Tag Archives: Fear

An Autistic Adult and the Horrors of the American Psychiatric System

Anxiety, Bullying, Psychiatric hospitalization, , ,

My darling, sweet, smart, kind daughter has been imprisoned (her word) in the psychiatric system for three months now.   She has lost weight (and she didn’t weigh much to begin with), energy, her sense of identity, and virtually all hope.  We see little chance of her getting out, because the system—with its constant accumulation of small (and sometimes large) cruelties—appears specifically designed to make an autistic adult crazy.

Leaving aside the constant loud noises, the lack of privacy, the fluorescent lights burning into her brain, and the dreadful food, there are an endless number of other problems that increase her anxiety and depression.

For example, she hasnt seen the light of day for three solid months, and that alone was driving her insane, since being outside has always helped relieve her stress. Well, yesterday her cold and uncaring psychiatrist finally announced that she would be allowed outside on their little patio.  Sadly, however, she is still on one-to-one supervision, and must be accompanied by a tech everywhere.  And the techs simply dont feel like going out, so—despite being promised the “privilege” of a tiny bit of fresh air—she remains stuck inside.

She is anxious all the time, and one of the few ways she has of relieving that anxiety is pacing the halls  but the staff dont feel like walking with her.  They would rather sit and talk to their boyfriends or girlfriends, or play games on their phones  so they tell her to sit down and dont move, until she becomes so overwhelmed that she scratches her skin (again).

Another patient has been extorting possessions from her for weeks—threatening to hurt my daughter if she doesnt hand over her toiletries, art supplies, and the extra food we have brought in to keep her weight from dropping so fast.  The staff are perfectly well aware that she is being threatened (after all, someone has to be within ten feet of her at all times), but they just look the other way.  The social worker on the unit tells her that she has to be more assertive, but its hard to be assertive if you have no hope.

Today was the biggest blow, though.  My daughter has had a private room for all these months for reasons that are not clear to us.  Today, with no warning at all (so helpful for someone on the spectrum—*sarcasm*), she was moved to a room with another woman who has already made life miserable for two other patients.  (For one thing, she likes to sleep in the daytime and stay up all night with the lights on.)

But the move was not the worst of it.  The staff decided that it had to happen IMMEDIATELY, so they wouldn’t allow my daughter to carefully take down all the decorations she has taped to her walls over the months to make herself feel better.  Instead, within a matter of minutes, the staff had ripped down all the photos of her dog, the pictures of flowers she has colored in, the cards from her friends, and the collage we made her of “people who love me.”  Within five minutes the collage was shredded, the pictures and cards were torn, and one of her last layers of security was gone.

I’m done being circumspect about this.  I’m going to start naming the names of the institutions and individuals who are torturing my child and me.  The place where all this is happening is Andrew McFarland State “Mental Health” Center in Springfield, Illinois.  (The quotation marks are because whatever else is going on in this place, it’s certainly not mental health).  Supposedly this is the best of the state hospitals in Illinois, but not if you are autistic. And the psychiatrist in charge, who is quite skilled at prescribing medications (credit where it’s due), but who is otherwise rigid, cold, and unfeeling, is one Dr. Eberhardt, whom I very much hope burns in hell for all eternity.

 

 

 

The Unending Nightmare

Bullying, Suicide, , , , , , , ,

Trigger warning: discussion of suicide, psychiatric abuse

It’s been five weeks now, and beloved daughter is still locked in a nightmarish “mental health” ward, with a sadistic psychiatrist who refuses to believe that she’s autistic (she was first diagnosed at age 3 and multiple times thereafter) and who punishes her for acting autistic (“you’re just looking for attention”).

Seven months ago she was raped while asleep in her own bed in her own apartment. So the asshole psychiatrist, who knows about this, assigns male techs to watch her shower and use the toilet, and sometimes to “observe” her overnight. On those occasions she forces herself to stay awake all night because she’s afraid of what will happen if she sleeps.

Her only comfort in the ward is a little stuffed dog toy—so they punish her by taking it away from her if she’s not “compliant” enough.

