Today I woke up too early unable to resettle, I’m sure you know what I mean, did some stuff and felt quite tired and still didn’t settle.
We went and did our food shop and get other stuff, but we had a lot to get and a lot of information was being taken in, but I was fine just really tired.
We went home and I was trying to put some bread in a bag to freeze. The wouldn’t fit, so I had to to use two bags.
I was interrupted, with good intentions, but it made really angry so I had to walk away. I sat down and had an overload. It was a combination of everything we’d and tiredness, I had received too much information.
7 things that Autism parents want their children’s teachers to know.
When I’m on Facebook talking to people, they like to moan. Everybody moans but the one thing that keeps on coming up is TEACHERS. Now I don’t want to paint a negative picture of Teachers because most of the time they’re great, but every now and then there are misunderstandings and mistakes made.
So I asked the comments on a Facebook thread this question:
What are, in your opinion, the most important things a Teacher should know about Autism??
So as stated here are the 7 most liked comments on this thread.
- “Understand that high functioning kids can hide their symptoms but need just as much support as a child who doesn’t and what things they can put in place to support them.” Hattie Hodkin
People used to say to me that they used to forget I was Autistic because of how well I hid my traits, but it’s the day they were reminded were my bad days. A lot of time the signs of someone struggling can be subtle. We need to look for these subtleties but that comes with raising understanding so that more teachers know what to look for.
Another factor is how we miss women on the spectrum, as they have the natural ability to hide their many traits. Sometimes when they appear very anxious, people often mistake it as mental illness when actually when you get passed that you may start to see Autism.
- “I think they need to know that some children with high functioning autism struggle with coming to them and saying “I need help ” and just ask them if their ok.” Sarah Forrester
I had a parent say to me that their child was coming home stressing about the school work. They didn’t know what to or didn’t understand the wording of the tasks. Autistic people when faced with tasks they don’t understand, can just get so confused and raises anxiety where they will actually struggle to think. As our imaginations are impaired the concept, in this moment, to solve the problem doesn’t exist.
- “Listen to the parent of the high functioning child that they are not being naughty, kicking arms and legs out is a sign of excitement / anxiety and she doesn’t even know she is doing it let alone hurt someone. Teachers need to be educated but the key thing listen to the parent or carer of the child as we know them best.” Adama-cherry Devill
This is why I believe that all schools should have fidget toys. The child with Autism can still listen to you while holding the fidget toys. If I was a Teacher I would much rather have a child holding a Tangle than swinging their arms and legs around.
- “Get some facts learn about autism get more training and don’t tell my son to look up at you.”Helen Todd
Everyone thinks this, to be honest I’d quite like everyone to do this not just Teachers what about all the other professionals that deal with people.
- “I would love my son’s teacher to understand the absolute necessity to keep to timetable /schedule. He depends on it. To appreciate how clever he is and to give him more advanced work when he needs it. To address him directly and understand if she speaks to the class generally – he will not understand she means him as well!!” Kerry Burton
Explain everything in laymons terms; simple, direct and jargon free. Autistic people take things very literally. Avoid metaphors, similes and idioms. I HATE IDIOMS!!!
- “More understanding, giving your child time to process what has been said rather than pushing for an immediate answer, Callum always needs a good few seconds to process conversations, the teachers need more patience.” Kate Taylor
Teachers are told to allow pupils 5 seconds to answer a question, but on average they only get about 2 seconds. I think they should be told to give 8 seconds, Autistic brains struggle to do multiple tasks at the same time. When we are asked a questions we have to:
- Take in the words, know what they are.
- Generate the meaning of the question
- Then find the answer.
When you think that’s quite or 2 or 5 seconds, so let’s ourselves 8.
- “Don’t ask a child to look at them as they think they are listening then. Really winds me up that.”Joanne Charlton
Eye contact is very uncomfortable for me, if a teacher says,”Look at me!” Just look at his forehead. But if you’re a Teacher just say, “look this way”. It’s a lot nicer.
Those are my most popular responses to that question.
Thanks to everyone who sent comments in they’re greatly appreciated. Hope this article helps. If you like please share it.
Why Christmas annoys me??
As an Autistic person I find myself asking, what is Christmas?
