Panel Interview– Asperger Students’ High School Experiences and Successful Transition to University (PART 3)

Part 3 of the Panel Interview involving the Aspie students Ken, Andrew and Rose.

Teacher: Ken, I’m sure you’ve got something to add to that.

Ken: What do you mean?

Teacher: About the information by teachers being unclear.

Ken: I think in Medicine…um…I had several issues with that. I have to talk to patients, and they give you a marking scheme of things which you have to ask the patient, like about their sickness. But when I get my feedback, they say “You need to improve your communication skills”, and that was very vague as well. And I’m thinking “What could I improve on? I asked everything and I maintained eye contact even though I didn’t like it.” So yeah, I wish they could be more specific about that.

And also I think the Medical course isn’t very friendly to people on the spectrum, especially even the entrance scheme – the UMAT, it’s very unfriendly to Aspies. Actually, I was very lucky to get into Medicine because of my ENTER score. I actually transferred from Biomed, if I was to apply for Medicine straight from high school, even with my ENTER score, I wouldn’t have gotten in. Because in the UMAT, there’s 3 sections. Section A which is like logic, and Aspies are known for being very logical and practical, and then there’s Section B which is reading conversations and answering questions about how other people are feeling and thinking, and Section C which is like puzzles and patterns. I did very well in Sections A and C, but I was like in the 10^th Percentile (bottom 10%) for Section B. I mean, I read the conversations in the UMAT, and I see things differently. And um, let’s say that a woman was having a random argument with her boyfriend and the question was “When he said this, how was she feeling?” and the answers were A: Angry, B: Sad, C: Frustrated, D: Annoyed, and I thought like “All of them could apply!” I felt that it was extremely vague, and I didn’t like it how they expect you to be specific but they’re not.

Rose: And on the GMAT, in the English section, sometimes they have cartoons, and you have to say what’s going on in the cartoon, there’s like “The Far Side” cartoons. I like “The Far Side” cartoons, but the answers that they say they are and what I think they are, there’s a big disconnect there. What would be, you know how they have clarifiers (assistant in exams who briefly explains a question) for VCE exams, if there would be an emotional clarifier. Like “Explain the emotional content.” I had a benefit because my clarifier in the most bizarre circumstances, the one which I had due to Special Consideration so I could use the laptop, bizarrely played tennis with my great Aunt. So she was a friend of the family, and she was a bit more willing to explain these things for me. Not give me the answers but saying what do they mean when it’s asking for this type of emotional understanding. For English I found that it was a bit rough to ask that sort of stuff, so that’s why I really don’t like the GMAT, or the UMAT. Take a look at those questions.

Ken: UMAT is horrible.

Rose: Ay, god if you’re on the spectrum, you could never complete that thing.

Ken: It’s like they’re trying to exclude Aspies from entering Medicine. They wanna exclude as many people as possible in general, there’s actually so many students applying for Medicine, and they need to have a legitimate “excuse” to reject the students so they use the UMAT as a “criteria”. So if someone doesn’t do well enough in the UMAT, then they can say “You’re not accepted in the course because your UMAT score isn’t high enough.”

Rose: You can understand the legitimacies to test the emotional intelligence of it, coz you have some people who aren’t on the spectrum and they’re just not terribly good people, so you probably don’t want them doing something in this emotional field. But for those of us (Aspies) who essentially know the difference between right and wrong, and understand the needs of people, we just kinda don’t understand the needs of people at the same time.

Teacher: Can I ask, in the past generations, when you wanted to have a doctor, but they found it really difficult to have any communication with their patient, in the appearance of “Well I’m here and you’re over there”, and I guess about 15 years ago they decided to start assessing Medical applicants to see if they had more empathy with the people that they were talking to. Ken, have you been able to verbalize those concerns of yours to anybody at the University?

Ken: Um, I only got diagnosed this year so I haven’t actually addressed the issue. But I felt that, um, well I liked the ICM (Introduction to Clinical Medicine) component because they tell you exactly what questions to ask, so the interview with the patient is very structured, I know what to say. And they actually tell you what sort of sentences to say when the patient gives you certain information. But beyond that, I don’t know how to joke, I don’t understand sarcasm and irony. And the curriculum, they don’t really address that coz they expect you to already know these things.

Teacher: I’m wondering if it’s more that they never made the connection that they do need to consider that issue.

Ken: I think the problem with empathy is, um, it’s very touchy feely. I can’t see it, so whenever I talk to patients, I feel very robotic. Even when I’m not talking to patients, I feel that everything I say is very forced, coz I have to follow rules of communication, I have to appear “polite”, and I have to avoid saying certain things to avoid offending people. And I just feel like I’m an actor, faking myself every day. And yeah –

Teacher: Ken can I ask you a question, when you said you have to follow rules –

Ken: I don’t want to follow these rules but I have to follow certain rules to avoid getting in trouble.

