Welcome back to Reading the Research, where I trawl
the Internet to find noteworthy research on autism and related subjects,
then discuss it in brief with bits from my own life, research, and
observations.
Today's research article is one of those advancements of science that makes me say "Well, DUH" to my computer, and wish science was a little bit faster about coming to these conclusions. The study examines the effects of negative and positive school experiences by reviewing 17 previous studies on the subject. In psychology and some other fields, this is called a meta-analysis. It's an important tool for presenting and summarizing the current direction of a subject.
In the study, the researchers noted that self-esteem and self-perception in autistic students is linked closely with how others treat them and interact with them. If others' attitudes and reactions were negative, the autistic students tended to internalize those negative attitudes, and feel more limited and like outcasts. Naturally that's bad all by itself, but it also lends itself to isolating oneself and an increased chance for mental health problems.
The opposite, of course, was also true, if less common. Positive, supportive school relationships helped the autistic students function better socially and improved their morale and self-esteem. Which snowballs into more confidence and more practice socially, and thus a better outcome. As such, the researchers stressed the importance of creating a culture of acceptance for all students in schools.
As a child, I attended two of every type of compulsory US school. I had two elementary schools, two middle schools, and two high schools. The atmospheres were different in each one. My first elementary school was a Christian school, and I feel like the teachers really cared about their students. Unfortunately, they didn't always understand them, and their understanding of how to help an autistic student blend well with their peers was... um... nonexistent. And that's how I got bullied mercilessly, every day, from at least 1st grade to 3rd grade (after which we moved away). Needless to say, I can strongly vouch for the isolating effects of peer rejection. I learned not to like school at this age. I also learned very early that people are terrible, and that adults couldn't be trusted to solve my problems.
My second elementary school was a public school, many states away. We'd moved because of my dad's job, but it also gave me the chance to start over and not be a bully target. I continued the isolating effect, however, figuring that since people were terrible, I would much prefer to be left alone. So mostly, that's how it was. Unfortunately, shunning my peers couldn't save me from my teachers, and my 4th grade teacher was a self-righteous bully. It was common for her to berate me or other students in front of the whole class when we did something wrong. And her voice carried quite well across the entire classroom and at least halfway down the hall. She thought she was doing us a favor, from what I can recall.
The only other things of note for that school was that I was placed in the gifted program, where I think maybe the teacher cared about us a little bit (smaller class size, but sadly extra homework on top of the regular homework). But we were only there for a couple years, as job changes hounded my childhood.
My first and second middle schools were actually part of the same public school system. I guess they had a weird system, housing two grades in one school, and two in another. It was a different state, again. I still didn't fit in, and didn't want to fit in. But because the mentality of my peers had changed, that was no longer "weird... whatever" territory. It was now "kind of cool" territory, because everyone was now trying to fit in and figure out who they were. So I had admirers and enemies.
My first in-person friendships developed from a "Friendship Group" program. The program had literally nothing to do with autism or special needs. It had been instituted to help people who'd moved into the school system in 6th grade, the second year at this middle school. Because almost everyone started this school in 5th grade, people that arrived in 6th grade were disadvantaged. So this program was meant to help develop friendships for those people... though it did so by clustering them all together rather than trying to help us mix with the others. Sort of "band of misfits, be friends" mentality, I guess. Those friendships lasted through my first high school, though, so perhaps I shouldn't snark too much at the program's aim.
I found in middle school that the teachers were mostly apathetic again, though some did care here and there despite the meanness, pettiness, and viciousness of the kids in that age range. And the changing attitudes of my peers were confusing. I was acting the same as I had been, but everyone was treating me differently. This lasted right through the second middle school.
By high school, some of the people in the school system had gotten used to me, and the "kind of cool" factor had worn off. It was probably a positive step, thinking about it. The "kind of cool" factor was itself isolating, to be honest, so it was better than people had started to accept me as "strange, but okay." The in-person friends helped with that. They more or less forced me to join the Anime club at the high school, which turned out to be a good experience.