The reason being Christmas, from my perspective, looks like alot of stress and too many things happening at once. These things annoy me as there’s no logical explanation to the original meaning of Christmas. I don’t get why we have christmas trees, eat turkey, send cards, the silly need to have christmas adverts on in the summer.
Someone may say,”I hate having to get at 4am to put the Turkey in the oven!!”
Then I say, “Then why do it, if you hate it?”
Their response then, to me, just makes no sense, “Because it’s Christmas.”
I HATE THAT ANSWER, IT HAS NO LOGIC!!
Things you should do because it’s Christmas.
1. Give to charity
2. Spend time with the people who matter.
3. Help someone in need.
4. Just relax.
Christmas to me is about being with the people who really care. Of course it’s a religious holiday thats been tarnished by commercialisation.
As an Autistic adult I’m driven by logic and all the stress of Christmas is caused by things that you don’t really have to do.
This is just my opinion you’re entitled to enjoy Chriatmas however you want. I am in no place to tell you what to do on the special day.
It’s not like me to get like this but the build up to Christmas can cause alot of Anxiety, keep Christmas simple for the Autistic people out there.
Thanks for reading guys!!
Autistic Genius.
How does Autism affect your sex life?
Let’s be honest sex is great, anyone whose tried it likes it, and I mean a lot.
This is a subject that I find is a bit of a taboo within the Autism community and it bothers me, so by writing this article I will hopefully allow people on the spectrum to feel more comfortable about the subject.
When you’re in your final years of school you start to fancy people and this makes you want to spend time with them and you get these urges, which are very healthy by the way, this is you wanting to get “jiggy with it” as the youth of today say.
The problem of school is that there’s a lot of social pressures and all the guys are in a desperate bid to lose their virginity. Being Autistic I found this very difficult because I had no concept how to flirt and how to talk to girls in a suggestive way.
I find that a lot of it is “vibes”, this is something that does not make sense to me at all. When talking to someone of the opposite sex and they’re flirting with me it goes completely un-noticed, still at the age of 27, but as I’m unaware of it and I couldn’t tell you when the opportunities were missed.
On the rare occasion when I’m successful it’s because it’s been made obvious e.g. the girl asks me out or they lean closer for a cuddle.
ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS!!
Now sex really in an ideal world sex should be planned to a schedule;
But seriously Autistic people love a routine and everything has to planned and if it doesn’t happen, uh-oh potential meltdown. This is one area I struggled with as sex is generally never planned it just happens, SURPRISE!
I struggled a lot with this because in my head I would say “Today at round 19.30 I would to fornicate with my girlfriend”. Of course being Autistic seduction is not one of my strong suits, so I would my girlfriend and say, “Can we have sex……please?” A man asking you outright is not an attractive, I mean if a man asked me I wouldn’t like it either.
When they say no, it would upset because it was a sudden routine change and it would hurt and they could see it. I’ll be honest it’s not fair to think that a woman would have sex with you on your command. This has caused rows, thankfully not awful ones and I look back and think I wish I wasn’t a sex pest.
Here come the serious part;
Anxiety affects everything I do including sex, but how? When I’m presented with someone willing to have with me I can get anxious because I didn’t know what to expect. The “unknown” and not knowing what to expect was just too much.
It took me a while to be able to enjoy sex, but thankfully I met a partner who was very understanding and patient with me. Sadly we are no longer together but I’m happy on my own being able to focus on what’s important in my life and, personally after everything I’ve been through, sex is not one of the most important aspects in my life.
Tom Bowes
(Autistic Genius)
My 5 Halloween Tips!!!
Inflexible Thinking!!!!
The problem that I often come across is that my thinking is very rigid or inflexible. Now we cannot mistake this as stubborn, this is when something has been put into place or something that someone has told us that may of changed. When this happens our tunnels, in which our visions of the world travel through, explode and we frantically try to rebuild them.
When there’s a sudden change this requires some imagination but not necessarily creative. This is more problem solving aspect to imagination.
Autistic people like myself may not forward think/think ahead and this is where we struggle with organisation. Me personally I couldn’t run a bath, neuro-typical are able to imagine the many possible outcomes to something and create many contingencies. I and other people with Autism may be unable to imagine the many possible outcomes.
