what do you think of school?

I'm curious to know how the AS person processes and learns information.

Do you have a hard time in school or is it certain subjects or does it actually give you an advantage? Do you have a hard time staying focused or do you often daydream? Dre you good at creatively solving math problems or are you better at writing an essay? Are you a "big picture" or "straight facts" learner? Do you often make careless mistakes? Are you good at test taking?

i finished high-school 2005 and have moderate asperger's syndrome.
To answser your questions, yes i do think asperger's gave me an advantage in learning and retaining knowledge at school. i did very well in my exams. on the other hand, the most important aspect of school (socialising, making friendships, etc) was hell for me. I daydreamed a lot in classes but that was usually because I already knew what the teacher was talking about. focusing was easy on subjects that interested me (english, physics) but not so easy on the ones that didn't (maths). I was more of a 'creative person' than a 'math person' but i think it could have gone either way depending on what interested me. Finally, yes i made careless mistakes quite regularly and yes i was good at test taking. As for the "big picture"/"straight facts" question, - i don't entirely understand it.

I think I am good at taking test. But i am bullied, I'm not sure why, and i'm not good at talking, so friendship is hell, and i just lost my last couple of friends. So i seriously doubt i will make more. But maybe that is a good thing, since i might not be distracted in lessons, even though i am more intelliegent than others anyway, most likely AS.
I do daydream a lot, but I think I am pretty balanced with this "Whole Picture" idea.

some guy wrote:I'm curious to know how the AS person processes and learns information.

Do you have a hard time in school or is it certain subjects or does it actually give you an advantage? Do you have a hard time staying focused or do you often daydream? Dre you good at creatively solving math problems or are you better at writing an essay? Are you a "big picture" or "straight facts" learner? Do you often make careless mistakes? Are you good at test taking?

I'm not sure how well I can answer this, considering I've only ever been homeschooled (ooh fun.. </sarcasm>), but I'll do my best.

Firstly, I have absolutely no idea how I would be graded in public school, so I don't know if I'd have a hard time or not.

Unless it's a topic I'm incredibly interested in, I will definitely daydream. No question about it.

I enjoy writing essays more than math, but I don't know if I'm better at one or the other.

I'm more of a straight facts learner- who knows why.

I try not to make careless mistakes, but they do happen sometimes.

And, like I said, I don't know if I'm good at taking tests. Seeing as how being homeschooled has.. been an interesting experience. Though, when I did my Grade 1 RCM Theory Exam, I got First Class Honors, so maybe that shows a little skill? I don't know.

I've absolutely loathed school all my life. In primary school I used to cry everyday just before school started. I only stopped doing that in year five when I began to become popular (don't ask me how) then the last two years of primary school where pretty sweet, there were afew hiccups, but overall not too bad.

Then came Secondary school. I basically missed half of the first year (because I keep on skiving) It wasn't that I was getting bullied or anything, I just found the whole thing exhausting, physically and mentally. By the second year I went for a month and then just never went again.

So yea I hated school.

I had sort of taught myself to read and write before starting kindergarten, so for a while I was top of my class without comprehending most of the concepts we dealt with (and being unable to explain them to others when the teacher instructed me to do so, since I was already proficient in the subject matter), and that even the kids who were constantly on the verge of failing their classes still remembered and understood these concepts when they were picked up again at a later date (whereas I didn't even recognise the terms used to describe them) rather speaks against that claim.

My memory and thinking are mostly spatial and kinetic, at least my conscious memory is. I can remember the layout of almost every house or city I have ever been to since I was a toddler (and can navigate them almost blindly), I remember the feel and texture of my toys from when I was 6 months old, the sensory excitement of staring at a sparkly reflecting toy when I was six etc. but when it comes to things that are "labelled" with words, I struggle immensely to recall consciously even the most basic things as long as I have to recall them while at the same time consciously relating to the subject matter. (For example I can recall birthdays and phone numbers easily, unless I have to recall them in the context of say a conversation about MY phone number or in relation to the person whose birthday it is)

Strangely enough I seem very able at remembering strings of more nonsensical data, such as am 8 character password made up of random characters (%# etc.), numbers and letters, after typing them two or three times.

In tests, I could parrot things when prompted (more easily so when prompted visually, in writing etc.) but have no recollection of either the questions or the answers I gave, unless I explicitly wrote them down for later perusage. *Everyone else* in class used to come out of tests and chatter to each other about their results without having to write them down.

Anyway I liked school because I liked learning but it became ever more distressing as I became more socially aware, and more aware of my other difficulties.

My AS went undiagnosed throughout school and my first three years of college. As a result, I hated school because I could never understand why exactly I was unhappy / different. I'm now 24, but having 'discovered' AS 2 years ago, I now know a lot more about myself. As a result, academically I am now excelling.


I am good at all components of education (including maths and essay-writing). My classmates pretty-much view me as the guy that knows everything and does everything to perfection. A girl in particular calls me 'Einstein'. The lecturers also lavish praise on me with two of them stating that they've never seen anyone like me in all their years of teaching.


The main reason why I do well is because of my rote-memory and my perfectionism. Those two combined, are what makes me do so well academically.


Take care,
Kevin.

Chucky wrote:The main reason why I do well is because of my rote-memory and my perfectionism. Those two combined, are what makes me do so well academically.

May I ask what you are like with retaining that information? It's just that what I posted above was something I posted on Wrongplanet, and I got a lot of "Huh?" responses, or ""Everyone is like that" (Erm, I begged to differ, and was eventually understood )

I have read somewhat similar accounts in things about "severe" autism and while I do know now I am HFA rather than AS for the most part, I also know I am not that severely affected!

Well, basically I cannot remember something simply by reading it. If I read a National Geogrphic article, for example, what I will get from it is the main theme of the article but it is very hard to remember anything but the main theme. My mind has a great tendency to drift away.


To learn something, I have to break it up into sections and then learn each off-by-heart, slowly. Then, I memorise each section in a specific sequence. Everything is always in a specific order. In that way, I am well-capable of remembering an entire syllabus.


Like, recently I have memorised my entire Biochemistry syllabus which is made up of around 270 pages of personally-written notes. I could start right now by typing the whole thing out.


Another thing to know of is that we [humans] memorise images better than words. So, I try to relate every piece of script with an image and this makes it much easier to learn.


Is this how you do it too?


I am going to my grandmother's today in the west of Ireland. She's, ummm, 84 I think.


Take care,
Kevin.

Reading this thread is sort of disappointing to me. I figured the reasons I struggled academically in school were due to my AS.

I remember when the teacher would explain how to do something or how something works, I always needed him or her to elaborate, and greatly. I just never seemed to get it. I have gotten much better over the years but I used to have to have people break it down for me a lot for me to understand it. My social anxiety disallowed me to ask questions during class. I was always coming in early and staying late after school to get extra help so I would pass. And even if I do understand what is being asked of me, it typically takes awhile for me to retain the knowledge.

Even to this day people kind of see me as nieve and clueless when it comes to certain things, although I have come a very long way.