Autism in Girls - May Be Harder to Spot in the Homeschooled
Autism in girls can be somewhat more difficult to diagnose, simply because many of the tests used to determine autism are geared toward boys. The reason for this is because back in the day, it was believed that autism only affected boys. Today, we know that it also affects girls, but it often presents differently, mainly because girls think differently, and they are very good at learning to mask their symptoms.
Unless parents already have a good knowledge-base about autism, or have been around other children enough to notice differences in a particular child, they may not realize their child is autistic prior to school. Therefore, many children are not diagnosed until they enter school, and their unusual behaviors and learning disabilities stand out against their peers. For the homeschooler, this presents an unique challenge, because when those differences are recognized they may actually be blamed on the fact that the child is homeschooled.
I have two daughters, both of whom have always been homeschooled, and both of whom have Asperger's Syndrome, a type of autism. The oldest wasn't diagnosed until she was 18, and her sister at age 13. And, here's why...
I really didn't understand autism or Aspergers because images I'd seen on tv and things I'd read gave me a picture in my head of what I would see if someone had autism. In all of those cases, the autism was in a boy. I also knew a couple boys and young men I suspected had autism simply because their behaviors were obviously "different". Neither of my daughters seemed anything like any of those examples. And, although they both did have some "unusual" behaviors, I simply thought it was just a difference in personalities. When living it, it just seemed like part of our family's quirkiness.
Izzy was extremely bright from the time she was very young. She had no trouble in school and picked up things quickly and easily. In fact, at age 8, she was reading 1000+ page informational books in the adult versions from cover to cover and loved them so much she sometimes read them twice. While still in elementary and middle school, she bought college textbooks in the second hand store and consumed them. I had no reason to think she had any kind of disability. Rather, she was obviously gifted. Her art teacher told us she was a prodigy.
She had some unusual behaviors, though. When she was excited, she flapped her hands, something her babysitter hated so much that she constantly scolded her. She paced when she read, and she swayed side to side when she talked if she was standing. When playing with other children, it was obvious that she was different than the rest, but when I mentioned my concern to other mothers, they said they were sure it was because she was homeschooled.
As Izzy reached her teens, the chasm between she and her peers grew deeper. She was often expressionless in social situations, or simply appeared stern, which made others her age uncomfortable. She had no usefulness for foolishness, and thought the behavior of her peers childish. So, instead of socializing with other 15 year olds, she made friends of college-age students that shared more similar interests with her. Or she spent time with younger children who she felt had a little more "sense." Other people noticed, and occassionally commented. Always, they blamed it on the fact that we had chosen to homeschool. In their opinion, she simply did not have enough interaction with other teens her age, and often we were criticized as parents. And, to an extent, we believed it, even though she had plenty of interaction with peers at church, clubs, and other activities.
She regularly complained that the sunlight hurt her eyes, though the eye doctor and physician could not find a cause, and she would do her school work with all the blinds shut. I would go through daily and open them all only to have her close them again. She also had sensitivities to sounds and certain textures of clothing and foods.
Once she reached 17, Izzy began to share with me how difficult it was for her to talk to other people. She felt awkward, and like she was on a "different page". She told me that she did not understand why it felt like everyone else just seemed to know what to talk about, and she didn't understand why. It was as if everyone else had a script, and she didn't get a copy. She expressed how uncomfortable it was for her to look people in the eyes, so she said she always looked at their eyelashes so she didn't have to see their eyes.
The more alarming thing was that she told me she pretended to be someone else whenever she was in a social situation because she felt like her pretend self was more acceptable than her real self. As I watched her, I could clearly see evidence that she was indeed masking her true identity to try to "fit in" and be more outgoing.
She had friends her own age now, though. And, those few close friends seemed to not be bothered by any of her oddities. In fact, I would watch them standing in a circle, all swaying back and forth as a group as they talked, simply because Izzy swayed when she talked and it made everyone else "seasick" unless they swayed with her. They didn't seem to mind. In fact, I'm not sure they really noticed they were doing it. So, although I was concerned about what Izzy had told me, I concluded that it was because of her being homeschooled, and in silence, I sometimes questioned if I had done the right thing by homeschooling. But, I concluded that as she got older and went on to college, she would learn better socialization skills.
