Did my son get the right diagnosis? HFA or AS & school i

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As above I just wonder if my son got the right diagnosis (aspergers) or does it really matter?? Afaik the main difference is that the VIQ is usually higher than the PIQ for AS but my sons is the opposite and also AS kids don't have a delay is speech. Is that right?? A brief description of my son is as follows:

My son is 5yrs 7mths old. He was a very placid good child & seemed "normal". He crawled late (11.5mths) and walked at 17mths (he was walking ages holding onto furniture though). He was a late talker but understood everything we said to him & was (still is) very affectionate. I suppose again he really had conversations he was 3 perhaps almost 4 but he would fascinate you with his speech. He gets humour & jokes & even puns!! His speech is great now & he told me the other day that when I was a little girl he mustn't have been invented yet!

He started preschool when he was just gone 4 & was basically kicked out for constantly pushing & not sitting still so we took him out & decided to keep him home for a few months & get him assessed. ADHD was in my mind but he could easily focus for ages on stuff - it was only the crowds who overwhelmed him. Still to this day he is sooooo different with me at home on our own & with immediate family. His eye contact isn't great - lots of pics we have of him are looking away! We started him in a new preschool which were brilliant & it was that school who suggested AS & when I read up on it I had to agree so we he was assessed by a psychologist last summer (almost 5 yrs then) & she didn't diagnose him with anything official. This assessment said he has mild behavioral problems & he scored extremely high on the performance IQ 155 very superior (98 percentile rank) & his verbal IQ is 99 which was average but very low on the comprehension part. Part of me was happy he wasn't officially diagnosed & the other wasn't as I knew without a label its hard to get support at school. We brought him to see a psychiatrist a few months ago & he was reluctant to diagnose AS & said no way was it ADHD but I pushed for the AS label as his school (brilliant fantastic school) said it was obvious & he really needs his own SNA (special need assistant) so we got the official diagnosis of AS. I don't care one bit about the label as long as my son gets the help &support he needs.

Sorry this is long, so back to now & my son is in Junior Infants has his own fulltime SNA & resource hours each day. He was doing great but now HATES school. He says they break all his rules. The school are sooo good & really work with us & my son but its like his worst nightmare I'd say with all the noise & social stuff he has to deal with. He is mostly a completely different child when he's with me or with immediate family & it breaks my heart to send him to school & I'm considering part-time school & homeschooling him if he continues to be distressed. He is such an intelligent, caring, funny child & I don't want him unhappy.

ETA his other issues in school are now he is biting & spitting his SNA & resource teacher & using bad language. He does apologie & knows its wrong but I feel this is just his way of letting out his overwhelming feelings. He never does this at home with me. This anger or lashing out is only lately this extreme in school & he was doing fine. He also has no safety awareness (especially socially) & used to try & escape school etc. He loves to climb too which can scare the life out of you. He has improved on the saftey awareness a lot with lots of prompting & social stories. Sorry this is a bit muddled as there is so much to say so I will leave it at this for now!!

One more thing is wrong planet is fantastic

Welcome to WrongPlanet.

I don't want to alarm you or accuse anyone of anything sordid. But his lashing out at school may be a sign that they are not so "great". My son did that kind of thing at school because they were provoking him. An evaluation team noted that his aide corrected him when he was merely behaving like the other kids. The teachers had a short fuse and would threaten him for minor offenses. The difference with him was that he was also lashing out at home-we were losing him. To find out, I had to drop in on the school and spy on them. It was horrific.

Now, if that's not the case, it may be that he has severe sensory issues that you "take care of" at home. My son doesn't have it that bad so I don't know how bad it can get. But there are kids that just can't deal with the classroom setting. It may be the size of the school or his lack of awareness to express himself properly. My son is learning to ask for sensory breaks (walks outside, getting a drink) and sometimes he has to work in the special ed room if he's too distracted in his regular class.

Despite his "diagnosis" you need to set firm rules about behavior. Yes, you want to find out what his triggers are and if the aide is violating your son's body space. However, he needs to learn exactly what is expected from him concerning touching, arguing, cussing.