That club was filled with odd people who didn't care if you were odd so long as you weren't an irredeemable jerk. And I wasn't: my operating procedure was to not get involved, but if someone got involved with me, to treat them fairly and even kindly unless they were a jerk. And that was how earned the club's "Most Helpful Member" award and the snarky title "Cordbitch." Which was their honorary way of conveying that I was the person who set up the DVD player most days. I was also labeled "a cool freshman" due to the fact that I wasn't hyper and obnoxious, and accepted for who I was.
The acceptance of some of my peers, in a form I could understand and appreciate, was what let me finally stop shoving everyone away and start learning to be a more socially-well rounded person. Mostly I listened, rather than interacting. But the anime taught me some things, and my friends taught me some things, and my observations taught me some things. Which was good, because without those things my last high school would have ruined me.
When the inevitable job change happened, I left behind a small network of friends that I'd painstakingly developed. This was... rather unfortunate, to say the least. More unfortunate, though, was the school in our new home. Located in a small town, it was exclusionary, like my first middle school, but worse. Unlike my first middle school, the teachers and school gave zero craps about whether you fit in. And so, odd and outsider that I was, I didn't. And after meeting the sharp ends of all their tongues, I didn't want to even try. Who would want to be a toxic embodiment of cruelty and exclusionism?
I gave them all the middle finger, and instead found my friends (and my first boyfriend) in the other outcasts of the school system. The rule of thumb was: "if you're not from around here, you might actually be a decent person." It was a good rule of thumb, and worked really well. I didn't forget my lessons, and joined the fencing club and created my own anime club. There I met and gathered together the people worth knowing in the time that was left to me.
In the end, in my experience, the basic premise of this study holds up very well. I didn't have peer acceptance in elementary school, nor in middle school (not really). The seeds of it were built in middle school, and started to sprout in my first high school. After which I almost began to start succeeding and branching out. Moving to a new area full of horrible people throttled that progress, but didn't make me unlearn the lessons I'd already learned, and so I was able to succeed in a much more limited sense despite the rejection of my peers.
Now, imagine what my story would be like if all the schools had inclusionary policies in place, and groups for outcasts had been a normal procedure, rather than a reactionary afterthought in a single school.
Today's research article is one of those advancements of science that makes me say "Well, DUH" to my computer, and wish science was a little bit faster about coming to these conclusions. The study examines the effects of negative and positive school experiences by reviewing 17 previous studies on the subject. In psychology and some other fields, this is called a meta-analysis. It's an important tool for presenting and summarizing the current direction of a subject.
In the study, the researchers noted that self-esteem and self-perception in autistic students is linked closely with how others treat them and interact with them. If others' attitudes and reactions were negative, the autistic students tended to internalize those negative attitudes, and feel more limited and like outcasts. Naturally that's bad all by itself, but it also lends itself to isolating oneself and an increased chance for mental health problems.
The opposite, of course, was also true, if less common. Positive, supportive school relationships helped the autistic students function better socially and improved their morale and self-esteem. Which snowballs into more confidence and more practice socially, and thus a better outcome. As such, the researchers stressed the importance of creating a culture of acceptance for all students in schools.
As a child, I attended two of every type of compulsory US school. I had two elementary schools, two middle schools, and two high schools. The atmospheres were different in each one. My first elementary school was a Christian school, and I feel like the teachers really cared about their students. Unfortunately, they didn't always understand them, and their understanding of how to help an autistic student blend well with their peers was... um... nonexistent. And that's how I got bullied mercilessly, every day, from at least 1st grade to 3rd grade (after which we moved away). Needless to say, I can strongly vouch for the isolating effects of peer rejection. I learned not to like school at this age. I also learned very early that people are terrible, and that adults couldn't be trusted to solve my problems.
My second elementary school was a public school, many states away. We'd moved because of my dad's job, but it also gave me the chance to start over and not be a bully target. I continued the isolating effect, however, figuring that since people were terrible, I would much prefer to be left alone. So mostly, that's how it was. Unfortunately, shunning my peers couldn't save me from my teachers, and my 4th grade teacher was a self-righteous bully. It was common for her to berate me or other students in front of the whole class when we did something wrong. And her voice carried quite well across the entire classroom and at least halfway down the hall. She thought she was doing us a favor, from what I can recall.