Also with the tunnels we like to keep moving in straight line where we can see, but if you’re and like shiny objects you will get distracted. This can send you off track my brain will then delete the initial task and create a new tunnel that predominantly features the shiny object. Thus completely forgetting my previous task, I’ll be honest this happens far too often and my peers must think I have early onset Dementia, as my short term memory is awful.
That was an almost seeming less transition into my next talk point, SHORT TERM MEMORY.
As I said above a distraction can literally make me forgot what I was doing as if a giant claw has picked me up and plopped me after somewhere new.
These distractions can be very subtle to humungous; well a subtle one could be a noise of joy from outside in the distance, then your grumpy teacher snaps their fingers and re-enter the room forgotten what you were doing.
It can be like a trance when I’m engrossed in something and there’s a mad energy of focus flowing through my body incredibly fast. The more you do the more you get engrossed and the faster that crazy energy flows. Then when the grumpy teacher snaps his fingers and breaks the trance, it can feel like that you’ve instantly transported to another world, it’s the strangest feeling.
That trance like feeling actually happens to me quite a lot and sometimes for no reason I become a zombie, not a flesh eating one, you know the kind that are enslaved or under a spell.
That’s a very long winded way of explaining what happen can cause me to lose some short term memory. Now when we say short term memory loss I most definitely do not mean goldfish style, but on occasion I will forget things after 5 seconds.
A lot of neurotypicals will get that feeling of leaving a room and forgetting why you left? Or even entering a room and forget why you had to go there?
That feeling happens to me a lot more often than it should and it’s all because quite often my information processing process gets interrupted,
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
This will happen to all people, everyone forgets things, but in this instance for someone who is Autistic this information has vanished. So as frustrating it maybe for you to have to explain it again, please do because they may have no recollection of what you said, now I’m not saying this happens with everyone. But this does happen to me, so I assume it’ll happen to other people on the spectrum.
As someone who has been able to crack the difficult concept known as “self-analysis”, I am more than happy to explain what happens to me and my short term memory:
- Now I’m at work and my boss has given me an instruction.
- Then I leave the room to carry out that instruction.
But as I’m walking towards the concept of completing the task, I spot something shiny and this shiny object has the immense power to erase the task from my brain.
2 HOURS LATER
MY BOSS: Tom.
ME: Yes
MY BOSS: Did you complete the task?
ME: What task?
MY BOSS: The one is asked you do 10 minutes ago.
ME: Erm….no sorry, I forgot.
(My Boss exits the stage in a huff)
THE END
Now you may look at that riveting piece and think, “We’ve all been there.” But I doubt you’ve all had that same conversation on a daily basis.
Moving swiftly on to talk about more tunnel vision stuff, now we must discuss perception. This is how we see or interpret the world and of course everyone perceives things in a very different, this may be decided on how life has treated them.
There’s that old cliché of;
It’s difficult to categorise how people see the world because everyone is different. The world can be perceived based on your religion, the country you live in, your upbringing, a series of unfortunate events (good film) and many others I’m sure.
As I’m Autistic, the very thought of diluting all of those potential categories to construct full analysis of how the world is perceived, is giving me a headache. So let’s discuss how I perceive the world.
The world is full of information, like it’s almost too much for one person. But while working with a lot of neuro-typical people I have noticed that information can enter their body without them knowing, as they’re able to focus the area of their brain that collects ad eats information.
Now lovely neuro-typicals, who I still don’t understand, imagine the brain is a microphone connected to a mixing desk. On the mixing desk you can move the switches higher or lower; the higher the switch, the more information you take in. The neuro-typicals desk can decide if it should take in more or less of something before the information has been fully processed.
If you’re me, the chances are that you will take in everything at once, the information will be processed and after that the brain will decide what to keep or bin. I find that when I’m presented with something new all the information comes at like a scene from Jumamji.
The concept of information charging at you is quite distressing. This is the way it works e.g. I’m reading a book (maybe one that’s a bit better than this) and I take in the words, but the problem is when reading you need to process the words meaning after the words.
