Posted by mareserinitatis in education, gifted, older son, personal, societal commentary.
Tags: Aspergers, Aspie, diagnosis, education, school
Today, I came across this post talking about expression of Asperger’s in women.
I have to admit that I’m understanding how my son felt in school. When he was in 6th grade, the school decided to do an evaluation and said he was Aspie. The whole thing was rather traumatizing for him. He talked about how the school psychologist talked to him like he was a toddler, using small words in a loud voice. It was very patronizing. He started calling her the psychopath-ologist. The next year, the ‘diagnosis’ followed him to the gifted school he attended. I talked him into going along with it because there was help with social skills and things that he really did need some help with. He said he was okay with getting the help. However, he did keep insisting he wasn’t Aspie, and the teachers kept saying that his refusal to accept would make it hard for him to adjust.
Here’s the problem: he’s not Aspie. When he was 4, this first came up. I took him to out of town to two researchers who specialize in Asperger’s to have him examined. Nope, not Aspie, they both said. However, it’s obvious he’s probably gifted. It was at this point that giftedness could probably be problematic in a normal classroom.
Given my history with the public schools as a child, this had never been a blip on my radar. I constantly had problems, but very often I and my parents chalked this up to the fact that we were pretty much considered ‘poor white trash’. Now I can look back and see how that perception along with my very visual approach to things confluenced to make school hell for me.
But as an adult, I keep seeing things about Aspergers. And people keep saying my son is Aspie. And I suspect people think I’m Aspie. And I’m not. I simply am not. I am amazed at how many traits of Asperger’s are also present in the gifted, and given my experience with my son, I’m sure that there are a ton of kids out there who are being misdiagnosed as Aspie when, in reality, they’re perfectly normal…for gifted kids.
I know people who have kids who are Aspie, and I understand it’s hard to deal with. However, I am getting really tired of this ‘medicalization’ of a gift or a personality type or whatever you want to call it. The problem with calling gifted kids Aspies because they may show some of the same traits is that those labels become a capsule to describe the student. So-and-so is an Aspie, and so every thing they do that seems off or quirky or different becomes a sign of their disability: there is something WRONG with them. How many times do people look at these kids and say it’s a sign they’re brilliant? In my experience, almost never. By the time older son was finished with sixth grade, the fact that he had a college-level vocabulary was being used as a sign that he had a disability, and the psychopath-ologist was claiming he was actually hyperlexic. His English teacher, who at the beginning of the year was saying she thought he was a very bright boy, suddenly said he didn’t seem gifted when asked by the psychologist.
I don’t have any issues with parents of Aspie kids, or even Aspies themselves. However, I am really sick of how society seems to have taken a hold of this ‘diagnosis’ and turned it into a way to categorize anyone who is socially awkward, shy, or quirky. For a lot of kids, all of their gifts and abilities are now being viewed as some sort of dysfunction that falls under the category of Aspie.
And it’s not just kids. I’ve seen this and experienced it as an adult. Maybe I tend to fixate on things, but I need to do that to solve difficult problems. Maybe I feel things more strongly, but why is that a sign of Asperger’s instead of Dabrowski’s Excitabilities? Why are all these things viewed as a problem rather than a sign of uniqueness and intelligence? I know a lot of people view the label as a way to better understand those who are different, but it also seems like a way to write them and their gifts off as an oddity.
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I. Don’t. Have. Aspergers. April 8, 2012
Posted by mareserinitatis in education, gifted, older son, personal, societal commentary.Tags: Aspergers, Aspie, diagnosis, education, school
14 comments
Today, I came across this post talking about expression of Asperger’s in women.
I have to admit that I’m understanding how my son felt in school. When he was in 6th grade, the school decided to do an evaluation and said he was Aspie. The whole thing was rather traumatizing for him. He talked about how the school psychologist talked to him like he was a toddler, using small words in a loud voice. It was very patronizing. He started calling her the psychopath-ologist. The next year, the ‘diagnosis’ followed him to the gifted school he attended. I talked him into going along with it because there was help with social skills and things that he really did need some help with. He said he was okay with getting the help. However, he did keep insisting he wasn’t Aspie, and the teachers kept saying that his refusal to accept would make it hard for him to adjust.
Here’s the problem: he’s not Aspie. When he was 4, this first came up. I took him to out of town to two researchers who specialize in Asperger’s to have him examined. Nope, not Aspie, they both said. However, it’s obvious he’s probably gifted. It was at this point that giftedness could probably be problematic in a normal classroom.
Given my history with the public schools as a child, this had never been a blip on my radar. I constantly had problems, but very often I and my parents chalked this up to the fact that we were pretty much considered ‘poor white trash’. Now I can look back and see how that perception along with my very visual approach to things confluenced to make school hell for me.
But as an adult, I keep seeing things about Aspergers. And people keep saying my son is Aspie. And I suspect people think I’m Aspie. And I’m not. I simply am not. I am amazed at how many traits of Asperger’s are also present in the gifted, and given my experience with my son, I’m sure that there are a ton of kids out there who are being misdiagnosed as Aspie when, in reality, they’re perfectly normal…for gifted kids.
I know people who have kids who are Aspie, and I understand it’s hard to deal with. However, I am getting really tired of this ‘medicalization’ of a gift or a personality type or whatever you want to call it. The problem with calling gifted kids Aspies because they may show some of the same traits is that those labels become a capsule to describe the student. So-and-so is an Aspie, and so every thing they do that seems off or quirky or different becomes a sign of their disability: there is something WRONG with them. How many times do people look at these kids and say it’s a sign they’re brilliant? In my experience, almost never. By the time older son was finished with sixth grade, the fact that he had a college-level vocabulary was being used as a sign that he had a disability, and the psychopath-ologist was claiming he was actually hyperlexic. His English teacher, who at the beginning of the year was saying she thought he was a very bright boy, suddenly said he didn’t seem gifted when asked by the psychologist.
I don’t have any issues with parents of Aspie kids, or even Aspies themselves. However, I am really sick of how society seems to have taken a hold of this ‘diagnosis’ and turned it into a way to categorize anyone who is socially awkward, shy, or quirky. For a lot of kids, all of their gifts and abilities are now being viewed as some sort of dysfunction that falls under the category of Aspie.
And it’s not just kids. I’ve seen this and experienced it as an adult. Maybe I tend to fixate on things, but I need to do that to solve difficult problems. Maybe I feel things more strongly, but why is that a sign of Asperger’s instead of Dabrowski’s Excitabilities? Why are all these things viewed as a problem rather than a sign of uniqueness and intelligence? I know a lot of people view the label as a way to better understand those who are different, but it also seems like a way to write them and their gifts off as an oddity.