Schooling and the socialisation process

The average age of a person in life depending on country to country varies but in the western world, life expectancy has increased in the last 30 years. This brings me to the crucial point of schooling and the socialisation process. What do I mean by this and what am I going to cover? As an adult with Asperger Syndrome I believe the main conditioning of a person and preparation for adulthood begins in the 12 years of schooling. Schooling is designed to condition a person for preparation for adulthood and the person is socialised throughout the school period in terms of social skills development and influenced I believe by toys and expectations. How then are adults on the Autism Spectrum affected by this? The person on the Autism Spectrum fails to fall within the requirements of socialisation and therefore miss out on the crucial steps of development. Rather than be part of social skills development and team work skills in playing sport, the person on the Autism Spectrum is instead living in their own world or focused on their special interest to not really know what is going on around them. In other words they are oblivious to situations and events around them.

The development of a person through to early adulthood seems to be a series of evolutionary steps to the eventual transition of adulthood. Dr Kate Sofronoff describes within the school system a scaffolding which exists that supports the child and Dr Tony Attwood describes the school period as being a period of war service for persons with Asperger Syndrome. Having spoken with both Dr Kate Sofronoff and Dr Tony Attwood, I have as an adult tried to also enlighten them about my own personal experiences of being an adult on the Autism Spectrum.

Have you ever wondered why a person is required to attend a school and the option of home schooling being discouraged? In my opinion this in itself is a controlling measure for the school years are an evolutionary process for the person to following until adulthood. In the Australian school system, a strong focus is on team sports and more importantly there still exists an academic grading system upon exit from secondary school for a person to determine or more so be aware of future career expecations of them. For a person with Asperger Syndrome this system fails to deliver and through the scaffolding of school the Asperger person can rely on the scaffolding as Dr Kate Sofronoff describes as a means of structure more so than a means of encouragement or nurturing the person's special interest.

I see the school system as falling into the following socialisation process. I will firstly explain by my example the regular person and then the Autistic person.

The regular person schooling patterns.

Grades 1 -6 (7 in Queensland) Primary School

The person enters the school, follows and evolutionary process

1. Structure process begins follow routine 9am to 3pm
2. Early socialisation with toys defining sexual stereotype
3. Boys play with masculine toys (Toy cars, trucks, bikes) and girls feminine toys (dolls, tea sets, purses etc)
4. Focus on strenghts of person e.g. good at English, Maths, Sport etc
5. Early preparation for adolescence further socialisation and some preparation for high school
6-7 - Focus on subjects for secondary school

Secondary school

8 - Hormone increase most teenagers think about sex, chasing girls etc
9. Early preparation for university
10. Person may decide career choice of whether to perhaps enter a trade or contemplate university
11 - 12. Preparation for university.

University
Often socialised sufficiently to cope with early undergraduate years of tertiary education

Now the Asperger person

School - Grades 1 - 12

1. May exist in school as it has structure but not really sure of socialisation process
2. Special interest may occur or evolve. Obsession with special interest and oblivious to school environment.
3. Susceptible to bullying and teasing as the person with Autism chooses to play alone
4. Does not engage with or use conventional toys as these provide no stimulation or emotional attachment.
5. Team work skills not developing and inadequate socialisation occurring
6. Not fitting into mainstream syllabus person with Autism failing to fall into socialisation measures
7. Preparation for adulthood not occurring and person with Autism unable to fit into mainstream socialisation.
8. Exiting of school system scaffolding and structure gone. Adult with Autism left in wilderness with no support or measures to assist and support them.

What I outline above is two comparisons of what I believe and speaking again from personal experiences happens to a person on the Autism Spectrum. Schooling is a continual socialisation process and measures and expectations are conditioned a long the way. For the person on the Autism Spectrum, they are failing to adapt to this period of conditioning and are on the outer thus affecting them once reaching adulthood. A special interest may be fulfilling but it can't lead to a job. A person may have an interest in calculators, or be just coping as best they can without a career path and insufficient social skills so where does this leave them?

Schooling needs to be inclusive of Autistic people rather than excluding. The person on the Autism Spectrum needs help and understanding to fit in, and be encouraged and nurtured and school systems need to adapt to accept this. Autism is a stand alone disability because people cannot see it but they also fail to grasp that Autism is a silent struggle. Locked into our own worlds having Autism makes it hard for us to communicate and be understood by people. The only way to deal with this problem is to increase both awareness and early intervention. Support also needs to exist post school in terms of ensuring disability employment agencies focusing predominately on Autism exist. These employment agencies need to ensure job searching, interview support and liaison. Firstly the person with Autism needs to find a job coach, secondly the job coach needs to contact the employer, provide on the job support, assistance with staff development and more importantly liaison between the employer with Autism, the job coach and the manager or supervisor on behalf of the employment. Until this is implemented nothing is going to change.