Here’s a helper that may help demonstrate how it works:
I read: Once upon a time a little girl name Rose went to visit her friends.
Awwww how lovely….
After I’ve read that sentence my brain deciphers that nonsense like a code and sort of re-words it into an explanation like so:
So, a little girl named Rose went to visit her grandmother.
You may think “that’s not difficult”, but this happens with everything and this can get awfully stressful when you’re having a conversation. If I’m in the middle of processing something that’s been said and it gets interrupted, my brain will either delete or reset.
Information Processing, with a touch anxiety.
When neuro-typical people are in the world they find it far easier to hone in on specific sensory information processes. This is done by being able to process more than one piece of information with ease. When a piece of information is being processed at a nice speed it’s very nice and another piece enters, if you are neuro-typical your brain could leave it one side, process the information simultaneously or just tell it to bugger off.
If you’re like me, then you prefer to have information processed one at a time. When I’m processing a piece of information I like to take my time, but during this another naughty piece of information comes in, it interrupts the process and reset it, making the brain start all over again.
If this happens a lot in one day you are potentially going to have a meltdown or have one brewing. While in this state of mind of a potential meltdown brewing, in my life something sensory or a slight sudden change can set me off. I remember when I was 14/15 and I was really excited an Xbox game to come out. I was convinced that it would arrive on the Tuesday and it didn’t, well I just began to sob immensely.
The emotional impact was the same in that moment as it was when I found out my Grandma had died. I don’t mean that my Grandma was as important as an Xbox game, but what I am saying that sudden change of something that I was fixated on for a week was heart breaking.
Also when you’re at tipping point, and you get either a random loud noise or a sudden change to the face. This can create panic and potentially hysteria, to the point where you are literally running for your life, as if you’re being chased by a giant monster of Anxiety.
When I’m in this place I don’t run I just need as much as much space as possible, I will either leave or ask other people to leave the room and then proceed to ride it out. Possibly if I’m aware of what’s causing the anxiety I will sort it out if possible, but I will most definitely struggle to communicate.
The worst part about this as an adult is that you can feel somewhat pathetic as what makes you anxious, you may feel that if you communicate it people may think you’re stupid or a wimp.
A friend of mine whose also on the spectrum, said to me that he was finding his new full-time difficult. He then began to explain that he needed help with a lot of things at work as he found certain things difficult. The issue turned out to be not what he found difficult, but that he felt he was unable to ask for help because he was worried that people would think he was stupid.
Of course there’s no such thing as a stupid question, but from time to time I have been known to hear a stupid answer.
To help my friend and explain how asking for help regardless of the question isn’t going to make you look stupid, but it’s possible for you to look a bit silly if do not ask for help.
To help explain, let me tell you a story…..
Once upon a time, there were two beautiful, identical and very expensive houses that were situated next door to each other (what are the odds?). By some mystical coincidence the two men who lived in these, expensive, beautiful and identical houses both had a piano delivered. Now the pianos were of course exactly in same in size, weight and colour.
One of the men (man number 1) had invited some friends over so they could help him with the mammoth task of getting the piano inside. The other man (man number 2) had decided as he felt stupid asking for help decided to do it all by himself. Man number 1 and his friends got the piano inside with absolutely no trouble what so ever. To celebrate their victory of getting the piano inside, they all went on the front garden and had some beers.
When they were outside they noticed man number 2 struggling all by himself to get the piano inside.
Now let’s think about this, who looks the silliest??
Man number 1 who asked for help of his friends and he’s on his lawn drinking beer celebrating a job well done.
Or there’s man number 2 who’s stuck outside still trying to move the piano all by himself.
Mmmmmmmmmmm…… I’ll let you decide.
But being in that situation when you struggle to communicate as your nervous about approaching someone, as you Autistic can socially paranoid and afraid that people will automatically think the worst, and remember these kind of thoughts do not go away quickly.
When you’re at school and you don’t understand a piece of work you really should ask the teacher for help, but what if you are the only person in the class who doesn’t understand. If you’re Autistic this can raise your anxiety because in your brain all you are going to hear is, “why don’t I understand?”
