The autism signs were there, but teachers “back then” didn’t have a clue. What if I’d been born decades later?
Miss Doolan knew I was the only student out of 900 at the Catholic girls high school who asked her — after a movie was shown to the student body about an athlete who became permanently paralyzed from spinal cord injury — why a severed spinal cord that’s surgically reattached can’t restore walking.
Sister Charles Ann (yes, that was really the nun’s name) knew that I was the only student who refused to join groups in geometry class to work on the latest assignment.
She also knew that nobody ever asked me to be in their group.
Surely, my oddness was apparent to most every teacher I’d ever had.
But maybe Mr. Mason, a history teacher at the small second high school I transferred to for 11th grade, didn’t detect it because another kid in my class, a boy, was really weird.
But this other boy — overtly very strange and very quiet — flew under every teacher’s radar. How do I know?
Because had he been known to be autistic, the whole small school would’ve known. You know how it is.
Maybe any possible slight autism was overlooked by more informed teachers because I’d always been good in gym class or wasn’t shy about raising my hand to answer or ask a question.
Back to that Catholic school, Sister Leon, only in her mid-20s, saw that I had prolific art skills, and from time to time and out loud, said to me in front of the whole class, “You always look SO SERIOUS.”
This neurotypical art teacher clearly had a problem with accepting that human beings come with differences in how they present to others and shouldn’t be expected to all act the same from some cookie cutter mold.
Maybe had she known about this thing called flat affect she would’ve suspected autism and kept her bluntness to herself.
In a more contemporary school environment (had I been born in 2000), my neurodivergence would’ve stood out among teachers who had some knowledge of how autism presents in “high functioning” kids and teens.
A junior high school teacher today, I’d like to think, would suspect autism in any student who seems obsessed with sharks.
After all, autism (whether “severe” or HF) classically comes with intense interests in unusual topics as well as more mainstream topics, in addition to what is clearly social awkwardness — definitely in my case all throughout schooling.
So many girls in the ninth grade thought I was “weird.” Presumably, the teachers picked up on my atypical presentation.
It wasn’t outright overt. But it was detectable — that I was just … different from other kids.
One teacher told me I had a good vocabulary (early signs of my pedantic speech?).
Sister Carol was my Spanish teacher. We had to memorize dialogues in Spanish as homework.
Next day she’d call two girls up to the front of the class to “act out” the dialogue.
I was the only one who could speak the Spanish lines super fast and clearly, which astounded my classmates. Most of the other girls stumbled through these dialogues.
It’s not that these examples, in isolation, scream autism.
But when taken all together, in the same student — this would definitely raise the suspicion for autism in our modern era of heightened autism awareness, acceptance and knowledge.
In high school I was the fastest reader out loud whenever the teacher would call on a student to read aloud (portions from the Bible, history books, etc).
Some kids would tell me to slow down because they couldn’t keep up. I’m convinced this ability stems from my ASD. Maybe I should’ve been an autioneer.
In biology class I was seemingly the only kid who wasn’t afraid to self-stab with a lancet to draw blood to study under a microscope.
Did the teacher not notice that I showed no facial expression as I prepared the lancet and simply pricked myself with that thing while other girls hesitated and verbally expressed fear, while some couldn’t even self-prick and had to have the nun do it for them, some of them looking away with their eyes closed?
Matter-of-fact approach to an event that brings out emotions in other kids…
Did Mr. Riser in junior high not notice that when a bee flew into homeroom, the boys didn’t flinch, but all the girls except myself fled?
I didn’t stay behind to prove I was tough. I stayed behind because I had no fear, no emotion.
There’s a lot of puzzle pieces going on here, that when all put together, reveal a picture of some neurodivergence going on.
In today’s environment, or at least, beginning at around 2000, I’d imagine that some of my atypical traits would’ve gotten the attention of at least a few teachers.
Even more “autistic-seeming” kids were never on the autistic radar when I was growing up; they were just considered very bashful and/or strange or weird.
I’m not saying that a neurotypical kid can’t be thought of as odd by peers.
But remember my message: It’s the whole picture to consider, along with consistency over time — not just isolated events.
Level 1 Autism in Early TV Shows
Can anyone name just one TV show or movie, that came out in the 1970s, in which a child or teen character had a diagnosis of Level 1 (low support needs or “mild”) autism?
How would teachers back then even broach to the parents, “I think Erikka has a mild form of autism”?
Today it’s so much different. I’m not a teacher so I don’t know how it usually unfolds.
But when I was growing up, the idea of suggesting that a student such as myself (normal but odd) might be autistic was absolutely unthinkable. Back then, autism was even likened to the R word.
If you heard the word “autism” back then, you immediately thought of that speechless boy who could spend hours sitting on the kitchen floor spinning plates.
Nowadays, we have autistic characters on TV who are doctors, lawyers and just adults living their everyday lives like anyone else.
We also have many autistic-coded characters who are detectives, scientists, you name it.
Autism is here to stay, folks! “We ain’t goin’ nowhere!”