Teacher: Did you become aware of those rules or did someone teach you those rules?

Ken: I was never aware of those rules when I was in high school. I actually did many things in high school and the first 2 years of Uni which were apparently socially inappropriate or “weird”. But it was nothing totally offensive like I never attacked anyone, I know that. But I remember when I was younger and a family friend come over, and she was big. And I commented on her appearance, and then my mum took me into another room and she said “That was very rude of you, you do not comment on other people’s appearances!” And I said “But I was just being honest!” and then she said “Yes you’re being honest, but you hurt her feelings, she would’ve been offended, next time do not comment on anyone being fat.” I don’t know anything intuitively, so I have to learn by making mistakes. But whenever I make mistakes, I feel hurt, which is why besides the Medical course, I have to spend extra time reading things about etiquette and also communicating with Neurotypicals like what do they see as polite. So yeah, I tried to follow a protocol when talking to people, but still, it’s so tiring. I get burnt out talking to people every day and I just need somewhere to chill out when I go home, I just can’t be bothered going out on Friday nights etc.

Teacher: Andrew, I think you’d probably like to comment on that, but also, we’re running out of time believe it or not, but also, could you talk a little about that sensory processing?

Andrew: Sure, just firstly on what Ken was saying. You know, and people wonder why people with Autism Spectrum Disorders are more prone to Anxiety and Depression.

Ken: It’s because they expect people with ASDs to do this, this and this, they try to fit you into a mould of normality when they actually naturally see, think and talk very differently. And they get bullied if they appear to be different.

Teacher: And you see it at schools too where sometimes they’re (teachers) like “Oh we just want them to socialize at school”, and they throw these children into the field and –

Andrew: They’ll learn –

Ken: They’ll learn but very slowly and it’s very traumatic.

Teacher: Is it like learning a language?

Andrew: Absolutely.

Teacher: Like “I speak English well but now I have to speak Japanese.”

Rose: I tried to learn Japanese but I failed.

Andrew: Now what’s interesting is that I say to people now that I’m doing a double degree. One degree – my Music degree: I have textbooks, I have lectures, I have assessments, I have outcomes, I know what to do, there’s a course plan. For my other degree, which is my Social degree, I don’t have a textbook, I don’t have lectures, I don’t have people helping me and telling me what to do and guiding me through it, my assessment is every day. Just, you know, existing. And yeah, it’s absolutely like learning a new language and certainly being on the point of VCAA and that sort of thing.

The VCE is designed for Neurotypicals. You take a look at the GAT (General Achievement Test), that horrible test that is used for statistical moderation, which I did a grand total of 4 times because of my 3/4 subjects, um, it’s totally incomprehensible to me. It’s so Neurotypically designed, you know the stuff about reading the emotions in it. They have those little pictures and excerpts from books and things and “How did this person feel”, it’s absolute rubbish and I just used to sit there and go “What on earth are they talking about?” And I admit I’m a bit of a VCAA hater as a lot of us might be for different reasons –

Teacher: Sorry, did you have English Language?

Rose: No it didn’t exist as a subject when I did VCE.

Ken: I did English Language, I loved it!

Andrew: I wish I had been able to do it.

Teacher: Would you recommend it?

Ken: Yes I would strongly recommend English Language!

Andrew: At my school, it was introduced the year after I left, which was a bit of a shame.

Rose: It’s been quite a few years, and I discovered all these absolutely awesome subjects that existed after I graduated.

Andrew: Yes, but I have to say on that issue of Special Consideration, I was very lucky coz I had teacher aides and support staff who were willing to push it for me with VCAA, you know. I have a handwriting problem, I need use of a computer, I need extra time, I need rest breaks. Some of those things I didn’t get, but in the end I got computer, I got rest breaks, I didn’t get extra writing time which was a big problem. And I think I did worse than I could’ve done had I had the extra time. But the whole rigmarole of having to go through all of that, it’s very stressful for everybody involved, um, you know there’s this issue of Equal Opportunities and making it a fair playing field. That’s fine, but in order to make it a fair playing field, you really need to have an understanding of ASDs and trust the school and the person with the ASD to know what’s best for them, not VCAA.

Teacher: So when you needed those extra, um, extra rest breaks, that extra time, did you yourself know that?

Andrew: Absolutely, well at the time I didn’t know much about what Special Considerations were involved and what was allowed to be done, but in my SACs, and in my school based assessments, I was given all those things. And it was proven that that was helpful, I did assessments where I didn’t have any of those things and I did very badly in them. Obviously VCAA didn’t pay much attention to that. But you know, it’s not fair for some external body with a psychologist who may not know anything about Autism who doesn’t know the individual at all, to look at a piece of paper and say “They can have these adjustments and not have these adjustments” which can decide a person’s ENTER score.