Then, one day, after she turned 18, it all made sense when we found out Izzy has Aspergers. None of her behaviors or problems were caused by homeschooling. And, homeschooling didn't make them any worse. In fact, homeschooling probably helped a great deal because she was able to advance in her studies according to her abilities, and she didn't have to endure any ridicule for her stimming behaviors, such as pacing when she reads or swaying when she talks. And, she didn't undergo the daily pressure to conform, which saved her from untold amounts of anxiety. Current studies indicate that individuals with Aspergers need to stim, and if they don't it creates tremendous anxieties for them. I found this to be very true for Izzy.
Girls with Aspergers often try to mask their symptoms by pretending to be someone else in public simply so they will fit in. They observe others around them and try to imitate their behaviors. But in reality, they really aren't overcoming their problem. They are just hiding it because they cannot ever feel like they can be themselves. This masking is why it is more difficult to diagnose girls.
Finding out that she has Aspergers was a huge relief to Izzy. We didn't realize it, but she blamed herself for not being able to do a better job with socialization and containing her stimming in public. Now, she is able to learn real ways to cope with her disability and shine because of it. After all, Aspergers clearly is a gift. Most individuals with Aspergers don't want to be "normal" because they like who they are. They just want to be accepted as themselves. Aspies (as they are called) are incredible people, and they can often do things others can't. Take Albert Einstein for instance.
My 13 year old, Starlet, presented very differently with her Aspergers than her sister. In fact, you wouldn't know they have the same disorder.
Starlet had a very difficult time learning to write. She had trouble forming her letters. At the time she was taking a daily breathing medicine for asthma that had some strong side effects, so we blamed it on the medication and the fact that the medication made her hyperactive, so it was impossible to get her to sit still and take her time at writing.
We also noticed that Starlet had some very mild difficulty with motor skills in that she was rather clumsy and was always falling or tripping over something. Honestly, I have never seen a child hurt herself as much as Starlet. We started making her wear a helmet for physical education. She had horrible melt-downs every single day over the smallest of things which was also a known side-effect of her asthma medicine, so we didn't have any reason to attribute it to anything else. But several years later, when she was finally able to stop taking the medicine, we thought the tantrums would stop. However, at 13, she was still having daily melt-downs. When we mentioned it to her specialists, they told us she was "spoiled" and that we should stop "babying" her and consider learning better disciplinary tactics. Again, the fact that we homeschooled was brought into the conversation when it was suggested that her tantrums may have been more controled in the face of peer pressure.
Starlet also had unusually advanced intelligence in some areas, but only ones that interested her. She was, and still is, obcessed with meteorology. At five, she could tell you almost anything about the weather. By eight, she insisted upon watching the evening news every night, while her peers watched cartoons. And, she watched every presidential debate, something I found immensely boring. We finally had to make her stop watching the news because we were afraid it was too tramatizing at such a young age as she had such a deep concern for each and every issue.
In her later elementary years, she ended up getting a concussion, followed by another concussion two years later while she was away at camp, and then concussion syndrome because of it. Doctors told us that it would affect her ability to think for many months. She was going into more upper level work, and she was struggling, but we assumed it must all be from the concussion syndrome. So, we gave her a decreased work-load to give her brain time to heal. When she could not think all the way through a problem, we didn't worry about it, assuming things would get better in a few months.
But after a couple years, I had to come to grips with the fact that Starlet had a learning disability, and it wasn't just the medication or the concussion syndrome. Futhermore, though her writing had improved greatly, it was still excessively sloppy, eventhough she sat doggedly trying to improve day after day. She simply could not write in small print, either, which was clearly a concern given her age. And, she was still having issues with being abnormally clumsy, though she wasn't showing any neorological disorder or anything that would cause the doctor concern. Doctors just chaulked it up to her growing into adolescence.
As her home teacher, I was perplexed. She was extremely intelligent, but she simply could not complete much of the work the way it was set up to be done in the curriculum. She was bored to tears in lower level classes, but failed the work in classes geared toward her age. The more I observed her to try to figure it all out, the more confused I became. She would garner an "E" on a test, but if I asked her about the material, she could tell me everything. I found that she could read the question and knew what it said, but could not understand what they were asking of her.
Let me give a few examples. I am using some of the more noticable examples to help illustrate the point, but in day to day school, she had the same issues on a smaller scale, so they weren't as obvious, but they caused her to be unable to complete her assignments as specified in the curriculum. In English, she was asked to analyze a video ad on YouTube. She sat and wrote out every single word, every background scene, and every noise. But even with tremendous amounts of explaining from both the teacher and myself, she could not understand the meaning of what they were trying to say in the commercial. That is because with autism, individuals understand things concretely, so they are often not able to derive meaning from the message beyond the facts seen.
