12-06-2006, 10:43 PM
Last night I was speaking to a classmate from primary school whom I haven't seen for nearly ten years. We were talking on MSN. At one point he remembered, "You were a bit of a loner. You didn't really speak to people then, and you had some strange habits."
I was finally diagnosed with dyspraxia and dyscalculia in secondary school. At that time, I thought that my social difficulties could be explained by the dyspraxia - the Dyspraxia Foundation's website lists social and communication problems as symptoms. For some reason, my special needs teacher was very much afraid that I would get a diagnosis of AS when the psychologist came. I had to fill in a questionnaire about my social experiences while I was in her office, and she kept insisting that I was exaggerating. She even made me change my answers. At one point she said, "You can't have autism. You would have been referred to me long before now if you had."
I was at that school for a year and a half before I was placed in special education - and I was only put there because I myself decided that I had a genuine problem and wasn't just lazy or stupid. After I had begun to receive learning support, one teacher told me that she had detected my special needs very early but hadn't wanted to say anything as it "wasn't her place to do so". My school reports all described my problems in detail (one teacher called me 'deliberately antisocial') but nobody had thought of referring to me to the special needs department before then. (To be fair, the special needs teacher was a fairly recent acquisition - she had only been there for a year when I arrived, and several of the other teachers were very poorly informed about what kind of work she did.)
As I received social skills training and other support even without the AS diagnosis, I wasn't too worried about my teacher's prejudice and the doctored questionnaire. But now I'm at university and I'm finding it almost impossible to cope. The disability centre gives me study support, but not much else. My tutor there believes that I would have been diagnosed with AS by now if I really had it.
I think that an official diagnosis would force them to give me some help with things - like shopping, for example. I can't face the supermarket on my own. I have to go late in the evening, when it isn't so crowded, which is impractical as I get so tired during the day. How can I get an assessment as a nineteen-year-old? How can I persuade people to take me seriously?
I was finally diagnosed with dyspraxia and dyscalculia in secondary school. At that time, I thought that my social difficulties could be explained by the dyspraxia - the Dyspraxia Foundation's website lists social and communication problems as symptoms. For some reason, my special needs teacher was very much afraid that I would get a diagnosis of AS when the psychologist came. I had to fill in a questionnaire about my social experiences while I was in her office, and she kept insisting that I was exaggerating. She even made me change my answers. At one point she said, "You can't have autism. You would have been referred to me long before now if you had."
I was at that school for a year and a half before I was placed in special education - and I was only put there because I myself decided that I had a genuine problem and wasn't just lazy or stupid. After I had begun to receive learning support, one teacher told me that she had detected my special needs very early but hadn't wanted to say anything as it "wasn't her place to do so". My school reports all described my problems in detail (one teacher called me 'deliberately antisocial') but nobody had thought of referring to me to the special needs department before then. (To be fair, the special needs teacher was a fairly recent acquisition - she had only been there for a year when I arrived, and several of the other teachers were very poorly informed about what kind of work she did.)
As I received social skills training and other support even without the AS diagnosis, I wasn't too worried about my teacher's prejudice and the doctored questionnaire. But now I'm at university and I'm finding it almost impossible to cope. The disability centre gives me study support, but not much else. My tutor there believes that I would have been diagnosed with AS by now if I really had it.
I think that an official diagnosis would force them to give me some help with things - like shopping, for example. I can't face the supermarket on my own. I have to go late in the evening, when it isn't so crowded, which is impractical as I get so tired during the day. How can I get an assessment as a nineteen-year-old? How can I persuade people to take me seriously?
