DormeDwayne t1_j62sua6 wrote on January 27, 2023 at 8:30 AM

Reply to comment by X-the-Komujin in Boarding school ignored teen’s sickness complaints before she died, ex-staff say by ninjascotsman

Thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed and well-substantiated response. I’ve profitted from it a lot. I am not a total ignorant, I’m a teacher who is teaching and has taught lightly autistic people before (high school atm, middle school and primary school in the past). I am also not American, but rather European and had an autistic classmate in primary and middle school. That was before this diagnosis was available here so nobody knew he was actually autistic until years later, we just knew he was different and had soecial needs the school did its best to accomodate.

It is a topic therefore, which I must and want to understand well from all sides, not just from the point of view of a teacher, but also an ex-classmate, and mother to neurotypical kids who might have an autistic classmate, friend or partner in the future.

Again, thank you very much.

X-the-Komujin t1_j62yita wrote on January 27, 2023 at 9:50 AM

I appreciate your genuine interest in this subject. For many autistic people, I think they understand they aren't like the others, and I believe this even applies to severe autism. So to an extent they understand people treating them as such. Most autistic people aren't bothered by good faith people like you. It's the supremely ignorant and improperly trained that cause autistic people across the spectrum to react negatively. Severe autism requires you to inherently respect the person involved. Light autism requires you to treat them as regular of a person as you can without embarrassing them or otherwise being belittling of them. People like me may need assistance from time to time but you should always treat us like another student if we can perform at nearly the same level as them.

Charter schools are a problem because their approach to things as well as their staff training are poor and inadequate in many cases. Combine that with many new young teachers having a poor approach to this on both sides (charter and regular school) that it is fairly frequently a problem. My voice is deeper than average and I don't look people in the eye, but far too many people make the mistake of treating me like I'm a demented elderly person.

I grew a beard and mustache for the purpose of avoiding those issues as people are far less likely to act like this towards a burly tall man like myself. Children don't have that option, obviously, and get treated with prejudice, either intentionally or otherwise. But this is more a problem for lighter autistic people like myself. Sometimes telling someone like me from someone who genuinely needs more direct intervention on a lot of topics is going to be hard.

I think autistic children should be respected and those who are like me should be properly guided in being a good person and having any negative influences not only removed, but explained in depth. For me, seeing people tell me to cope with stuff while having a condescending attitude reduced my respect for them, but so did people who went over the line and treated me like less than them, indirectly or otherwise. Bad people act in the former way while well-intentioned people act the latter.