"I think your pretty confused with your ideas on autism" - ?

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Happened to have a secondary school teacher here who was the wife of a visitor we had. She had about 8 years before she retires. As at the time I had only just managed to see the doctor to ask to e assessed for autism (And I dis not know that my experiences were known as shutdowns, and the gentleman who was her husband said he thought it was another condition which he had, but didn't entirely fit my experience so I mentioned that I had just been put on the list to be assessed for autism, his wife said "No way. You are not dissabled". Her belief was that people with autism were needing wheelchairs to get about. She is a teacher in a school which has well over 1000 pupils as it is a new school as they closed a few other schools to send kids to one big school (May even be more then double that amount of pupils), and she had had over 30 years of teaching experience. She is an intelligent teacher.
Now I was like that. My belief was that autism effected people severly in a physical way as most of the cases on the TV about autism when it came on our news, the poor people were in a vegetable like state and hardly able to move or talk etc. (If only I knew how to change that for them).
So you can understand that over many years, especially in the last five to ten years, where I had quite a few people come up and say to me I was autistic or I had aspergers syndrome (Or asked if I had aspergers or autism), I was puzzled and said "No"... As I honestly though someone had set them up to prank me(!), as my concept of what I thought autism was is way different to how I now realize it is.
So I fully understand why people may say that because they only see the worst cases on TV and they don't get the concept of what the condition is and the many ways in which it can effect people.
When I joined this site, it was like autismand aspergers had become a new special interest as I was almost spending every minute of every hour that I was awake and not doing other things (E.g. when in work or taking my Mum shopping) in trying to find out more, and this went on for around 4 to 6 months before I started to slow down a bit. My Mum was warning me not to spend too much time dwelling on it (As I am wondering if she thought I could catch it or go mentally strange by studying it? Haha! I love my Mum. She is soo funny at times! )
Anyway... Hehe. I can understand the many missconceptions about the autistic spectrum because for an NT it can be hard to understand, and from the point of someone who maybe on the spectrum but who may not know, their concept of what it is can be swayed at tangents by what they have seen through masking or just generally watching the TV news etc, and the TV people will naturally only cover the extreme cases who may be in difficulty and not getting the help they need.. Hence why they want the TV coverage, so the TV people may not have grasped what autism is themselves.

Be that as it may MG, as a private teacher working externally, I found that if I cared enough to diligently read the screenings and assessments of my students then I could find the correct approach to teach them life -coping skills as well as English. I handed such a comprehensive screening to my sons' teachers, he has severe ADHD, and nobody cared enough to even read it never mind implement the recommendations. I call the lack of understanding regarding autism in the educational system plain negligence, it is their job to know.

It also puzzled me that through my entire schooling, only one teacher who I can vaguely remember as she was a new teacher to the school and I don't think was there long picked up on the fact that I was different in this way. I was 7 years old and a man visited the school and I had to see him. My parents were not told.

When I was a child/teenager things could be spotted, but there was no attempt to join those things together. 1st school -hinted at what we call cerebral palsy -assessment was negative-alternatives not explored. 2nd school- poor coordination ,poor drawing and handwriting . 3rd school-disorganised and messy.

Did the school at least try and find ways of addressing the issues of coordination and fine motoric skills? Were you just labelled "the messy kid with lousy handwriting" and left to your own devices?

When I was a kid my ADD earned me the labels of lethargy and dimwittedness.

No one ever talks of autism in my presence,the last time autism was spoken of in my presence was in 2015 in a heated argument where they were trying to gaslight me.

I don't know why,maybe they think it's to touchy a subject to bring up.

I had handwriting lessons with the teacher that taught the youngest class at the prep school when I was 11-12. My handwriting improved a bit.

As I was flat footed with a high instep I did foot exercises with the headmaster's wife from around 12 to when I went to public school.

Nothing was done at public school to help with the problems .

Oops.

Rain Man was a corruption of “Raymond,” because Charlie wasn’t able to say “Raymond” when he was around two years old.

It was when I first remember needing to doubly learn and it was when I was learning handwriting as we moved from printing in capitol and lower base forms to learn handwriting at the age of 7.
I had learnt it, but then a few days later we went to continue, but I had forgotton everything and had to learn it again. The teacher picked up on this. However, nothing was done, partly due to my intelligence.

wait ... wait was in that era of autism and downs being lumped together ..my non verbal sister ended up in a mixed school .... and btw those of us that are still dues paying member of the middle earth Society still have no doubt about the linear symmetry of the Earths flatness ..

^ I have no idea to whom your question is directed.

The Earth is a sphere

Autism and Down’s were never lumped together. Though kids with various disabilities were often placed in the same classes at school.

In the early 1970s there was a separate classroom for anyone classified as disabled. School had roughly 200 students/year.

I think my 1st school in Bangkok was ahead of its time in signalling there might be things that needed looking into. What should or should not have been looked into after the negative result for cerebral palsy I'm not sure. I know my parents didn't push the issue. Maybe it was a case of 'Thank God for that' and not wanting to accept there were problems.

Huh?

I thought that you were a Brit.

I didn't know that you lived in Bangkok Thailand!