How the Preconceived Notions of Teachers can Hurt Neurodivergent Students.
Fae Sitko is a 22 year old psychology student at Kwantlen Polytechnic University and an autistic advocate. They are passionate about writing, queer and neurodivergent activism, and science fiction tv shows.
7 minute read
When you hear that neurodivergent students can face ableism even in educational situations where the teachers and staff think they are trying to be accommodating, most people still don’t see why the problem persists.
There are a number of reasons why this is so but I think one of the biggest and yet most subtle examples of the ableism neurodivergent students face is society’s fondness for assigning morality to every action. This is especially apparent when we look at the overall response to perceived so-called laziness.
By this I mean that all through my academic career I was often met with people, teachers, other students, and even sometimes my parents, assuming that my failure to complete things on time or at all (or simply in the right away), was a sign that not only that I didn’t care about the task and just couldn’t be bothered with it, but also that it was proof of my own bad character. That it was a moral failing that I couldn’t get that essay done on time or show up with a complete lab report.
I saw it in their eyes, the disappointment and frustration mixed with disgust.
A large part of growing up autistic/ADHD is adults looking at you that way, like you’re a waste of space and their time. I spent most of school just failing over and over again and not even fully understanding why until much later.
The tricky part is that I was diagnosed with autism at age two. I am quite sure I also have ADHD and am currently pursuing a diagnosis, but I at least knew I was autistic and so did everyone else. However, it didn’t seem to make a lot of difference at times. I had an Individual Education Plan (IEP) and a Learning Resource block which did help me with my school work by giving me more time to work on assignments and extra help, but I was still treated by so many of my teachers as if I were neurotypical and just not trying hard enough. Honestly, I think the main reason for this is that no one in that building actually understood what autism really was or how it worked, least of all me.
Another problem was that I wasn’t like what most people think of when they think of an autistic person. I’ve been considered “high functioning” by most people pretty much my entire life. High functioning autism basically means “you seem normal enough to get by so when funding gets cut, we’re going to take away your Educational Assistants (EAs) and resources first because you can handle it.
Spoiler alert I couldn’t handle it.
But anyways, I basically get a lot of, “you don’t look autistic” or “you seem so capable/normal”, or my personal favourite, “you’re too pretty to be autistic” which really isn’t the compliment you think it is. It means the chaos and the noise and the things that don’t make sense in life get dumped on me as if I were neurotypical, but when I don’t respond in the typical way they get upset and take it out on me. It means being forced into masking my autism by society just so I can be treated like a human being and have something resembling a normal life. It means every time I screw up I’m treated as though I am being lazy or rude on purpose.
I distinctly remember my mother once saying to me after a breakdown in communication that sometimes she just forgot I was autistic because I seem so put together. It hurt because I don’t have the luxury of forgetting. I feel everything strongly and I bear the weight of everything, but then everywhere I go I have people telling me how normal I seem. I wouldn’t give my brain up for anything because I am who I am no matter what and it certainly isn’t all bad. But it’s exhausting living in this world as an autistic person.
But I’m lucky and I know it. I have friends, I went to college, and I had a girlfriend. I have the luxury of getting to pass, but the thing about passing is that it takes an unseen and heavy toll. I could tell you stories about struggles with depression and suicidal ideation, substance abuse issues, messy unhealthy relationships and messy emotions. And that leads to the next problem with passing; nobody believes that you’re struggling when you say you are. They would much rather believe that you’re just lazy or selfish or stupid, and in their eyes being any of these things is an irredeemable moral failure.
That also takes a toll.
But I know now what I couldn’t put into words back then - it wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t my fault because there are times where my brain just literally will not let me do things. This is called executive dysfunction and it’s a symptom of both ADHD and autism and it doesn’t just affect my ability to complete assignments on time. I have days where I don’t eat until 6 or 7pm because I have either forgotten to or I just can’t bring myself to do it. Times when I couldn’t get myself out of bed for hours and when I did I just sat and did nothing all day. I’ve gone a full week without showering, not because I wanted to but because I just couldn’t. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to do these things but because I literally wasn’t able to. But my teachers didn’t understand this, or maybe they just didn’t want to.
I have explicitly explained my executive dysfunction to people who knew that I was autistic and they still accused me of making excuses.
I have had teachers who were reluctant to give me my accommodations or just flat out refused to because they didn’t want to “give me special treatment.”
I find this hilarious because if you had a kid with a broken leg you wouldn’t make them participate in Gym class, or force someone to take their driver’s test without their glasses.
People behave so strangely around the subject of neurodivergent people that it almost seems like neurotypicals are looking for excuses to not treat us with basic human decency and respect. Some are so obsessed with catching bad people trying to get a free ride or getting away with doing the bare minimum that they would rather be blatantly ableist instead of actually showing some compassion.
This is something that I have encountered in elementary, high school, and college (but it is slightly less prevalent there). I honestly believe the reason for this is many adults don’t trust kids. For some reason many of them seem to be obsessed with policing every aspect of children’s behavior rather than giving them the benefit of the doubt and treating them like equals worthy of respect. Teachers are taught either by society or by each other that teenagers are all either rebellious hellions that are always looking for ways to avoid responsibility, or that they just don’t care about their education, and these attitudes are reflected in the way they treat neurodivergent teenagers. If things are ever going to get better for neurodivergent people education-wise and in general, people are going to need to reckon with how they view and treat kids.
A lot of neurodivergent students are incredibly bright and in the beginning as children they had a real passion for certain subjects, but that passion was snuffed out by an unsupportive learning environment.
I know this because it happened to me. If someone is told either directly, or indirectly through the behavior of others towards them, that they are stupid or lazy over and over again, then naturally that person will want to give up altogether on the idea of learning anything new.
Honestly, my biggest obstacle as an autistic person has always been other people. Their perceptions, their cruelty, their unwillingness to compromise with me, but especially, in their unwillingness to accept me. Instead of seeing me and accepting me for how I actually am, people want to try and change or “fix me” so they don’t have to bother with the effort. Someone with ADHD who I follow on social media once said, “My disability isn’t invisible, people just refuse to look at it.” If neurotypical educators want to be better allies to their neurodivergent students, then they need to start with accepting us for what we are and learning to take us at our word. If we say we genuinely forgot, don’t assume we’re lying. If we say we weren’t able to do something then don’t assume we’re slacking off and looking for ways to get out of doing our work.
Work with us to find solutions that work.
If a student says they need more time, then they need more time. It’s not just some excuse. For me things like a separate setting for tests, more time on tests, having the notes printed out ahead of time, and reducing the amount of homework I had to complete were all extremely helpful. Please let us have our accommodations and don’t argue with us about special treatment.
At the end of the day, we are equally as frustrated as you that things aren’t working out the way they should be, probably even more so. No one enjoys feeling like a problem. So please instead of assuming the worst and shaming us, help us find a solution.
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