The only other things of note for that school was that I was placed in the gifted program, where I think maybe the teacher cared about us a little bit (smaller class size, but sadly extra homework on top of the regular homework). But we were only there for a couple years, as job changes hounded my childhood.
My first and second middle schools were actually part of the same public school system. I guess they had a weird system, housing two grades in one school, and two in another. It was a different state, again. I still didn't fit in, and didn't want to fit in. But because the mentality of my peers had changed, that was no longer "weird... whatever" territory. It was now "kind of cool" territory, because everyone was now trying to fit in and figure out who they were. So I had admirers and enemies.
My first in-person friendships developed from a "Friendship Group" program. The program had literally nothing to do with autism or special needs. It had been instituted to help people who'd moved into the school system in 6th grade, the second year at this middle school. Because almost everyone started this school in 5th grade, people that arrived in 6th grade were disadvantaged. So this program was meant to help develop friendships for those people... though it did so by clustering them all together rather than trying to help us mix with the others. Sort of "band of misfits, be friends" mentality, I guess. Those friendships lasted through my first high school, though, so perhaps I shouldn't snark too much at the program's aim.
I found in middle school that the teachers were mostly apathetic again, though some did care here and there despite the meanness, pettiness, and viciousness of the kids in that age range. And the changing attitudes of my peers were confusing. I was acting the same as I had been, but everyone was treating me differently. This lasted right through the second middle school.
By high school, some of the people in the school system had gotten used to me, and the "kind of cool" factor had worn off. It was probably a positive step, thinking about it. The "kind of cool" factor was itself isolating, to be honest, so it was better than people had started to accept me as "strange, but okay." The in-person friends helped with that. They more or less forced me to join the Anime club at the high school, which turned out to be a good experience.
That club was filled with odd people who didn't care if you were odd so long as you weren't an irredeemable jerk. And I wasn't: my operating procedure was to not get involved, but if someone got involved with me, to treat them fairly and even kindly unless they were a jerk. And that was how earned the club's "Most Helpful Member" award and the snarky title "Cordbitch." Which was their honorary way of conveying that I was the person who set up the DVD player most days. I was also labeled "a cool freshman" due to the fact that I wasn't hyper and obnoxious, and accepted for who I was.
The acceptance of some of my peers, in a form I could understand and appreciate, was what let me finally stop shoving everyone away and start learning to be a more socially-well rounded person. Mostly I listened, rather than interacting. But the anime taught me some things, and my friends taught me some things, and my observations taught me some things. Which was good, because without those things my last high school would have ruined me.
When the inevitable job change happened, I left behind a small network of friends that I'd painstakingly developed. This was... rather unfortunate, to say the least. More unfortunate, though, was the school in our new home. Located in a small town, it was exclusionary, like my first middle school, but worse. Unlike my first middle school, the teachers and school gave zero craps about whether you fit in. And so, odd and outsider that I was, I didn't. And after meeting the sharp ends of all their tongues, I didn't want to even try. Who would want to be a toxic embodiment of cruelty and exclusionism?
I gave them all the middle finger, and instead found my friends (and my first boyfriend) in the other outcasts of the school system. The rule of thumb was: "if you're not from around here, you might actually be a decent person." It was a good rule of thumb, and worked really well. I didn't forget my lessons, and joined the fencing club and created my own anime club. There I met and gathered together the people worth knowing in the time that was left to me.
In the end, in my experience, the basic premise of this study holds up very well. I didn't have peer acceptance in elementary school, nor in middle school (not really). The seeds of it were built in middle school, and started to sprout in my first high school. After which I almost began to start succeeding and branching out. Moving to a new area full of horrible people throttled that progress, but didn't make me unlearn the lessons I'd already learned, and so I was able to succeed in a much more limited sense despite the rejection of my peers.
Now, imagine what my story would be like if all the schools had inclusionary policies in place, and groups for outcasts had been a normal procedure, rather than a reactionary afterthought in a single school.
No comments:
Post a Comment