#18

My second diabetic student in my career of teaching. He was fairly self-sufficient, knowing when he had to go down to the nurse. His numbers were never too out of control and the disease did not take over his life or his personality. 18 was different in how he interacted with people. I wondered toward the end of the year if he was on the autism spectrum but never brought that up with his mother, for whom diabetes did take over. Not being sure and not wanting to be overly diagnosing, I let it go and maybe that was a mistake. 18 would get in trouble sometimes for just staring. When you are talking to a kid about what he did wrong and he just stares blankly at you and doesn't answer any of your questions, it seems at first to be defiant behavior. Later in the year it seemed more like missing social cues. Not really understanding that I was mad or that he really had to answer my questions - weird rhetorical sounding questions that teachers use - "Didn't you realize you were taking the ball right from 11s hands?" Of course he realized it and to a kid that has trouble with social cues, he might not have known the best way to answer. Most kids would lower their head and agree until their forced apology was begrudgingly accepted by the victim of the situation. 18 would just sit and stare. Also strange was his interaction with close friends. He would almost zero in on the kids and try repeatedly to get a laugh or an acknowledgment from them. Walking around, he would completely invade that person's space so much that the kid would eventually try to back away. I am hoping that this was all a maturity issue, or even a blood sugar issue, and that I have not committed him to a life of being in trouble and misunderstood by not mentioning my thoughts to the parent.