The idiot psychiatrist seems unable to grasp the fact that she is suffering the aftereffects of multiple traumas, and has decided that she must have borderline personality disorder—despite the fact that she doesn’t come close to meeting the DSM-V diagnostic criteria.  So they have started hounding her to admit that she’s “manipulative.”

She wasn’t in very bad shape when she went into this place—she had made a kind of half-hearted suicide attempt.  But now she is in a really terrible state of mind, and I’m afraid she really will kill herself from the trauma of this hospitalization.

We WILL sue the hospital.  Any suggestions about individuals or organizations that would like to join in?

 

 

 

Hard Times in the Midwest

Suicide, , , , ,

Trigger warning:  discussion of suicide.

 

Once again, I haven’t posted for a while.  This is because Deeply Beloved Daughter is doing badly.

She’s in her senior year of university now, and very successful academically, but the last six months have been a total disaster emotionally.

She was sexually assaulted (to her credit, she pressed charges and the guy is now in jail, but it was super hard).  Her sister developed a life-threatening illness, which really scared her.  Her grandmother, whom she felt very close to, died.  And one of her best friends from high school committed suicide.  One trauma after another.  And all through this, she maintained her mask of being “normal”/neurotypical (her choice, not her parents) and worked hard at school  But the additional pressure of final exams did her in.  She began self-harming and talked about suicide.

So here she is, in her third week on a psychiatric unit where no one understands anything about autism (we had to explain meltdowns to them), where she can’t escape the fluorescent lights or the noise, where the staff are constantly criticizing her, and where she’s being heavily drugged with useless and potentially very harmful stuff.  Two days after Christmas she goes before a judge who will probably commit her to a state hospital.  (Yes we have lawyers and expert opinions, etc., but we are not very hopeful).

Those of you who pray, please pray for us.  Everyone else:  fight like hell for better psychiatric care for autistic people.

 

 

 

 

The Impact of Bullying: Internalizing Disorders

Autism Acceptance Month, Bullying, Education, Emotion, , , , , , ,

Trigger warning:  bullying, anxiety, depression, PTSD, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts

Many autistic adults have written about the long horrors of their school days.  They remember (unfortunately, they sometimes can’t STOP remembering) being poked and prodded, scratched and kicked, punched, doused with noxious liquids, and pushed down stairs.  They remember being choked unconscious, set on fire, waterboarded, stabbed with knives.  They remember being the one not invited to the birthday party, not picked for the sports team, not wanted as partner for a class project.  They remember sitting alone on the bus, sitting alone at lunch, standing alone on the playground.  More than anything, they remember the mockery and humiliation, the insults and cruel imitations, the echoes of savage laughter.  And this is why there was such a visceral reaction when speech pathologist Karen Kabaki-Sisto published a piece called “10 Perks Kids with Autism Get From Bullying” on the Autism Daily News, in October, 2015.[1]  Kabaki-Sisto presumably meant well (something along the line of “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade”), but her piece was jarringly tone deaf to actual autistic experience.  Most autistic adults (and many neurotypicals, including myself) who read “10 Perks” were outraged that anyone would suggest that their traumatic experiences and those of their children had any “positive” side at all.

The Impact of Bullying Internalized

Bullying causes such severe distress in schoolchildren that it may cause or exacerbate psychological disorders, especially what psychologists call “internalizing” disorders (ones that are not easily seen by others because emotional distress is directed inwards).  These include loneliness, anxiety, poor self-image, depression, suicidal ideation and suicide attempts.  Prolonged bullying (the type most autistic kids endure) erodes trust in other people, leaving the victims feeling alone and helpless.  By-standers fail to help, friends drop away, school staff refuse to believe reports of bullying, or give useless advice.  Responding to Kabaki-Sisto, Jennifer reports that her bullying experiences left her with

A complete inability to trust others: This is due to never knowing who is actually your friend or who is setting you up to be the butt of a joke and/or using you for their own personal gain. You also realize your peers don’t give a damn about you enough to stand up for you, when they see you being harassed, made fun of, and physically abused by others.[2]

Kabaki-Sisto had suggested that bullying might lead to increased independence for autistic children, but Purpleaspie did not view that as a positive thing:

In a twisted way bullying did increase my independence, as it taught me that I couldn’t rely on anyone to help me, certainly not the school principal or vice-principal or any of the teachers or counsellors, so I had to depend only on myself.[3]

