Teachers sometimes do not understand aspergers. Over the years i have had some brilliant teachers and some who don’t teach in a way aspies can benefit. They don’t do it deliberately but if they understood it would be a lot more easy to teach us. And there are some things that teachers could do to make it more easy for us to learn.

( by the way i LIKE all my teachers ! this is directed at any of you! )

A few are……

• Not letting us sit on our knees, that is a comfortable position.
• Not letting us walk around in class, we must always be active.
• Not letting us fidget with our hands.
• A lot of us like to doodle or draw squiggly lines, teachers don’t like that.
• Keep an eye that we understand
• Sometimes our faces and bodies give small teachersclues that we might be a bit annoyed or don’t understand – like my twitchy mouth.
• We constantly like sharpening our pencils, well, I do, but teachers don’t approve.
• We ask a lot of questions to make things easier but teachers tell us to put our hands down.
• We feel the need to talk when we are bored, and we never learn our lesson so they have to keep telling us, we don’t mean it.
• We should have fidget toys to keep us relaxed, eg: blue tack.
• We need as much learning support as we can get, like printouts and stuff on USB stick etc.
• We should all get extra time for an exam, for sometimes we work a bit slower than the rest. (I get extra time but other people might not.)
• That we think outside the box and they should respect our opinion.
• To phrase everything as it is and make it easy to understand.
• Never use idioms or sarcasm
• We speak sometimes before we put our hand up – it isn’t deliberate, it’s a thing about understanding . As soon as you speak, you remember the hand should be up
• In a double class when we have to concentrate for a long time, allow us a wee break to move – even to go to the toilet.
• Organisation is a huge problem not a choice. I can’t help that my schoolbag is a tip. I don’t mean it to be.
• My handwriting is bad, and I doodle, but I can’t help it. My pencil grip is very tight cos of my hypermobile joints.
• Things like drawing margins and keeping your book beautiful is never going to happen easily for me.
• I prefer to write in pencil, and am thinking others do, cos we make more mistakes. So it makes rubbing out easier.
• My uniform might not be tidy as I don’t like the feeling of the collar on my neck or the tie too tight.
• Make sure your face matches what you are trying to say – it can be hard to read.
• A revision list at the end of each chapter. Sometimes like geography it is hard to know what exactly we learn.
• It is hard for Aspies to skip from topic to topic so teachers should try not to skip out chunks of pages
• we have lots more ability than inability!

These are a few things that would make school easier.

Fionn Hamill is a 14 year old boy with aspergers who gives some views through his eyes on his website Autistic and Proud. This post is re-published here with Fionn’s permission. Fionn and his mum have written a previous Guest Post for the site HERE You can follow Autistic and Proud on Facebook or you can follow Fionn’s mum on Twitter