School reports: spotting the autism

I was going through some cupboards and found a folder of old school reports. Some were from primary school and some from secondary.
I decided it might be useful to see if there were any clues to indicate that I had autism. After all, I went on to have a diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome in my mid-20s and it's something that would have been present throughout my childhood too.
I have copied out quotes from the reports.

Primary School

• She does not always listen to instructions very attentively and is apt to day-dream.
• Art work remains immature (!!) Poor motor control and finds drawing accurately, cutting out smoothly, etc., very difficult.
• PE - Finds all ball skills extremely difficult. I have dyspraxia.
• She has strong opinions and will voice them readily in discussion. She is not swayed by what anyone else thinks.
• She sometimes finds it difficult to concentrate on aural work. I do have sensory overload problems and too much information can make me shut down.
• It took time for her to settle into a new class routine as she initially seemed unhappy at new friendship groupings. I guess I was a bit resistant to change?
• She writes very imaginatively.
• She is very much an individualist and likes to fully understand each task before she works on it. This makes sense because I like to know everything about something.

Secondary School

• Occasionally seems to be in a dream when instructions are given out, but once she knows what to do she gets on well. That'll be the sensory overload.
• She is very independent in spirit and in behaviour, and on the whole this is no bad thing, but it can be a handicap during some science experiments when there is not enough apparatus for people to work on their own. Enquiring mind. I do like my own company but this was during my first year of secondary school. I didn't know anyone in my form well or at all whereas the others had ready-made friendship groups imported from their primary schools. It is hard to join existing friendship groups but even harder for someone with autism.
• Quiet, conscientious worker. Single-minded. I am a determined sort of person and will give it my all when I am focused and want to. 
• Music - She needs to try to work more cooperatively in a small group; she does not always fully grasp the requirements of the task given, and needs further explanation before she can proceed - possibly this is because she tends to let her mind wander. I don't think I necessarily heard the task correctly and understood it because of my sensory overload and taking instructions literally. Sometimes the music tasks where too abstract such as compose a music piece to reflect time. I remember that well and thinking I dunno, this means nothing to me so I just added some banging on a triangle to suggest a clock striking. The work was considered rather unsophisticated but I didn't have much of a clue of how to meet the learning outcomes.
• She is underachieving this year. She is disengages herself from class activities to a startling extent, and does not work well at all as part of a team. This year 8 English teacher regularly upset me. I did brilliantly well with my Year 7 English teacher who praised me and got me out of my shell and I wrote lots of creative and exciting bits of work. The following year this dragon came along and I felt I couldn't be me. I felt wrong all the time so I withdrew. My year 7 teacher taught me in year 9 and was horrified by how much I had not progressed. 
• PE - she appears to have difficulty co-operating with her peers. I didn't like PE because I felt that the picking of the teams were unnecessarily cruel because two sporty popular people were given the posts of team captains and it was always horrible to be one of the last to be picked. I felt like some bloody ball and chain on their otherwise great netball/hockey team.
• Science - she works quietly and on her own most of the time. She can sometimes show some reluctance to do an activity, particularly those requiring group work or presentations. Yup, the loner/poor socal skills thing.
• Written work thorough. I have a great attention to detail when I put my mind to it.
• I have been particularly pleased that a pupil who is shy by nature has made such an effort to take an active part in lessons (GCSE Sociology). Its easy why - I liked the teacher who plainly liked me as it was clear I loved his subject and we both shared the dislike for people who don't want to learn to the extent that they spoil it for others. Interestingly, I met him in a pub in my late 20s and he remembered me, thanking me for giving him all my typed up GCSE and A Level notes.
• She produces a nice tone on the recorder :p
• It appears that she is constantly making excuses for herself in some lessons. I wonder why an able girl says that she is not able to learn something? (GCSE - Head of year) I wish I could remember what it was that I said I couldn't learn. 

Sixth Form - A Levels

Theology

• She has suffered some recent setbacks in Old Testament. I wish I knew what that meant, although it must be referring to the module on my Religious Studies course. I think it was a bit information overload and intense since we were analysing verses out of the Bible on themes, such as human destination, God's identity and worship style. We were looking at the OT to see how the view of life after death changed is no small task for a 16/17 year old. I remember how we studied Moses and the burning bush and how God revealed his name. 
• Her greatest problem is getting her good ideas down, in a logical order, whilst working at speed.
• Has a rambling approach to essays
• She makes many interesting and very individual verbal contributions in class.

