Conversation Stopper

School | Learning | January 11, 2017

(The school I teach at is exclusively for autistic children. They’re divided into three grades and spend three years in each grade (on average). One of my students is highly intelligent but has severe problems interacting with others and has anger management issues. This day, just before a one-week break, we’re having a games day, to avoid starting on a new subject just to interrupt with a week of vacation. He’s doing various 3D puzzles and brain training games, going through them faster than the whole class can do solo. We also have a teacher-in-training, who is observing and helping me teach. She decides to try having a conversation with him.)

Teacher: “Hey, [Student], you’re pretty fast at those.”

Student: *after a couple of uneasy seconds* “They don’t talk, so they’re easy. You talk; you’re hard.”

(You could almost see her good intentions drain away as she wished him good luck.)

This story is part of the Autism Awareness roundup!