Lack of trust often leads to increased social withdrawal: “to avoid exposing yourself to betrayal in the first place, or because you lose the confidence and self-esteem you might have had before.”[4]  Kabaki-Sisto had suggested that being bullied might lead to new friendships, but this is not what autistic adults remember:

A bullied child will feel isolated from his or her peers, not drawn to new peers. When social interactions – already a situation that makes those with autism nervous – becomes associated with all of the negatives of bullying, a child with autism is more likely to withdraw within himself or herself and not try to make new friends.[5]

Social withdrawal, however, only worsens the situation, as it removes even the tiny amount of social support that might be have been there before, making bullying even easier.

Lack of trust can result in intense anxiety.[6]  When Kabaki-Sisto suggested that bullying might make autistic children more aware of the people around them, one autistic adult described the kind of awareness that might result:

. . . she will grow to be afraid of everyone around her. She will be constantly afraid the next person walking down the street will take umbrage with her behavior. She will be afraid of doing anything that isn’t “normal,” and will question her own behaviors and thoughts to the point of near nervous breakdown.[7]

School rapidly becomes a place of terror for children who are bullied.  School refusal is a common outcome:  Alex Forshaw is not alone in having bolted when being told it was time to go to school.[8]  Others, as we have already seen, may act up in school on purpose, to get suspended and thus avoid being there.  Even those who can bring themselves to go to school suffer from debilitating fear.  In ninth and tenth grade, my own autistic daughter used to vomit every single morning before going off to face the bullies.  By the second part of tenth grade, she could only go at all if she took along a tiny stuffed animal, hidden in her pocket, to “be her friend” at school, and her arms were raw from anxiety-induced scratching.[9]  IndieSoul used to “shake and sweat from anxiety in school and hide in the bathrooms during recess.”[10]  Another victim reports fainting “just out of fear.”[11]  Anxiety is already high in most autistic individuals, but years of bullying in childhood ups the ante, laying the foundations for anxiety disorders continuing into adulthood. IndieSoul continues: “I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever be completely rid of the anxiety.”[12]

Social anxiety and panic disorders linked to bullying during childhood are very common among autistic adults, but particularly severe or long-lasting bullying may also result in post-traumatic stress disorder.[13]  To my knowledge, no researcher has examined how many autistic adults suffer from PTSD as a result of school bullying, but many individuals report having been professionally diagnosed with the disorder, and some describe their symptoms online.  Flashbacks, or moments when remembered trauma seems to be happening in the present, are common: “Lately I’ve been having flashbacks of the days when I got bullied in school. They range from the typical teasing, to having things thrown at me, gossiped about, falsely accused of vandalism, being called mentally challenged, ‘roasted’ by the entire classroom when I had done nothing wrong or didn’t say anything at all, and eventually ignore by adults when I complained and after that, beaten up.”[14]  PTSD produces many other symptoms beyond flashbacks.  Jellybean reports: “I suffer from panic attacks, palpitations, hallucinations, nightmares, physical sickness (rare) and have an overactive responce to potential dangers, even if the ‘danger’ doesn’t really exist. It is absolutely horrific to suffer like this.”[15]  Individuals suffering from such debilitating symptoms find it difficult, if not impossible to achieve a decent quality of life.

The most dangerous lesson autistic (and other) children learn from bullying, however, is that they deserve it.  This is what the bullies tell them, this is what parents and school staff may inadvertently reinforce, this is what they eventually internalize—that they are somehow less than other people, unworthy of decent treatment, inherently flawed and deserving of punishment.  “The assistant principal at my old school told me it was my fault I was being bullied and that I should change what ever it was I was being bullied about.”[16]  “. . . when I was made fun of pushed around etc in school I always thought I deserved it because I ‘asked’ for it, not being normal etc.”[17]  By high school, Kirsten reports, “my self-esteem had been damaged to the point that I couldn’t even conceive of the notion of self-love. In the back of my mind, I thought I was slow, stupid, ugly, a loser, and any other unwanted adjective I could think of.”[18]

