Grossly Misleading

In reply to As Autistic Children Grow, So Does Social Gap
By JANE GROSS


While I’m sure that Ms Gross has the best of intentions with her latest article on autism, it is unfortunate that behind the simple descriptions of the social problems faced by ASD children, there are in equal measure, false attribution and false assumptions.

Gross’s article begins with Karen Singer’s autistic son spending recess alone or crying in the bathroom and wondering "Why am I like this? What's wrong with me? He knew he was doing something wrong as he reached the social crucible of middle school, but he did not know how to fix it.”

Gross’s next point is that what is wrong is the reluctance of the autistic child to be ‘cool’, the propensity for making inappropriate remarks, the “struggle to read body language or to imagine what other people are thinking. If they learn a joke, they may tell it a dozen times. They are too literal-minded to understand white lies and too rule-bound to understand they should not tattle. They overreact to routine teasing and invite ridicule by carrying their books over their heads or accepting a dare to kiss a girl.”

Gross’s final point is that classmates that were once tolerant, aren’t any longer. “"Kids have very short memories when they're young…… They are much less forgiving as they get older."

And the conclusion from all this is that “the majority of such children become conspicuous in the third grade and are bullied or ostracized by the time they reach middle school.”

While the conclusion is the correct one, both the reasoning and the solution are faulty. According to this description, ASD children are bullied and ostracised because their social skills are so poor it is quite understandable that they provoke negative reactions in other children. Naturally, the solution is to offer social skills classes in the belief that with improvement in this area, the ASD child will not attract such negative attention. The problems in this scenario are firstly, that it is always or even primarily the actions of the ASD child that precipitate the negative sequelae – false assumption. The second is that the other children are acting with corrective intent, if negative consequences – false attribution. An examination of the nature and extent of the bullying experience among the vast majority of ASD children will, I think put paid to the notion that firstly, the victim deserved it and secondly and much more importantly, that social skills classes can remedy this.

No amount of inappropriate behaviour can possibly justify what really happens to ASD children in schools. Anecdotes range from constant shoving in corridors, held head-down in toilets, locked in cupboards, kicked, punched, beaten unconscious, hanged on the school gate to running the gauntlet in gym changing rooms (practically universal). A favourite appears to be to surround the ASD child with a group of at least four and engage in whatever taunting is most likely to elicit the most satisfactorily terrified response. Note that it is never a one to one engagement here. The odds are always 4 to 1 or worse. Of course in the average school, there are several such groups and very few ASD, so that this ‘group therapy’ happens several times a week. And if questioned, the response is usually ‘We were only teasing’.

Though the bullying experiences suffered by ASD children can vary quite a bit, there are a few universals. Up front, it is the systematic destruction of an individual to cater to the perceived emotional needs of pre-pubescent and pubescent individuals going through the intensely tumultuous period of adolescence. The autistic child is the ‘painted bird’ and as such serves as the panacea for bruised egos, failed or faltering relationships, academic woes and the fluctuating self esteem experienced by the ASD’s peers. You see, the ASD does not have to do a thing to attract this kind of unwelcome attention. Blaming the faulty social skills is mere camouflage. They could ignore the child, but it is very apparent that they do not and prefer not to. When the compulsion to conformity and group solidarity is at its height in early adolescence, the inability to connect and therefore to submit to a group identity is a capital crime. The lack of a supportive network of peers is an added bonus. Not only has this person broken the golden rule of ‘fitting in’ but there isn’t going to be any retribution.

The post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in ASD children inspired by their bullying experiences can last a decade. Yet the underlying drive for socialisation of ASD children is rather like insisting that the inmates of Abu Ghraib meet with Lindy England for drinks and chit-chat on a daily basis in the interests of fostering inter-cultural relations. The psychological consequences are likely to be devastating. What does it do to a child’s developing capacity to judge to be told that they should emulate the very people dishing out the most horrible abuse because their peers are ‘normal’ and they are not?

Social skills training is very necessary and will pay dividends in the long term. For this period from middle school through to junior high school, however, their protective capacity is likely to be nil because that’s not the problem. Being ‘different’ is and kids are extraordinarily sensitive to it.

What our ASD kids need is definitely the ability to smile, interact nicely, and carry a big stick. Along with nurturing those social skills it is equally necessary to teach assertiveness and perhaps martial arts. Leaving ASD kids with no defences because it is just too hard, too painful or too foreign a concept to recognise what normal kids are capable of is not the answer.

Alyric

(Member of MOFFRA and the Cranky Cabal)