Korean Job Discussion Forums

[mindmetoo]

A long time ago, mothers were thought to be the cause of their child's autism. They were referred to as refrigerator mothers. It's understood today that a mother's cold response to her child is her learned behavior. A child doesn't like to be cuddled, you don't cuddle it.

Anyway, I recently stumbled on this URL about autism research in Asia. Basically, outside of Japan, there's none. In Korea it seems doctors still blame the mother:

[pdx]

interesting.

I've worked with children a lot, and studied human development in college. In my past work with kids I"ve had a couple kids with autism that I worked with, with varying degrees of severity.

Then I come here, and I'm teaching at an expensive hagwon, and I've had two students who obviously had problems, yet, as the teacher, I have received no information about these students. I mean, they are obviously high functioning autistic, yet either nobody has diagnosed them and their parents and doctors choose not to, or nobody deems it necessary to TELL THEIR TEACHER.

[gsxr750r]

Yeah, work in a public school setting with hundreds of kids, and you run into at least a few "accidentally." Nobody tells you, and you don't find out until you call on one randomly to answer a question in class. I kept asking one girl for a very simple answer to a very simple question, and she wouldn't even look at me.

Another girl next to her said, "Teacher, she's sick."

I felt kind of bad about it.

Had another girl in class who was one of my favorite students. She was very slow. She moved slow, spoke slow, but was actually learning English in class. She took notes as best she could, although very slowly. When I first called on her to answer a question, the whole class literally held their breath. Some girls giggled. When she couldn't answer, I moved on, but a while later, her neighbor said, "Teacher, she wants to try again." She did, and slowly answered, depspite giggles from the rest of the class. The answer was incorrect, but close.

As time went on, I sometimes called on her, and she would slowly answer. Her accent was better than most, and people would clap when she got it right. I asked her homeroom teacher what was wrong, and she told me the girl was retarded. Apparently, her mother refused to accept that she couldn't become "normal" one day, and studied with her every night.

That girl would be a Senior now. I will try to find her again and say, "hello" the next time I visit my old school. Sometimes, I wish I owned a successful business. I would hire a woman like that to do something -- anything -- just to give her a job and make her life a little easier.

[pdx]

Yeah.

Autism is usually marked by an inability to interact on a normal social level, and the inability to focus, while still being really smart about certain subjects.

Examples: the third grade boy I had during student teaching was slightly autistic- he would start to yell and wanted to fight when confronted with the smallest things. He was good at math, yet hated to write. Refused to use his pencil to write things.

Fifth grade boy I worked with was mainstreamed into my student teaching class for math and reading. Very smart, understood a lot of things, yet needed a LOT of direction to keep focused on his work. Was often shaving and carving in his desk. He was more high functioning because you could hold a good conversation with him, but he did NOT interact well with his peers.

And then when i worked in a daycare we had a boy who was fairly autistic, who would get up and pace around the room while all the other children were sitting. He often got into arguments with the teachers. He didn't play at all with the other kids. However, if you asked him what day of the week a certain date (past or present) fell on, he knew the answer.

[superacidjax]

Korean doctors blaming the mothers is about as dumb as in the US, when certain groups blame vaccinations.

[RACETRAITOR]

Whether it's vaccinations or not, autism is apparently skyrocketing in the US.

[superacidjax]

[denistron]

[tiger fancini]

Autism diagnoses are going through the roof at the moment. I saw something recently on AFN where they said something like 1 in 22 (??) kids are being diagnosed as having an autistic spectrum disorder.

Autism is such a vast spectrum of disorders, and the differences between low functioning and high functioning are many indeed. Aspergers syndrome became a very popular diagnosis during the eighties and nineties, and even though this is classed as an autustic spectrum disorder, people with Aspergers are able to hold down pretty good jobs. I remember hearing that a lot of university professors were likely to have Aspergers. Tremendous, almost obsessive knowledge about their subject, but unable to leave home without following a particular routine. Compare these guys with somebody low functioning, cannot speak, cannot dress themself, yet can complete a pretty hard jigsaw puzzle (1000+ pieces) without even looking at the box.

I suppose my point is that Autism is becoming more accepted as a disorder (in the west anyway), and being given a label. 30 years ago, somebody with Aspergers would probably be considered just "a little weird" and been given sympathy from kind, well-meaning people, and endured laughs and taunts from others. Sometimes the label may not be a good thing, but in terms of support for families dealing with Autistic members, most of the support (from my observations) is gratefully recieved.

[superacidjax]

Very informative thread. Thanks for everyone's contribution!

[kermo]

I worked in autism intervention back in Canada, and intend to return to the field after my stint here. Why are the diagnoses skyrocketing? There's still a great deal we don't know about autism; there could be as many as ten separate disorders now being diagnosed under this umbrella. I don't know if more children are being born with the illness, or more sick children are being put in this category because it's in vogue.

I'm very sad to see that parents are still being blamed here in Korea. The movie "Marathon" was very very popular a couple years ago, and it focuses on the relationship between an autistic boy and his mother. Does it blame the mother? Maybe a little, but I think it also highlights the key struggles faced by families of autistic children.

[JongnoGuru]

[tiger fancini]

[mindmetoo]

[mindmetoo]