Children who have absorbed these lessons often develop clinical depression: “I got bullied at school and was depressed all of middle school/high school.”[19]  “I got a major clinical depression because of bullying.  I’m on meds now.”[20]  Depression itself is severely debilitating, hindering both social and academic achievement, but it also often leads to thoughts of suicide—one study has found that suicidal ideation is 28 times more common among autistic than among neurotypical children. The problem appears to be not autism itself, but the experience of being bullied:  the same study found that children with autism spectrum conditions who have been bullied are approximately three times more likely to think about or actually attempt suicide than children with autism who have not been bullied.[21]  A fourteen-year-old with autism who had already made two suicide attempts reported that the bullying “made me feel sad, depressed. It made me feel like people don’t care anymore because when I got bullied I felt like well if they cared about me they would have done something.”[22]  Bullies, and especially cyberbullies often encourage suicide with messages such as “you should just go kill yourself” and “everyone would be happier if you were dead,”[23] but some autistic children simply find their lives in school unbearable and look to death as a relief. “I would have killed myself if my parents didn’t take me out of public school.  The bullying was that bad.”[24] Not only suicidal thoughts, but also suicide attempts and successful suicides are more common among autistic than neurotypical children.[25] ”If I had not been bullied at school I would have had a refuge.  Not having that?  I tried to kill myself a few times and failed.  I didn’t get found or helped, I just didn’t do it right.  I am glad of that but telling me that I am stronger because of this [as Kabaki-Sisto did] is an insult to my intelligence, common sense, and every autist on the planet.”[26]

Ultimately, after years of bullying, autistic children—like other bullied children—may simply lose their sense of self.  However happy, engaged, and enthusiastic they may have been as young children, their experiences at school have turned them into angry, fearful, depressed and bitter adults.  As the author of one response to “10 Perks” asks

Am I a better person for [the bullying]?  How would I know . . . the girl you are talking about died thirty years ago and again and again yet she never gets to rest.[27]

 

 

 

[1] It was later pulled from the Autism Daily News website because of the outcry against it.

[2] Jennifer, “A Response to the Ten Perks Children with Autism Get From Bullying,” on the Autistic Giraffe Party Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/autisticpartygiraffe/posts/429266380617441.

[3] “There Are No Perks to Being Bullied,” on the Purpleaspie blog:  https://purpleaspie.wordpress.com/2015/10/16/there-are-no-perks-to-being-bullied/.  See also Ian Nicholson, “Ten Things THIS Autistic Kid Learned from Being Bullied,” on the Digital Hyperlexic blog:  https://thedigitalhyperlexic.wordpress.com/2015/10/15/ten-things-this-autistic-kid-learned-from-being-bullied/.

[4] S.M. Neumeier, “Bullying is abuse, and abuse has no perks,” on the Silence Breaking Sound website: https://silencebreakingsound.wordpress.com/2015/10/15/bullying-is-abuse-and-abuse-has-no-perks/.

[5] TechyDad, “Perks From Being Bullied?  I Don’t Think So!” on the TechyDad blog:  http://www.techydad.com/2015/10/perks-from-being-bullied-i-dont-think-so/.

[6] On the high levels of anxiety among autistic children and adolescents overall, see J. Wood, and K. Gadow, “Exploring the Nature and Function of Anxiety in Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorders,” Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice 17 (2010), 281-292.

[7] J.T. Dabaggian, “Why Karen Kabaki-Sisto’s 10 “Perks” for bullied autistic kids is bull.” Medium magazine, 10/16/15:   https://medium.com/@jtdabbagian/why-karen-kabaki-sisto-s-10-perks-for-bullied-autistic-kids-is-bull-7f14d97aabf4.

[8] Alex Forshaw, “Bullying:  Resurrecting Buried Trauma,” on the My Autistic Dance blog:  https://myautisticdance.blog/2015/10/18/bullying-resurrecting-buried-trauma/.

[9] We home-schooled her for her junior and senior years, because we just couldn’t watch her suffering anymore.

[10] IndieSoul, in the “Aspergers and Social Anxiety Disorder,” on the Wrong Planet website: http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=202798.

