Lily (Teacher)

Years before I attended my first professional training session in how to recognise and interact with children diagnosed or presumed to be on the autism spectrum, I received sound, unwitting, solid instruction in this by mothers of autistic children.  This occurred in the children’s homes, where I was present as a tutor.  I would listen carefully and fascinated by mothers’ explanations of the ability, skills set, particular quirks and customary attention spans to expect from their child.  I would observe the time, patience, caring and gentleness they dispensed consistently to their autistic child.  I was always impressed by the level of academic support and encouragement they gave their child so it was always easy for me to pick up where they had stopped, to practice the nurturing behaviour they had modelled and thus to extend their child further (often to their mother’s surprise) until … lockdowns started.  This new era has ushered in even more affirmatively the dominance of the phone in just about all students’ lives, irrespective of whether they are autistic or mentally or behaviourally unusual in any additional ways.   

As a tutor, I have had to compete with the increased seduction by technology of all of my home tutored pupils during the months when the opportunities to leave the house and to socialise had been so curtailed.  The impact of this on my autistic secondary as well as primary home students was in most, a marked increase in their reluctance to engage with me in online learning sessions.  Yet recently, due to the nature of the games they play and media content they watch, to my surprise, they have become more articulate.  I have learnt to show interest in and tap into their virtual worlds which has led me to new and rewarding dialogues with them.  I have adapted their learning content to make it more led by them as the online fantastical and sometimes real places they are leading me into within their internet world can often easily be built upon and adapted for study.  I feel that my dialogue with them has improved and our sessions are more productive, despite this currently being the summer holiday break when normally, the pace and rapport I have built up with them during term time is greatly diluted by their immersion in entertainment media.

Lily (Teacher)

Most primary school boys with diagnosed autism that I have taught in class have impressed me with a very particular skill or ability in one area of learning which has always been years beyond that for their age group.  I have had in my classes : a year 6 boy who could write English in the style of a university professor and a year 5 boy who could accurately and very swiftly recall all times tables up to 19x!  I found that many autistic boys were acutely aware of their astounding ability in one area, of the fact that it was streets beyond anyone in their class.  They liked to show their prowess as often as possible; they loved to shine, to excel in something as this seemed to make them feel compensated for the areas of learning or social reaction in which they knew was different to most of their classmates.

Yet, the boy that knew his times tables to 19x had thought this was no big deal and entirely normal, until one day, during a maths class when I had allocated ‘times tables master’ pupils to teach small groups in their class who didn’t know their times tables, one ‘learner’ boy from such a group left his group to announce to me that his ‘master’ peer knew up to and including his 19x tables.  I thought it was a joke, to distract me, yet I found it to be true.

Both the Year 6 and the Year 5 boy described above, were generally softly spoken and mild mannered.  However, the English writing genius had expectations of himself as high as his writing ability which caused him intense anxiety, manifesting in floods of tears, deep, instant distress, crawling under the table before he could settle into the writing. He had built up a reputation as a fantastic writer, was accustomed to his work being read out as an example and appeared to be terrified in case next time he wrote, he wouldn’t hit this high standard.  He was statemented (EHCP), but had no particular support in place at school other than my understanding, patience and strategies to calm him before a writing task.  I soon learnt that either I myself needed to sit with him before he started it, to coax him through the first sentences (he wouldn’t respond to a class assistant to help him with this) or, I needed to ask his twin brother (in the same class) who had no impairment, to get him settled to write.  This didn’t always work though, as due to his competitive nature in writing, the autistic boy did not want to reveal his ideas and vocabulary to his brother!  

This was all taking place in a C of E London school, therefore, it was appropriate for me, out of exasperation one day with the autistic boy’s tantrum before writing to say to him “Well, I’m really sorry, but I just can’t help you, but I do know somebody who can.”  The boy looked at me, surprised through his tears and I saw grateful hope in his eyes.  He waited for me to tell him who that someone was.  I remained silent for a few seconds then I looked very meaningfully into his eyes and asked him who he thought I might be referring to.  From the confident look on my face, the boy instantly recalled the instances when I had previously prayed for him quietly at his desk when he was anxious about starting to write.  He stopped crying, beamed at me, and said “God.”  After that, each time he was unsettled before writing, I would stare at him with the knowing look that he knew meant “God will help you.”