If your anxiety is raised communicating is going to become more difficult, so if this was me I would proceed with the fart noises, using either my armpits or blowing on to my arm. My way of deflecting is to do things that are funny that make me laugh. These usually tend to be incredibly inappropriate for the occasion, thankfully I’ve grown up. You wouldn’t catch me making fart noises in a high anxiety situation, like a funeral.
In this situation you are perceived as “the naughty” child and if one teacher can’t get you to focus, you will then be passed on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on. This is an example of the fizzy drinks bottle, so when the gets home the lid comes of and KABOOM!!!!!!
How Autistic Genius processes information???
When you’re Autistic you can potentially feel a lot more stress than neuro-typicals (this is people who are not on the spectrum). The world has things like; noises, smells and strange vegetation that have to be processed by the brain. So if everything is being processed, this makes everything information.
Just thinking about things this way makes me want to stop leaving the house, because there’s TOO MUCH INFORMATION.
“NO, Stop, don’t go outside, it’s everywhere!”
“What is?”
“INFORMATION!”
“ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!”
As you can see; just from looking at the exclamation marks and the capitol letters how upsetting too much information can be.
I know what you’re thinking, how come the same world upset a number of people when the majority of good folk manage just fine?
INSERT EXPLAINATION HERE:
Imagine that at the top of the brain there is a sieve, and all the information falls in to it. Of course, sieves can stop the unwanted bits/information from falling through. What I find is that neuro-typicals are able to filter out the pointless information, their brains almost organise efficiently what’s important, stores it and then it bins what’s not so important. So if you’re Autistic the information will be processed differently.
The Autistic way of information processing is something that’s very complex. Now the brain can present itself indifferent ways but for me personally this is how I see it. The filtering system in the Autism brain isn’t very good, meaning that everything is processed at the same level of focus. This can make it difficult for us wonderful Autistics to concentrate on one thing, as there might be background noise and other general annoyances that like to get in the way.
This means everything is being processed. The brain on this occasion cannot cope with that, but according to my brain I like to take things in one at a time. It’s almost like a conveyor belt where closed boxes of information are passed to me, when the box reaches me I stop it, pick up the box, look in the box, work out what’s in there, close the box, put it back down and start the machine for the next box of information.
Now that’s a lot to go through for a bit of information.
As an adult on the Autistic Spectrum my overloads or meltdowns tend to come from a build-up of stress. Picture the conveyor belt again, to keep me happy I like to know what’s coming and this is why routines are just THE BEST THING EVER. So when I open my magical information box, it would be very courteous of the world to not throw me a curveball. But for argument sake, the world has thrown its hammer down and said NO to what I want/expect.
As this very nasty, horrible thing that life has thrown you won’t be disappearing from your mind. As negativity tends to stay with us Autistics a lot longer than it should (how thoughtless). If this is the case, the machine may not turn back on for the nasty thing to move along, this meaning that when the other boxes turn up things are going to start getting messy.
The nasty box won’t move on because I’m so annoyed at this outrageous curveball, making me obsess over it. But while I obsess over it, more bits of information keep coming in for me to process.
Now there’s two options I can either say yes to the information coming in or say no to it all.
So boys and girls, who can guess which option I chose?
If you said yes…….you were wrong.
I will most likely say no to everything; so all the information comes in, but stays in the head as I refuse to process it. The more the information comes in, the higher my anxiety gets.
If the curveball was thrown at home, you’d be OK because no one knows you better than your parents. But if you’re at school and you begin to say no to everything, a teacher could perceive you as “the naughty child”.
On the other hand the child that says yes to everything is what I call a fizzy drinks bottle. So when this child says yes the bottle shakes. Then throughout the day he will say yes to a lot of things, as he’s afraid that no one will like him if he/she says no. When this poor child gets home he/she open the lid, now we all know what happens when we open a bottle of fizzy drinks after its shook.
KABOOM!!!
I assume that you all think I’m a hypocrite because I explained what happens when too much information is having to be processed by my brain, which then in turn makes it go bang. So ironically I explain this in a lot of detail, thus giving you too much information.
What is Autism?? Well this is my definition :)
Echolalia – Something that Autistic people do!
Echolalia is something that you will probably come across when dealing with children and adults on the autism spectrum. As an independent 26 year old on the spectrum I most definitely still experience Echolalia.