[11] Iknewyouweretrouble, in the “Were You Bullied in School?” discussion on the Wrong Planet website:  https://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=231102&start=15; see also franknfurter’s contribution to the “What Were You Like in Elementary School?” discussion:  “i also had panic attacks a lot, and was bullied, it was not a time i care to remember, only emotions about elementary/primary school i remember feeling was anxiety” (https://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=226220).

[12] IndieSoul, in the “Aspergers and Social Anxiety Disorder,” on the Wrong Planet website:  http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=202798; see also Oten’s contribution to the “Were You Bullied in School?” discussion on the Wrong Planet website:  https://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=231102; NerdyKid’s contribution to the “People with Aspergers Don’t Care About Being Bullied” discussion on the Wrong Planet website: http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=149165; Feminist Aspie, “10 Downsides Kids With Autism Get From Bullying (because apparently it isn’t obvious),” on the Feminist Aspie blog:  https://feministaspie.wordpress.com/2015/10/15/10-downsides-kids-with-autism-get-from-bullying-because-apparently-it-isnt-obvious/.  See also NerdyKid’s contribution to the “People with Aspergers Don’t Care About Being Bullied” discussion on the Wrong Planet website: http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=149165.

[13] School bullying has been identified as one potential cause of PTSD in the general population:  T. Idsoe, A. Dyregrov, and E. Idsoe, “Bullying and PTSD Symptoms,” Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology 40 (2012), 901-11; T. Gumpel, “Prolonged Stress, PTSD, and Depression Among School Aggressors and Victims,” Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment, and Trauma 25 (2016), 180-96.  Little research has been done on school bullying and PTSD among autistic individuals; see only C. Kerns, C. Newschaffer, and S. Berkowitz (2015). “Traumatic Childhood Events and Autism Spectrum Disorder,” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 45(2015), 3475-3486.  The authors include bullying as one of the potential sources of traumatic stress.

[14] Ameriblush, in the “Remembering years of bullying” discussion on the Aspies Central website:

https://www.autismforums.com/threads/remembering-years-of-bullying.22944/#post-456806.

[15] Jellybean, in the “Complex PTSD As Result of Severe Bullying” discussion on the Wrong Planet website:  http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=47533&start=45.

[16] This_Amoeba, in the “People Normalizing Bullying You Got As A Child” discussion on the Wrong Planet website: https://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=336587.

[17] Daedal, in the “People with Aspergers Don’t Care About Being Bullied” discussion on the Wrong Planet website:  http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=149165.  See also J.T. Dabaggian, “Why Karen Kabaki-Sisto’s 10 “Perks” for bullied autistic kids is bull.” Medium magazine, 10/16/15: https://medium.com/@jtdabbagian/why-karen-kabaki-sisto-s-10-perks-for-bullied-autistic-kids-is-bull-7f14d97aabf4.

[18] Kirsten, “Bullying . . . The Real Problem . . . An Aspergian Woman’s Perspective”:  http://wrongplanet.net/bullying-the-real-problem-an-aspergian-womans-perspective/.

[19] IHaveAspergers,” in the “Is Suicide Common In People with Aspergers?” discussion on the Wrong Planet website:  http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=280538.

[20] hello07, in the “People with Apergers Don’t Care About Being Bullied” discussion on the Wrong Planet website:  http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=149165.

[21] S. Mayes, A. Gorman, J. Hillwig-Garcia, and E. Syed, “Suicide Ideation and Attempts in Children with Autism,” Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 7 (2013),109–119, 2013.

[22] Cyberbullying Research Center, “Helping Kids with Autism Spectrum Disorder When Bullied or Cyberbullied”:  https://cyberbullying.org/helping-kids-autism-spectrum-disorder-bullied-cyberbullied.

[23] Autistic students are often targeted with such messages: see the “Why Are People Telling Me to Kill Myself?” and “I Was Jus Bullied, Called a Retard & Told To Go Kill Myself” discussions on the Wrong Planet website: http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=341134, and http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=299688.

[24] PunkyKat, in the “People With Aspergers Don’t Care About Being Bullied” discussion on the Wrong Planet website: http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=149165 .

