I have been recently running into the justification that "we need to broaden his world or he will never talk about/do anything else" as a justification for "teaching new interests" (I consider myself a good teacher, but how am I supposed to teach someone to be interested in something???)
The other one that baffles me is taking a student not choosing the item identified as highly preferred out of the array as evidence that they don't know how to make a choice. Because students with disabilities can never be bored, fickle, silly, or, you know, change their opinion.
I fear it will be a long time before we make progress on this one because the DSM definition actively pathologizes it with the repretative and restricted interests criteria.
You are supposed to teach someone to be interested in something the same way I'm supposed to provide a pill to get someone more interested in something
( ... )
Movement-related issues and executive dysfunction cause me a lot of problems too. *Understanding* social communication isn't usually a problem for me, but there are a lot of things I physically can't do, or can't do reliably.
No amount of explaining socially expected greeting behavior to me will make my body cooperate on a day when I'm operating on a 10 second delay.
If you tell a soccer-hater that soccer is fun, that probably isn’t going to improve how they feel about soccer. It may, however, negatively impact how the child feels about you. It may possibly even impact how they feel about trying other activities billed as “fun” in the future.
Really good point, and well-said!
And it applies to a lot of things, too, though I'm guessing that many teachers of autistic haven't yet figured out that saying to them, "why don't you want to play house with the other kids?" is not terribly different from saying to me, "why don't you want to date boys?" People's experiences are not universal! Different people are different!
How about: "many autistics are interested in things or at an intensity that can be confusing to an observer, but these interests are a source of comfort, strength, and/or joy to the autistic person."
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The other one that baffles me is taking a student not choosing the item identified as highly preferred out of the array as evidence that they don't know how to make a choice. Because students with disabilities can never be bored, fickle, silly, or, you know, change their opinion.
I fear it will be a long time before we make progress on this one because the DSM definition actively pathologizes it with the repretative and restricted interests criteria.
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No amount of explaining socially expected greeting behavior to me will make my body cooperate on a day when I'm operating on a 10 second delay.
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Really good point, and well-said!
And it applies to a lot of things, too, though I'm guessing that many teachers of autistic haven't yet figured out that saying to them, "why don't you want to play house with the other kids?" is not terribly different from saying to me, "why don't you want to date boys?" People's experiences are not universal! Different people are different!
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I would like to add "professional autism myth-buster" to my formal job description. . .
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‘Oh and also, we can not lie to people and tell them they are having fun if they aren’t.’
YES. THIS. PLEASE.
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