My brother and I are so different at school

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Both my brother and I have autism. We are very different at school though.

I like History and English. He likes Math and Science. Hes in AP math. Im in "easy" Math. Im in AP English though. Im getting an 82%. Hes in regular English.

Im more hyper and I fidget a lot. He can sit still for a long time. I cant. I need to walk around. I have ADHD and he doesnt. I also have a math learning disability that he doesnt have.

At school, he talks more and I barely talk. He goes on and on. I just talk when I need to. Some people in my class say I have a good voice though.They say its melodic. Some people in my class have never heard my voice.

He gets more sensory overload at school. I get information overload. The sounds of the school and classroom overwhelm him. My school work and too much instructions at once overwhelm me. I get less homework because of that. I also have a spare where I can do my homework in the special education room.

He has better writing than me. He can do cursive really well. I cant even write my name that good. When I do, it looks like a 2nd grader wrote it. I practice though.

We both have IEPs but he is a bit better at his school work. He does need help with his social skills though. I do too. I also need help with sitting still and being patient. I stim more than my brother. When he stims, he verbally stims. He hums. I rock, flap my hands, and pace sometimes.

At school I often found that teachers would make incorrect assumptions about me based on what my older sister was like when she was at that school. I turned out to get different grades to her, and our individual talents lay in different areas, although there were some subjects which we did equally well on. Personally, it was always something of a pet-peeve of mine that my teachers expected me to act like a younger clone of my sister.

However, I'll admit that I did find it amusing how my PE teacher reacted in sheer horror when she found out that my sister and I were related. Let's just say that my sister didn't exactly have the best of reputations when it came to the subject of PE...whereas I was a star player when it came to field hockey. My family used to make jokes about disowning me over this, because most people in my family aren't keen on field hockey yet I seemed to be naturally good at it. Not that I'm particularly athletic though, in fact I'm bad at most sports.

My sister has elegant cursive writing that is refined and neat, whereas I write in print (with the odd cursive letter thrown in there).

We are both left-handed, I know there is a stereotype of left-handers having messy writing but my sister definitely doesn't fit that. I would say that my handwriting is average, not particularly impressive but it's easily readable.



There is definitely a difference between my sister and I when it comes to English, her spelling is absolutely atrocious. Sometimes she would offer me her old class notes, and people would see me reading them and ask if I wrote them, and they would also ask if I was also drunk whilst doing so. (Mainly because her notes weren't always completely coherent).

Now, I should probably note that my sister isn't dyslexic (as far as we know currently) although she does show some tendencies which is understandable given the fact that my father has dyslexia.

Interesting, even though I scored A's and A*'s on some of my English mock exams, I was in the second to lowest set. This was mainly because they didn't like to move students around unless it was absolutely necessary, and they especially didn't like to change things in the later years. So I ended up in a situation where I did a higher tier exam despite being in a low set. (Then they joined the two into one paper shortly after I left).



Currently I'm in the process of figuring out if I have dyscalculia. I hope to one day get professionally tested.

However, in comparison my sister was good at maths in school, she used to get A grades in that subject. Whereas, I have always struggled with maths and would typically score D's and E's.

Sometimes my sister likes to tease me about this, but if she does then I simply rub in the fact that I scored the equivalent of a high B grade in my English, and she scored lower than me. I try not to take her words to heart though, since I realise that it is all in jest. Barely anyone takes themselves that seriously in my family, especially my dad who likes to use self-deprecating humour.



I'm not autistic (and if I am then I'd probably be considered a borderline case since I function/ cope quite well with things generally) neither is my sister, but I am particularly sensitive to external stimuli and can get easily overwhelmed (Perhaps I'm a highly sensitive person?). My sister seems to under-react to things though, as she often complains that the food I enjoy is "too plain" and frequently puts hot sauce on her food. Even with things that most people wouldn't dream of putting hot sauce on. I believe that her taste buds are probably a lot less sensitive than the majority, whereas I seem to have more sensitive taste buds than most.

There are times where I seem to shutdown because there's too much sensory information, and the people whom are close to me in my life are well aware of this. I have coping techniques for this though, such as bringing my old mp3 player with me if I believe that the event I am going to may become too much and that I could possibly need to escape somehow. Public toilets are often a good place to collect myself and help maintain my composure.

I remember having some issues with food halls at school. Too many smells and sounds. One time I walked out of maths class because I couldn't concentrate due to the noise and it was getting to me.



Yeah, I tend to do that when I'm alone if I can. Although I have been know to flap my hands when I'm highly stressed in public and around friends and family without even realising it fully. It was only when a friend of mine pointed this out that I became more aware of my behaviour. My sister has also pointed it out to me before. Unfortunately, the major downside of this habit is that it tends to hurt my wrists after a while.



Well, I also frequently fidget but unlike you I don't have ADHD. That I know of.



I didn't talk much when I was in school either, except to my closest friends who probably wished that I'd shut up. Back then I had a habit of slightly monotone speech (except on topics of interest) but these days my voice is much more expressive. I think the monotone was partly due to the fact I wasn't in the best of places emotionally back then.



When I was in year 7 (11 years old) I got put in this class that people nicknamed "Shyness class" where we had to do trust exercises with each other in order to promote better communication. In other words, they stuck all the shy and/or quiet kids in a room together in the hopes that they'd talk to other students more. During my time in that class they would ask how we were dealing with our homework, and if it was too much then they could ask our teachers to give us some slack so we could better adjust into secondary school.

These are very relatable for me, very much how I was in school (and elsewhere). Except nothing was done for me in terms of less homework. You're lucky you get that help.

And I hated school more and more the longer the days got and the more homework we got. in junior high I slept in the afternoon from being exhausted. in high school I was like a zombie after a while, and each of my 3 attempts at high school ended with me burning out and quitting.

[/quote]
These are very relatable for me, very much how I was in school (and elsewhere). Except nothing was done for me in terms of less homework. You're lucky you get that help.

And I hated school more and more the longer the days got and the more homework we got. in junior high I slept in the afternoon from being exhausted. in high school I was like a zombie after a while, and each of my 3 attempts at high school ended with me burning out and quitting.[/quote]

Yeah school exhausts me. I get anxious from it. Im in a program for students who are at risk of dropping out. Im already going to take an extra semester. My brother is smart and people expect me to be like him.