In Pre-Algebra she understood what to do, but if there was a problem that required her to make multiple steps that required her to think in a variety of levels, she couldn't do it. She just couldn't formulate a way to take one step and move to the next. If I said solve this part of the problem, she could. If I said, now what should you do next, she could tell me. But she couldn't move from one part of the problem to the next herself. This is because with autism it is often hard for individuals to see the concept of the full problem because they focus on only one element at a time.
Starlet could not simply memorize things and then answer test questions, so I decided to let her use her book and notes to take tests. I also started allowing her to take tests mulitple times and then correct them herself each time. You would assume she would memorize the answers rather than learn the material, but actually she could not remember any of the answers regardless of how many times she took the test. However, by repeating the material so many times, she commited it to long term memory. When I would ask her about the answers to the test she couldn't tell me any of them. But if I asked her about the material, she could tell me everything. In fact, it was quite impressive because the first time we did it, I just assumed she didn't learn anything when she didn't know the answers after seeing them so many times. She kind of "blew me away"! And, thankfully, she didn't mind all the retakes because she felt like it was a game to try to score higher each time. But her school work did take much longer than the average student.
Our homeschool mantra became simply, "Learn what you can, however you can."
I decided that it was not as important that she remember facts as that she knew how to find them. So, when the academy teacher said "memorize this", I said Google it. When she wrote English reports, I spent months telling her how to correct the punctuation before she turned it in, and after a while of having to change it so much, she learned how to do it herself. Teaching her how to do it just didn't work. Showing her how to do it and having her do it, changed everything.
In elementary school, she couldn't learn her spelling words most of the time. But I made her Google the correct spelling whenever she wrote something. Between that and spell check, which makes her see the correct spelling every time she writes something, she is now a pretty good speller.
Starlet is starting into her teens, and it is hard for her to make friends her own age because they don't understand her, and likewise, she doesn't understand them. She still likes to play dolls, while friends talk about boys. But it is okay. She is who she is, and who she is is magnificiant. I could not be more proud. She'll find her way, and she'll do great things, as she skips down her own path.
Starlet has trouble looking people in the eyes too, so instead she stares them in the eyes without blinking, so intently that they get nervous and look away, which she finds greatly amusing. She likes to play mind games with people by pretending she is younger than she really is or by assumlating dialects from all over the world, of which she is an expert. She can still beat the weatherman at predicting the weather, and she can figure out things about people that they don't know about themselves. Like many Aspergers, she is loving and caring about even the smallest of creatures.
My purpose for writing this is so that other homeschooling parents will know more about the symptoms of Aspergers in girls, and how they may look. But, keep in mind, that autism and Aspergers symptoms can vary greatly from child to child, so what I have written above may not hold true for other children. Society often looks at homeschoolers as lacking social skills because they aren't schooling with their peers, and this falsehood can often lead parents and others to assumptions that if a child is having difficulties with socialization they are automatically attributable to homeschooling, when in reality, the child may be autistic. This could prevent children from getting the help that they need.
There are two things in particular that I want to address regarding Aspergers. One is socialization and the other is concrete terms. Individuals with Aspergers often blame themselves because they know people treat them differently and they know they have problems with socialization. But if they don't know they have Aspergers, they don't know why, and will often think it is because they are failures in those areas.
Concrete terms means that those with autism think concretely. They don't see the hidden meaning behind what is stated. Therefore there is often a major disfunct in the understanding of the context of things. This will affect them lifelong and can be huge. Concrete thinking can be a little harder to understand in Aspergers girls because they can learn the meanings of specific phrases, like "He wears his heart on his sleeve". Therefore, when they hear them used they understand. But where it really comes into play is a little more complicated. So, I'll give a few examples. Asperger girls often do not know when a guy is flirting with them. They just think he is being friendly. If he asks them to come over to watch a movie, he may mean something else, but she really thinks it's a movie. Or, even more subtle, if someone says, "You talk too much", someone with Aspergers will understand it as she has a real mental or physical problem with talking that involves talking too much, rather than understanding that the person who said it was simply frustrated in the moment and commenting on the "chattering" in that moment. That may not seem like a big deal, but, for example, one Asperger's woman was convinced her mother hated hearing her talk because her mother said that and she couldn't understand that her mother was just frustrated and didn't mean it.
But there is help out there that can give them tools to overcome some of these barriers, with the greatest tool of all being giving them the understanding of who they are and how strong they are to be able to overcome such great challenges in a world set up for people wired differently. That is why it is important to seek a diagnosis regardless of age.