This semester we have been put into small groups for a project called the Human Story. Basically we had to research a group of people which we feel are socially excluded.
The group I’m in decided on Aspergers syndrome. We had to find someone from the group we chose to interview and find out their human story. On completing the interview and reflection stages of this project, I fell as though I have a totally different perspective on people who have this particular disorder and why they are the way theay are. Here’s a summary of my groups human story and our potential outcomes for this project:
The Human Story – Asperger’s Syndrome
Our interviewee was diagnosed with Autism when she was very young after her nursery teacher noticed autistic tendencies in her. It wasn’t until she was 9 or 10 that she was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome.
She found it hard growing up with Asperger’s and found it frustrating that she couldn’t understand social communication like body language, as well as interacting with her peers. This making her feel like she didn’t belong and led to her being bullied. From a young age she had to deal with people that didn’t understand her condition and acted badly towards her because of it.
To help her cope she took to immersing herself in cartoons as she felt this was a safe place, as well as going to the cinema because she liked the environment where she could just be completely engulfed in the sound and picture. It’s interesting to find that this was her escape from reality and led onto her ‘obsession’ of cartoons and animation.
Whilst she was at primary school the majority of her classes were in a special communication disorder unit (CDU) where she was in small classes with other children on the autism spectrum and had other learning difficulties. Here they received the support they needed to learn how to act in a mainstream classroom, as well as help with speech and language.
Something which she found hard and we found to be quite alarming was that when she was put into mainstream classes and in secondary school there was a lack of knowledge and understanding from the teachers. For example when she started to have panic attacks they would just tell her to stop it, rather than help her through it.
She considered herself lucky that she went to both a primary and secondary school which had some form of a CDU to help Autistic children. Growing up, some of the best support she received was through this. In her opinion the speech and language therapists helped her a great deal as they would come into the class and stay with them and help with any problems they encountered. Interestingly she developed a good relationship with these therapists as they actually had the patience and time to help her become more social and accepting of the syndrome.
From interviewing her we’ve discovered that she’s quite positive now about Asperger’s syndrome. She’s come to terms with her condition and says she can’t imagine her life without it. She doesn’t want to been seen as suffering from having Asperger’s, but says that it is far from the worst thing she could have – it’s not cancer. She’s learnt ways to deal with her problems.
After finding out more and interviewing someone with Asperger’s, we want to create a campaign aimed at the general public to increase awareness of what Asperger’s Syndrome is and what the issues are for people with the condition. We believe that life could be made easier and some problems could be resolved if people generally had a better understanding of the condition and the behaviours its produces.
rachel nesbitt 