This stare didn’t work for other subjects though and there wasn’t always the time to give him the attention he craved.  Therefore I brought him to sit at the front of the class, directly in front of me for all lessons apart from English and supplied him with a small pile of mini whiteboards on which I asked him to write down for me anything he felt he needed to communicate to me during the lesson.  He loved doing this, and during many lessons I received long anecdotes of what had upset him at playtime, who he was still upset with,  where he would prefer to be sitting and why etc etc.  This worked very well.

At times, this boy’s social or learning frustrations would manifest themselves by him verbally and physically lashing out a pupil within lashing distance in class.  Such incidents would appear as random, since he would enter class after lunch, apparently composed, yet something that someone said or did could trigger off such a reaction in him.  It was strange as more often than not he was docile, sweet and friendly.  His mother worked a lot in the evenings and the aunty who looked after the twins for her had a terrific sense of humour and was highly adept at joking and laughing him out of any distress.   His twin brother could reason him out of negative moods in a remarkably adult way.

Lily (Teacher)

My first contact with an autistic child was with a physically able-bodied and energetic little girl in a primary school where I taught a year 4 class.  She was statemented (EHCP), had other medical, behaviour related conditions and was on medication.  She had a learning mentor allocated to her who accompanied her in practically all lessons.

I had been told that if this little girl did not take her medication on time during the school day, she could become violent and thus potentially harmful to children around her.  I taught her for a couple of school terms, about once a week, during which time I only saw her veer towards a hostile mood on one occasion.  She had en entered the classroom already in this mood and on that occasion she was not able to overcome her mood during the lesson.  Her learning mentor removed her from class and a period of this child’s non attendance of school followed.

My usual experience of this girl in class, was of a lively little girl, clearly wanting to engage in a task and to please me which she always did, as I always presented the general class task to her in an adapted way or made time to explain it to her in a very specific way. Feeling that she was receiving particular attention from me as the class teacher went a very long way with this pupil and over the weeks, I found that, her ability to tackle a task was no lower than average for the class, it’s just that she needed more reassurance that she had it right, from minute to minute.  I remember her questioning me continually throughout the lesson as to whether she was ‘doing it right’.  It was not a strain to repeatedly encourage her with great frequency – in fact it was rewarding and I felt comfortable doing this, as I knew I had the support of her learning mentor.

This is how it can be, once a child’s out of the ordinary behaviours have been observed, reported, investigated, recognised, professionally diagnosed, appropriately medicated and when intensive one to one support during the school day has been put in place.  This lays the foundation for expectations of the child’s academic performance to be raised both  the by teacher and the child, of themselves; it enables the child to show their very best ability in class, which, in this little girl’s case, eventually became the highest ability and understanding of the topics I was teaching in her class during my lessons.  Her ability for intense concentration, so often manifested in individuals with autism, when gently and consistently harnessed by me, week after week, actually drove her to, in the end, gain a quicker grasp of the subject matter that I was teaching than all of her classmates.  It was heart warming, interesting to witness, and surprised her one to one mentor.

Are there gender specific characteristics of autism?

Lily (Teacher)

Throughout 15 years of class teaching in primary and secondary schools and 11 years of one to one or small group tutoring, in schools and in pupils’ homes, the vast majority of children professionally diagnosed as autistic that I have taught have been boys.  I have met many girl children, in school, who are provided with extra academic support, categorised as children with SEN and ‘suspected’ of having autism, but who haven’t been investigated as such, as a result of either their parent’s reluctance to have them tested, or the school’s neglect to do so.

Considering both the statemented and ‘suspected’ children with autism as a whole, in my experience, no two children with autism, whether born as biological boys or girls have displayed symptoms and behaviours that I could somehow describe as stereotypical of individuals with autism.  I have found autism to be a biological mindset that is impossible to attribute standard characteristics to, in the same way that  I feel  been able to ascribe certain reactions and behaviours to children professionally certified as dyslexic.  Therefore the term ‘spectrum of autism’ is a very helpful one and a good starting point from which to try to grasp the very broad range of mental attitudes and abilities that one may come across when interacting with an autistic child.  However, as a very broad generalisation, in my experience, more often than not, girls of autism of any age could be noticed in class as ‘different’ more as a result of displaying extreme shyness or withdrawal whereas boys with autism have nearly all wanted, tried or succeeded in engaging with me and in class activities immediately, in the first instance, even if they could not sustain this for long.