Makes you wonder where they go to now as both the main hospital and the childrens hospital closed many years ago and the grounds are now a big housing estate.

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  3. Have you tried writing to the school governing body and copying in the education department with respnsabilty . In my experience sometimes the only way to get something done is to make a fuss .
    On another note I worked in psychiatry for many years a lot ad patients in the old hospitals should not have been there , quite often admitted because they were a problem to the family .

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  4. I look at things from various angles. I have a great nephew who is severely autistic - the family has supported my nephew & his wife every way possible and they are lucky in that there is a lot of help available from the Health field and the education field - but it's still difficult.
    I am shocked at the number of children who are labelled so early in life - and not just as autistic but ADHD etc. I think it's much too easy to stick a label on a child and prescribe medication just to make life easier for a lot of adults who should be working a lot harder with the child.
    I'm also shocked at the number of adults who now "identify" as ADHD etc. and I find that most are self-diagnosing - somehow it's become trendy - I see it as a way to abdicate responsibility for themselves and their lives!
    School is difficult because it's not just the one child that is involved. I fully advocate integration and increased help in the classroom - to a point. I am not a teacher but have many friends who are and have listened to their horror stories - imagine a classroom of 26 Nine year olds - 1/3 of whom speak a variety of languages other than English, many have been traumatized by war or time in a refugee camp - many have not had regular schooling in their entire lives. Then add in some more kids who have special needs - behavioural, developmentally challenged, perhaps physically challenged and then 1 or 2 autistic children. Many of these children (certainly, not just autistic) tend to "act out" in one way or another including being violent. How is a teacher to cope? And what about the average kid who just wants to learn to read and write?
    In Toronto there are special classes for some autistic children with many more being integrated into a regular classroom where possible (but often with an accompanying caregiver) but we are a huge school system with a lot of money - I imagine that's not the case where you live. All I can suggest is monitoring things and documenting everything that you can. While I have sympathy for a teacher who may feel overwhelmed she has to at least make an effort and if you can point out the progress he has made with a more hands on teacher then you have a case to ensure she at least makes an effort and doesn't "pick on him" in any way. I wish you luck.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you for such an intelligent, informed reply particularly re the "Self Identifying " , couldn't agree more. Also totally agree with your comments regarding teachers.

      Jane

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  5. Discuss........well, as you seem to feel you know absolutely everything there is to know about how to teach your grandson and about the entire autistic spectrum and have diagnosed his condition yourself to your complete satisfaction and hold the entire school in complete contempt, I suggest you homeschool him.

    Jane

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  6. It took us years and a chance word from a colleague to identify our super smart, obsessive, difficult to manage and understand grandson as having Aspergers. Once we had "self diagnosed " this my daughter took him to the doctor who agreed and referred him to a "specialist" This has not always been helpful but hey ho, meltdowns at one o'clock in the morning tend to be managed by family don't they?!. What has, however, been helpful is an understanding of his needs. The diagnosis has given us an explanation (NOT an excuse!) and we have, with his knowledge and involvement set up strategies to help him cope. He is 26 next month and we are immensely proud of the young man he has become.

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  7. In the early 1980s one teacher had such a bad effect on one of my children when we found out she would be his teacher the next year I formally (in writing) refused to have her teach my child to the Head, the Governing body and the education dept. I never got a formal reply but quietly and subtly the whole school reorganized within 7 days and none of my 3 in that school spent time with her ever again. I received a resounding cheer from the parents at the school gate, so I could not have been the only one with a problem with that teacher. When I later got involved in the teaching profession I realized that she would have been out on her ear if there had been such a thing as Ofsted then.

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  8. Perhaps home schooling would be best. Also private healthcare as none lives up to your expectations.

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  9. Put this into perspective , the teacher involved is teaching 12 pupils next year its a tiny village school, there are no foreign pupils , compared to the workload of teachers in most schools she is leading the easy life. Any variation from the norm in a child and she wants them statementing , there are children who need statementing their are also children who just need a bit of effort putting in by their teacher

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