ASD child - “he looks through me when speaking to me” ???

[Ricecakesaremyjam]

My son is 5yrs old, diagnosed ASD. His teacher has told me “he looks through me when he talks to me and he has a blank expression when he is stimming”.
I could be wrong but I thought it was common for autistic children to have occasionally blank facial expressions/stare? What is she getting at here?
Thanks for any replies xx

It’s ASC now.

Autism Spectrum Condition.

And yes, zoning out while stimming is a thing.

As for the ‘looking through me’ thing is just silly. A teacher should know better.

Autistic people sometimes are uncomfortable making eye contact which would explain the looking through. Its worth explaining this to the teacher so he doesnt get told “look at me when im speaking to you”

Unfortunately teachers have very little training in autism.

Yeah that sounds like pretty common behaviour for autistic child. Not sure what she is getting at but she may lack understanding around ASD. Might be worth having a conversation with her about why she raised it and ask if she has had any additional training around ASD.

Raise your concerns with the SENCO

Is she complaining or commenting?

If she's complaining then I'd respond by saying that is one fairly normal observation for children with ASD.
If she's commenting, then agree that he does.

It sounds like a criticism of his eye contact, but only she really knows. Ask her to tell you more.

Approach it with curiosity. Don't wind yourself up second guessing and go in challenging her.

Is it? I have ASD, nobody has told me it has changed. It seems nobody has told the nhs either...

Sounds like she needs some training, mention it to the SENCO, and reasure the teacher that despite the way he presents he is actually paying attention and he is absolutely not to be forced or corrected to make eye contact.

In secondary school my ds spent a lot of time in an isolation booth for refusing to 'engage' IE look directly at his teacher..
Is your dc in the correct learning environment op?. That would be my first question.. To myself and to his school..

I also have ASC and work with children with ASC.

Definitely changed. For the better, I feel.

’Disorder’ is an ugly word.

Stop policing language, you don't get to decide when things change.

That doesn't sound unusual for a child with ASD OP, I agree with others that she probably has very little knowledge of it and is telling you things that would be unusual in an NT child.

His behaviour has been challenging in school recently and the teacher was listing concerns, with the “looking through me when speaking to me and blank expression when stimming” being on the concerns list ☹️

I have ASD, diagnosed this month. DD3 has ASD, diagnosed this month. DD3's diagnostic report says that some people refer to it as ASC so we may see it written as either but it means the same thing.

It's quite normal behavior ds2 switches off its completely blank and can be a bit disconcerting he literally looks like he has disconnected from the mainframe then he sparks back up again

We say he is "buffering"

This.
It’s very typical for children with ASD so it may just be confirming what you already know. Eye contact was on my son’s Learning Support Plan and I really fought to get it taken off; there are a million other ways to check if a child is listening without forcing them to do something that makes them uncomfortable.
Also to the poster that said it’s ASC, since when? Could you provide a plausible link that says this because I’ve worked across the NHS and in Education and we still use ASD in both.

Also ds2 tries so hard to make eye contact (because people tell him he should) he ends up staring into your soul like a psychopath in a bad movie he tries bless him

It's a personal thing though. My autistic dd really dislikes "condition" . She says a condition is something like atheletes foot 🤣

This teacher needs to educate herself then! Is she new to the profession? When she comes to you with “concerns” turn it back on her and ask what she’s putting in place to support him. It’s her job to learn about the condition and try different things until she finds what works with your child.

I'm assuming it's a mainstream school? Teachers generally, while training to be teachers get very little input on SEN. Definitely ask the SENCo to either do an Inset session on it for teachers or get some external input. It sounds like the teacher doesn't know enough about Autism.

I’m autistic. I dislike ‘condition’ as much as ‘disorder’ - autism will do nicely.

Spare a thought for those of us who also have ADHD, and get the double whammy of deficit and disorder within the same diagnosis.

'Teachers have very little training in autism'
Seriously? Definitely not my experience working in primary schools.

My experience is that teachers get little training.

@Babanafroufrou I’m glad to hear it but Im told there’s next to nothing in PGCE and i frequently have to explain the basics to teachers.

https://dy55nndrxke1w.cloudfront.net/file/24/xT2FqUxTh55_JA5xTMYZxb.dfV0x/NAS_How%20to%20talk%20and%20write%20about%20autism.pdf

NAS guide ASD still in diagnostic manuals, condition is more of a social movement although not loved by all.

Nobody told our consultant 🤷‍♀️