professors understanding your aspergers

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I am in my second year of university and i made the deans list last year and will probably make it this year too. Although sometimes i get asked to leave class. I always tell my professors about my aspergers on the first day but my issues regulating my behaviour seems to be to much to handle. My biggest problem is with talking to the person next to me and sometime i speck loud and i rarely notice if the prof is begining to get irritated with me so i dont stop. Also i relate everything back to Doctor Who. I was wondering is this happens to anyone else or if im alone here?

Even though you don't really have a right to a college education, I think they still have to tolerate your vocal volume and Dr. Who obsession in ways that don't involve you leaving class. Like, tolerating Dr.Who, and telling you to be quiet somehow.

Actually they don't.

College is assumed to be an adult environment where the students are mature enough to understand basic good manners and have enough self control to behave accordingly.

It's bad manners to talk in class because the other students are there spending their precious time and funds to get exposure to what's presented in class. No one wants random distractions during class time.

Why not simply not talk at all to other students during class? Class time is a relatively small percentage of any given week. Lots of non-class time to chat. No?

I think you're alone on this one. Maybe this will help you:

Just imagine you are sitting in class, listening to the lecture and trying to take notes. However, there's someone next to you yelling in your ear and slapping you in the head. How would that make you feel?

That's basically what you're doing to the rest of the class.

Hi, Jwalk:

First of all, congratulations on your academic achievements.

Secondly, what sorts of strategies have you tried to manage your in class behavior? It is good that you are upfront with your profs, but I wonder if you have done some problem solving with them? For example, would it help if you carefully selected your seating to minimize distractions? Would it help to sketch or doodle 'Dr. Who' to redirect your desire to speak on the subject? I select a seat closer to the front with access to a door. It minimizes anxiety and blocks out distractions such as sitting around people who are plucking on lap tops and texting during class. I am more engaged with the lecture this way. Would it help to have something to 'fiddle with' during lectures? On eof those swirly rings or something? I am just wondering about redirecting your energy so that you have a good experience.

Best of luck to you and continued success with your studies!

I'm assuming there's circumstances where it's appropriate to talk to another student?

Most classes are lectures/presentations wherein chatting is unnecessary/unwanted. There are some labs where some chat occurs but what percentage of labs are there in anyone's curriculum? Some courses include a lot of presentations to the class by class members; no good chatting during those. There are class discussions wherein one person at a time is addressing the whole class. As an art student, I had a lot of life drawing classes (everyone drawing at the same time) - those were absolutely silent, not by rule bit by necessity - no one can be in the right brain drawing and talking too.

I guess that there are classes wherein the class breaks into discussion groups to develop ideas, but that's not what Jwalk seems to be referring to.

I just can't think of much pertaining to courses where it's appropriate to be chatting, quietly or otherwise. My advise is simply; if one abstains from chatting during class; voice volume ceases to be an issue.

Talking to others in class sounds like an executive function problem coming from Aspergers more than anything else, honestly. I'm guessing that it's probably an impulse control issue, maybe coupled with a difficulty in understanding the consequences of the action.

I know that it's hard to do, but you really do need to be proactive about things like this. While you might be able to get your teacher to understand the problem and maybe even to stop chastising you for it, that doesn't really address the underlying issue. It might help you to speak with a counselor on campus or someone else about strategies for dealing with it. Specifically mentioning executive functioning issues and impulse control problems would be a good idea, because not everyone with an ASD has the same problems in these areas.

For one thing, though, conscious self monitoring can go a long way. It's obviously not perfect, because it involves having to intellectualize something that most people "get" intuitively, but it can help. It's pretty much the only way that I can get through the day without getting stuck in repetitive behaviors or without making poor judgment calls.

Remember that speaking loudly in class is distracting to others, and that your teachers (for very good reasons) don't want you to do it. It's not the easiest thing in the world, but at the end of the day, you do have to behave as much in accordance with the way that others expect you to as you can, and doing that intellectually is pretty much the only way to do it when you lack the natural self monitoring that others do regularly.

It's easy to convince yourself or others that, because you're pretty smart, you should just "know better". That's kind of like saying that a tank is such a good weapon that it should easily be able to knock a spy satellite out of orbit, but it's not as visibly illogical. Executive functioning difficulties aren't moral failings, but it is important to learn to work with them if you want the best possible outcome for yourself (both in college and once you graduate, since work is going to introduce its own difficulties).

Making fewer references to your special interest might help socially, but it's not likely to be a problem for teachers that you mention it. That's not something that they should really bug you over.

Last edited by globalwolf2010 on 04 Oct 2012, 2:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm usually quiet in class so, I couldn't really give you any advice. I just wanted to say that school would be much more fun if someone in my classes related everything to Doctor Who.

...i have never slapped anyone in the head or yelled directly into someones ear...your over dramatic and incorrect. I speak in a "outside" voice when i answer questions and use a lot of repeative language that annoys people. There are only thirty people in my program (theoretical mathematics) and sometimes i think its hard to be around the same people all the time (mostly for them).

I do get 'too involved' in discussion sometimes.

Okay, gotcha.

*bows out of discussion*