Neurodivergent school kids with interoception and proprioception issues.
I received this message this morning, from my friend Angela Loynd, of Umbrella Alliance:
‘I heard yet another story today about a young autistic girl refused a toilet break during class time at school, who then ended up wetting her pants as a result. I’m so sick of this shit continuing, and it seems to be only getting worse!’
Visual memories immediately flooded back, taking me right back to 1982, when I was 6 years old, an undiagnosed Autistic and ADHD girl struggling in a mainstream school (Milby First School in Nuneaton).
This one teacher, Mrs Williams, traumatised me and made me a target for bullies. This was not an isolated incident – these are two examples that just flooded back to my mind, there were others.
I was always tripping over my own feet, scuffing my shoes. Mrs Williams had a big star chart on a flip-chart beside the blackboard. Once a week, she scored each pupil in her class for how clean and shiny they kept their shoes. The kids with clean, shiny shoes (often new) were praised with gold and silver stars. The kids with dirty, scuffed, tatty shoes were reprimanded, shamed.
I remembered this a few years ago, and I dismissed it as snobbery, and of Mrs Williams being oblivious and ignorant to the financial challenges of many families. Now I see it as ablist; shaming me and other neurodivergent kids for our poor proprioception.
‘Proprioception, also called kinaesthesia, is the sense of self-movement, force, and body position’ (Wikipedia).
That same teacher often (but not consistently), did not allow kids to leave her class for a toilet break. I think she saw me as a ‘repeat offender’, as I often needed a wee during class, being slow to pick up on my own body’s cues.
One day after putting my hand up and politely asking to go to the toilet, she said “no, not this time, you can wait until the class is finished”.
I was wearing a thin cotton sundress. I couldn’t hold it any longer. The wee puddled on my chair, then eventually trickled off the front of the chair, falling to the wooden floor with an audible drip, drip drip… This dripping noise was louder still in my recurring nightmares and flashbacks.
I had been discriminated against, and traumatised, for my interoception issues, with lasting effects on my self-esteem.
‘Interoception is a lesser-known sense that helps you understand and feel what’s going on inside your body. Kids who struggle with the interoceptive sense may have trouble knowing when they feel hungry, full, hot, cold, or thirsty. Having trouble with this sense can also make self-regulation a challenge’ (Understood.org).
You might hope that teachers today were better trained, but some continue with shaming, discrimination, ABA-lite, traumatising neurodivergent kids every day, with an enduring impact to their well-being. This is inhumane, and must be tackled.
Even in my local first school they have pen licences, zone charts for behaviour, social skills classes teaching neurotypical social skills to quirky kids, kids praised for ‘sitting quietly on the mat’. Fidget toys are not allowed…
Just think about the lasting impact on our fragile, developing kids.
Some of those kids will, like me, have highly visual autobiographical memories, like I do.
Ausome Charlie 