[25] O. Shtayermann, “Peer Victimization in Adolescents and Young Adults Diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome:  A Link to Depressive Symptomatology, Anxiety Symptomatology, and Suicidal Ideation,” Issues in Comprehensive Pediatric Nursing 30 (2007), 87-197; Benjamin Zablotsky, Catherine Bradshaw, Connie Anderson, and Paul Law, “The Association between Bullying and the Psychological Functioning of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders,” Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics 34 (2013), 1-8; S. Mayes, A. Gorman, J. Hillwig-Garcia, and E. Syed, “Suicide Ideation and Attempts in Children with Autism,” Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 7 (2013),109–119, 2013; Danielle Ung, et al., “The Relationship between Peer Victimization and the Psychological Characteristics of Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder,” Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders 32 (2016), 70-79.  See also the personal accounts of Hello07, in the “People With Aspergers Don’t Care About Being Bullied” discussion on the Wrong Planet website: http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=149165; IHaveAspergers, in the “Is Suicide Common In People With Aspergers?” discussion on the same website:  http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=280538.

[26] Kateryna Fury, “Why Bullying Isn’t Healthy for ANYONE,” on the Textual Fury blog: http://snip.ly/oLlW#https://textualfury.wordpress.com/2015/10/15/why-bullying-isnt-healthy-for-anyone-a-post-intended-for-karen-kabaki-sisto-trigger-warning-for-everyone-else-also-i-cussed-a-bit/.

[27] “On the ‘perks’ of bullying . . . ,” on the Antigenic Self blog: http://theantigenicself.tumblr.com/post/131203829795/on-the-perks-of-bullying.

Disruptive Behaviors: The “Movement Behaviors”

Anxiety, Education, Human Rights, Myths about Autism, visual processing disorders, , , , , , ,

 

“[School] was a nightmare full of loud sounds, bright colors, and noisy children.  The adoration I received for being ‘so smart’ faded with each grade.  I could not understand what was happening.  Instead of praise, I was constantly getting reprimanded.  Nothing made sense.  Even [the school principal] no longer meant what he said.  He said I could come and see him whenever I wanted, but he lied.  When I rose from my seat, walked out of my classroom, and went down the stairs to the main office to see him, I was in trouble.  ‘Young lady, you cannot just walk out of [the teacher’s] class and come down here.’  Tears welled up in my eyes as I tried to make sense of it.”[1]

 

Many autistic students move their bodies in ways other students do not (or at least not as regularly).  They may flap their hands, bounce up and down in their seats, twirl in the aisles, hide under their desks, get up and wander around the classroom, or try to leave the room or even the school.  (They may also behave in more disturbing ways.  Meltdowns, self-injury, and aggression towards others will be the subject of another post–for now, I want to focus on the actions just described:  flapping, bouncing, rocking, and various “out-of-seat behaviors” like hiding, wandering, and running away.)

 

Schools often view these “movement behaviors,” even more than vocalizations, as barriers to the inclusion of autistic students in mainstream classrooms.  Movement behaviors make many teachers uncomfortable because they break the visual pattern of an orderly classroom and appear to undermine discipline.  Some administrators and teachers also attribute disturbing motivations to students who behave in these ways.  They may view certain types of movement as evidence of defiance or disrespect, as acts of wilful disruption.  They fail to realize that autistic students who flap and rock and hide are not generally trying to be disruptive (with a few exceptions, to be described below).

 

In the first place, because autistic students often do not pick up on social cues from their fellow students, they may simply not understand why they can’t just move their bodies the way they want in school.  If they bounce or twirl at home, they assume that they can also bounce or twirl at school.  They may view demands that they stop as nonsensical, or–especially when their movements are related to sensory issues—they may simply be unable to stop.  As researchers and teachers are slowly coming to realize, movement is often a necessity for autistic children.[2]  Rocking may alleviate dizziness, making a student feel less likely to fall out of his or her seat.  Bouncing may help a child locate his or her body in space, diminishing the terrifying feeling of being “disembodied.”  If a fire alarm suddenly goes off, the only choice for some children will be to run away from an intolerably painful noise.  Many students with autism use movement to distract or protect themselves from sensory overload, or–on the other hand–to gain the sensory stimulation they need to remain focused on their schoolwork.

