Schools ignoring autism?

Post Reply New Topic

Do you believe that some schools may be intentionally failing to identify autistic children? When I look back at my schooling it baffles me how I was not diagnosed. I believe there may be a good chance teachers ignore autism, maybe its too much work?

It wouldn't surprise me. I know an autistic lady in the USA whose university has several times tried to ignore her diagnosis. It took a lot of effort to kick them back into line. I was there. Seems they have a policy of resetting all the adjustments back to zero every term. They also tried (without success) to exclude her mother from negotiations, presumably because that gives her a fighting chance. Occupational rehab told us verbally she was unemployable, which was their excuse for dropping her, but they didn't put that in writing because (I think) they didn't dare, their official attitude is that nobody is unemployable. All I can be be sure of is that that they neglect their responsibilities, but the evidence is consistent with them deliberately ignoring her disability, and they have the motive (money) and the opportunity. Educational institutions are more like for-profit businesses these days, and if I were trying to use their services I'd thoroughly expect them to try quite hard to fob me off with nothing, and to be quite adept at doing so.

My experience with schools is that they don't want to do any more than they have do. Getting a student diagnosed means a lot of paperwork and following an IEP. Most teachers don't want to follow IEPs. It means extra work for them.

I'm actually glad I was never on an IEP. The expectations for such students are appallingly low.

I have been tested before by condescending testers who put me through a bunch of nonsense yet gave me no diagnosis or recommendations other than, "You shouldn't do this." They essentially told me my goals would never be realized. As it turned out, some were realized eventually, but at a much later age than they could have been.

When I was diagnosed in high school, they didn't do anything and I did not know how to get any accommodations.

I think unless it benefits them in some way, there's not much chance they will care (yeah I'm a bit cynical after so many years of dealing with this). I went through mental hell and it had to be obvious that something was up, though I think where I live there's very much ignorance about autism. For example, with all my dad's strange behavior over the years, none of my family ever brought up the likelihood of autism. It's too late now, but there's no telling how much grief and confusion would have been avoided with just general awareness.

Since it wasn't "severe" for me, I assume that I just came across as a loner, and as such, everyone kept their distance! By the time I got to high school, I couldn't even eat lunch in the cafeteria so I literally sat outside of it every single day. The only kid during that lunch period to do that as well. Not so much as a glance from any faculty the entire 4 years.

At least I didn't have to deal with getting picked on. However, the mental hell was real.

I think there are two things to consider-

1- Autism is a very recent thing, although I can see myself clearly in the new understanding of how women and girls can present, no-one knew about it when I was at school in the 80s. Even now, a lot of teacxhers don't have a very good understanding of autism, and don't recognise that there's something else going on until a major problem occurs.

2- It can very much depend upon the teacher. One teacher where I work has identified that a child may be autistic, and is desperately trying to persuade the parents to get him diagnosed, but they are the ones who are refusing. Other teachers, even when I tell them what an SEN child needs, can't be bothered to do the extra work, or they legitimately be too busy and not have the time to do all the extra work.

That probably depends on the individual school. There are definitely schools with admin that don't diagnose because they don't want to spend the budget for support services. There are also bad teachers who don't want to do the paperwork. However, there are other schools with well meaning and hard working but uneducated admin and teachers. Autism is complex and a lot of us here do a lot of research to be current and understand from way beyond what the general public knowledge level. Sped teachers also have a load of other "syndromes" to try to interpret and teach to. They are usually only educated about autism as far as the old school, classic Sheldon stereotype. Most gen ed teachers probably wouldn't recognize autism unless it was extremely severe, and maybe not even then. Not for lack of care, just for lack of understanding.

I'm glad I'm no longer in school.

I believe some are because "special needs" students cost more time and money and are more difficult to teach than "normal" students.

Schools aren’t outpatient medical centers and teachers aren’t psychologists.

No but schools are meant to identify and help students with special needs many of them do many of them do not.

Yes, my point is can they ever really do that task with no training? Most practicing psychologists that make those determinations have 6-8 years of post-secondary schooling, most teachers have 4-6 in areas not even distantly related to psychology. It's like asking a baker to perform open heart surgery: it's probably not going to be successful.

But many schools manage to do it. They don't need to be experts simply identify the students with it.

By law, they are supposed to play those roles and teachers have always used techniques based on perceived reasons a child acts the way he or she does.

Prospective teachers often take college courses with content about autism.

Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 10 Apr 2018, 6:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

At times I was diagnosed with bipolar and depression, and put on medications for such that did no good, only harm. It wasn’t until i got sent to a psychologist who also happened to specialize in autism that I was diagnosed properly, it’s not as easy as it sounds.

Last edited by Aristophanes on 10 Apr 2018, 7:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.