Business and Economics

• She is producing work at a variable standard - if at all. I found that if I didn't have an interest in something, I would be totally turned off. Mind you, I wanted to study A Level Economics but there wasn't enough students so we got put in a Business and Economics combined A Level class which wasn't what I wanted to study. 
• No effort to participate or contribute to discussion. Boring subject.
• Surprised by a high grade in the mock exam. I can pull things out of the bag at last minute if I have to.
• She must ask for help if needed.

Sociology

• Evidence of thorough revision
• Never afraid to ask questions and take part in discussions. 
• Her contributions are thoughtful and always to the point.
• Determined student
• Well structured written work and focused on the questions
• I just liked the subject and teacher so I was in a safe place to be me and not allow others to put me off my enjoyment of the course.

Maths

• She needs to be much more open about her difficulties, seeking support outside of lesson time.
• I gave up this course as I couldn't process getting A grades in Statistics and ungraded in the other units.

Overall

• She can always be relied upon
• She sometimes appears to be very negative about her work.
• She is a quiet, thoughtful and loyal member of the form.
• She has a very strong sense of what is right and wrong. 

Conclusions

Primary school was a largely structured environment full of rules. It was a place in which I felt relatively safe so I think I ticked by okay.

Secondary school was not quite so. We were asked who our friends were during the applying for high school process. This was to work out where we would be placed into classes at high school but I wasn't placed with anyone who was a good friend and it made for a difficult first year. Alas also some of my primary school chums were off to other schools too. Fortunately we had enough demand for the school to make another form for year 8 so we got reshuffled. I think this is telling in my school report because I was unsettled again as I found my way with the new class so some progress I made went back during my second year of school, namely in English. The shuffle was good in that there were some lovely people from primary school in my new form class but also some difficult people too. It made for a challenging school life.

It seems apparent to me that my ability to comprehend spoken instructions were impaired. I know this to be true because any long dialogues can be hard for me to process and I can forget what has been said. Given that the teachers recognise that I might need it repeated, and after which I get on well with my work, it is surprising that this wasn't implemented. It would have been much more useful if the teacher had written the task on the board for those of us who have information overload problems and sensory overload regrading sounds so we could read through the task in our own time.

It is apparent that my motor skills were poor in both art and physical education but this was due to my Dyspraxia. I also had help at primary school with my handwriting because I didn't find it easy to hold a pen. I remember seeing a lady each week for specialist support. 

As I got older in secondary school, I found myself to be in some lessons with my form, which were mixed ability, and in classes that were streamed by ability. It seems obvious to me that where I showed a lack of wanting to participate in group work this was where there wasn't anyone I wanted to pair up with. I never really put myself out there to make friends because I was perfectly happy to be by myself but it was obviously problematic when I had to. I never liked group work much because I resented how some people could coast along off the back of other people's hard work. It bothered me how some wouldn't contribute. However, some of my later classes I shared with my brother so we often worked together on things too. It took some of the social difficulties away from me through having an ally. 

"It appears that she is constantly making excuses for herself in some lessons. I wonder why an able girl says that she is not able to learn something?" (GCSE - Head of year)

We have the answer now. I wasn't making excuses - I was telling them that I was having problems and no one listened. I didn't know about autism and I certainly didn't think I had any learning difficulties. I don't think in the mid-90s secondary schools were really understanding autism in intellectually higher functioning girls. We only started having teaching assistants around this time in mainstream schools and that was for children with physical difficulties. It was a time when Special educational needs and disability (SEND) wasn't on the agenda and teachers perhaps were blaming things on the student's attitude rather than factors beyond our control. I went through a phase of anger that my schools never picked this up but they were a product of their time. I have learnt to let much of it go.

Whilst I don't see masses of hints about my autism, it is clear that it was present in my schooling. I wonder how different life would have been if I had known early on? I guess what I can take from this is that no one accommodated my needs, such as it is after one leaves education. As tough as it was, it must have helped me enormously in learning how to deal with issues off my own back and find my coping mechanisms. And perhaps that has been a good thing for me.