 

If some teachers are beginning to understand the connection between movement behaviors and sensory needs, far fewer understand how other factors are involved.  They may not realize that some autistic students move around because of their very eagerness to learn.  A child with auditory or visual differences may rove through the classroom trying to find a spot where he or she can access the information the teacher is presenting.  A child keenly interested in nature or in the trucks rolling down the street outside the school may run to the windows or even outside the school to pursue those interests.  Students bored with their own “toned-down” curriculum may wander around the classroom to catch a glimpse of what other students are doing.[3]

 

Emotional as well as intellectual issues may play a role.  Jeanne Davide-Rivera, the author of the passage cited above, left her classroom to visit the nice principal she had met her first day of school—the one who had actually told her she could visit him any time she wanted!  She found it intensely confusing when she was told that her behavior was wrong.  In her case, movement was a response to the desire for human connection—a desire autistic students are often assumed not to have.  Movement is even more often a response to anxiety associated with heavy academic or social unease.  In some children, anxiety leads to increased rocking, bouncing, or hiding.  Emotional distress caused by real or perceived academic “failures,” or by cruelty on the part of teachers and classmates often results in “elopement” or bolting out of a classroom or school.[4]

 

It remains the case, however, that most movement behaviors are either well-intentioned (that is, the student is actually trying very hard to be “good”) or unavoidable (he or she simply needs to move).  Only rarely is autistic “acting up” intended disrupt the class—and even then, this is not always for the reasons teachers or administrators imagine.  To give one unexpected example:  children overwhelmed by the visual and auditory stimuli in their classrooms may discover that they can hear and understand their lessons better from a desk in the hallway, which they then learn they can acquire for themselves through some planned infraction of the rules about movement.[5]  For these children, engaging in “undesirable” movement behaviors becomes the key to learning.

 

More commonly, however, deliberate misbehavior is a planned reaction to intolerable stress.  It is an undeniable fact that autistic students seldom enjoy school.  Much more often they experience school as “a nightmare” or as “hell.”[6]  Few administrators or teachers understand how painful school is for these students.  Day after day they must endure constant bombardment by sensory stimuli, the terror of (often unsuccessful) social interactions, and—most serious of all—the attentions of sadistic bullies.  (More on bullying in another post.)  After they have suffered for months or even years, some of these students consciously decide to behave in ways they know are wrong, in the hopes of being suspended and allowed to stay home.  The Wrong Planet website (an online forum for those with autism) has had several discussion threads about school suspension, and a common theme is seeking out suspension as a way to avoid bullies.[7]  What is most striking about these posts, however, is how often the authors used this approach only as a last, desperate resort.

 

So when teachers or school administrators are faced with autistic students who bounce, rock, twirl, and elope, they would do well to consider all the other possible reasons for these movement behaviors, before assuming that their students are simply being disrespectful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[1] Jeanne Davide-Rivera,  Twirling Naked in the Streets and No One Noticed:  Growing Up with Undiagnosed Autism ([Location Unclear]:  David and Goliath Publishing, 2013), p. 34.

[2] Sadly, there remain so-called “experts” who assume that these children are deliberately misbehaving:  e.g., Deborah Napolitano and David McAdam, “Problem Behavior,” in Tristram Smith, ed., Making Inclusion Work for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders:  An Evidence-Based Guide (New York:  Guilford Press, 2012), p. 304:  “Throughout the day, students continually have a choice [emphasis added] of whether to display the problem behavior . . .”

[3] Consider the case of Laura, described by Paula Kluth, You’re Going to Love This Kid:  Teaching Students with Autism in the Inclusive Classroom, 2nd ed. (Baltimore:  Paul H. Brookes Publishing, 2010), p. 202.

[4] See the post by WAautistic guy on a thread about “What Are Your Worst Experiences at School” on Wrong Planet:  http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=166310&start=30.

[5] Davide-Rivera, Twirling Naked in the Streets, p. 36.

[6] See the thread entitled “Public Education is HELL for Aspie Children:  http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1100890;  skimming through the “School” forum as a whole makes clear why school is so often found intolerable by those with autism.

[7] E.g., the following:“Anyone Ever Threatened with Suspension?” (http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=148672) and “Is Suspension Really a Punishment?”(http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=194004)