Echolalia is originally two Greek words; ekho and lalia. The word ekho translates into the English language as Echo, and lalia into speech. When you put the English translations together you get a pretty good definition of the word Echolalia.
When somebody on the spectrum hears something in passing conversation, in a film, T.V shows or even music, there is a chance that they may repeat it. A lot of the time they may have no understanding of the context of what they are saying; this could mean that they are repeating things for comforting purposes.
For example, I often repeat quotes that make me laugh to help re-create the moment of when I first heard it as it always makes me laugh or smile.You may also notice in your child that they will watch the same silly ‘Stampy Longnose’ Minecraft video or have the same 2 seconds of a CD on a permanent repeat. This is done for the exact same reason as above, it’s comforting. Do you know how I know this? Because I still watch the same Monty Python, Saturday Night Live sketches or any other humorous content over and over again.Let me give you of an example of when I’ve been affected by Echolalia.
This story begins when I was very small maybe 3; my mother had a VHS of Lee Evans Live at the West End. On this VHS Lee Evans talked about the situation when you’re in a restaurant in England and you see/hear someone drop a lot of plates and they all go SMASH, somebody may utter ******.
Now, keep this Lee Evans’ story in mind, it will all make sense eventually.The year was 2004 and I was 15, my mother had told me that week that a lady was coming into my lessons to observe me as I was going through the autism diagnosis process. So that being said, I was in school, sat in the far right hand side corner of the science classroom, the lady who observed me sat in the far left corner and the teacher, being the teacher, was of course in front of the class to teach us.In classroom I was being my normal self, drifting in and out of daydream.
As the teacher was talking, he pulled out a drawer full of scissors, but unfortunately the draw decided to come out all of the way, fell and made a loud crashing noise: SMASH. Now remember the Lee Evans joke? You can only imagine what I shouted across the classroom! On this occasion I didn’t get into trouble, although the teacher I called a ****** usually shouted at me a lot. The lady who was observing me explained Echolalia to my teacher. My incredible head of year was very understanding and it was never spoke of again.
Echolalia on that occasion didn’t do me any favours; Echolalia can be a positive thing. You may ask how this can be.
A lot of the time people with autism struggle to socialise and communicate, in these situations we may produce Echolalia to help us get through these trying times. Echolalia can present itself in two forms,
which are:
1. Pre-Intentional Communication: The person will say or do something with no intention of affecting those around them.
This is where autistic people will use it for comfort and it ranges from anything from a word or just a noise.
2. Intentional communication: The person will say or do something to send a message to someone. This can be seen mostly from people who are protesting, don’t agree with something or are making a request. This will become a lot clearer to the person on the spectrum as they realise how their actions can affect other people.
The exciting thing about Echolalia is that it’s positive and no matter what stage of your life you are in, the transition from pre-intentional to intentional communication is a huge step.One of the ways I use Echolalia positively is using movie/TV quotes in the right context.
For example, if I’ve been told to not let anyone past me I immediately turn in to Gandalf from Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and shout, “YOU SHALL NOT PAAAAAAAASS!”
If you’re like me, with Asperger Syndrome, you may understand why we have to communicate but feel unable to. For me Echolalia was a way of finding solutions to communicate by using ideas from other people. Using certain quotes allowed me to develop a sense of humour, which then expanded and now I can communicate effectively (well, most of the time).
When I realised it was possible to make people laugh, it became an obsession and I was convinced that humour was how you make friends. To some degree I was right as I do make friends and humour is something that I always use.This allowed me to become more pro-active in developing social and communication skills, as I saw the benefits of being social. Making people laugh is my favourite thing in the world. Echolalia is how it started – copying famous phrases from TV or films and then obsessively trying to copy their voices.
Now that I have seen the benefits of socialising and communicating, I have built up my powers. It is much like someone who gains fitness by going to the gym. To get better and stronger at socialising and communication, I have thrown myself into social situations. By being employed, doing amateur theatre plays, biting the bullet and by just getting through it – because it only gets easier.
Tom Bowes
Can also be read on: https://autism-connect.org.uk/users/blog/blogDetail/55b614736d852
Autistic Genius 