Schools often ask for parents to support students’ learning at home but in our
experience without an obvious (stereotypical male presentation) of autism, our
school psychologist was not willing to support our daughter’s overall wellbeing
at home.
My daughter was diagnosed as ASD level 2 earlier this year just before her 8th
birthday.
She has attended the same public school in Perth’s northern suburbs since
kindergarten.
While she masks extremely well at school which makes it hard for teaching staff
to identify her neurodivergence - I had reached out to the school psychologist
in regard to her difficulties regulating her emotions and her rigid thinking in
the years leading up to her diagnosis.
I felt the psychologist brushed off my concerns as they did not impact my
daughter’s schooling.
On one occasion the psychologist told me on the phone that my daughter just
wasn’t “a big enough problem at school” and that she had “other students with
bigger problems within the school” that she had to deal with.
On the second occasion when I rang her about my daughter, the first thing she
said after greeting me was “unless it is an emergency, I can’t help you.” She
said she did not have the capacity or time to take on any students and their
issues unless they were at crisis point.
My daughter’s autism may not come across as disruptive in her classroom or as
holding her back academically (she is considered 2E (both academically gifted
and neurodiverse) not having support to identify what was causing the
dysregulation we experience on a daily basis once she gets home from school,
was contributing negatively on her wellbeing.
While the teaching staff have been understanding when we try to speak to them
about our daughter’s neurodivergence, they are always quite surprised to hear
of her recent autism diagnosis as her presentation is not how they understand
autism.
I believe teaching staff should be supported with more training and education
around autism and specifically autism in girls.