KimJ thanks for the helpful reply. I know you don't mean to accuse anyone but feel the school really are great. We meet regularly to discuss probs & progress. We have a notebook that his SNA writes in everyday to let me know how he is doing & a lot of the comments are positive - she always focuses on the positives too & of course has to write the biting & spitting too. We decided between us that if he needs to spit he can go to the toilet & spit there & biting is only for food. I read his daily report book every night with him & we discuss why he does stuff. I always say well done to the positive stuff & talk through the negative stuff rather than give out to him. We also agreed that if he apologises & says why he does stuff he can cross out the bad behaviour. Its hard to know which behaviour he can't help because of his AS & which is a naughty 5yr old if that makes sense. I do wonder if I'm too soft on him & like you say I make his environment at home "perfect" for him as I know him so well & even if the school wanted to do the same they obviously can't even though they do their very best & he is allowed to ask to leave the class with his SNA if he is overwhelmed or get a drink. We emphasise to use his words when he is angry or upset rather than spitting, lashing out or cursing. I think you may be right that he has sensory issues & also I think he is getting used to his SNA & seeing how much he can get away with iykwim. Sorry need to cut this short as need to go get DS out of the bath!!

This quote from your son totally cracked me up:

He says they break all his rules

This is SO very AS.

Or HFA. It really does not matter one bit - in my world, labels are all about what they can or cannot do for you.

My son has a need to control his world, and the more out of control the sensory input around him gets, the more rules he tries to apply, and the more rigidly he needs them followed. It is a very strong clue as to whether or not a situation is working for him, actually.

Our school has been amazing for my son, and for so many special needs kids, they really work hard for them and understand them well, but, still, a friend recently pulled her son out to homeschool. The one thing the child simply could not deal with was the fact that 19 other children were in the room with him. Breaks, aids, etc. simply did not mitigate that sufficiently for him.

I think it's important to give our children what they need, and only push gently to move them beyond their boundaries. One thing I noticed when I started to visit AS forums (outside of WrongPlanet) was that AS teens and adults often carried so much ANGER, and it seemed to come from trying to survive in a world that refused to ever meet them even halfway. I don't want that for my child. I want to him to build a secure base, and move on from there. And he IS moving on, in his own time, and his own way, and he is doing it with a POSITIVE view of the world and life, for the most part.

None of which helps you much at this moment in time, I realize. So much of what you are going to confront in the way of choices for your child is going to come down to instinct. Every child is so unique. Trust in your judgment, and remember that every child can and should be happy with school, if the placement is right. You discovered that in preschool; it still applies. Just, figuring out what your son needs, what the difficulties in the current situation are, isn't an easy undertaking.

DW_a_mom I know god help anyone who breaks his rules .

We had another incident this morning as I dropped him to school. We were walking into school & his classmate passed him & said Hi Cian. My little fella didn't even say back. As usual I prompt him to say Hello back (which he did). His class mate than said I'll race you & zoomed past & Cian nearly had a meltdown because this fella won the race to the class room. He was very upset & said his classmate broke his rules. He was so angry that it scares me. I told him he can't win every race or game etc & calmed him down before I left the school but it upsets me when his emotions can be so strong - it must be so hard for him to deal with. Same when he is designing 3D buildings on google sketch up (an architect I have here!!) & it has to be 100% precise or he'll get so frustrated he will cry . I usually get him to calm down by saying practicing is fun & he will eventually get it right.

Your son sounds very familiar to my son i.e. the need to control his world is very accurate. Glad to hear your school are very good too. I am so grateful the school are on my side.


I also agree on everything you say and I hope to meet my son halfway. I will try keep him in mainstream for as long as he isn't severely distressed. He does get LOTS of positive notes in his behaviour book like he delivered a note to the class next door with perfect manners & no attemted escapes!! My only fear of taking him out of mainstream is in case I isolate him too much. I know he has the skills to mingle to an extent as he is perfect with his immediate family so I think with lots of help & leeway & give & take he will learn to adapt with school. Its so hard to know the right thing to do.

It IS hard to know the right thing to do.

I can relate to the incident with the other child, too. First, my son NEVER says "hi" back. I've given up on that. The positive thing is that kids WANT to say "hi" to him, and want to engage with him. And they don't give up, despite how unresponsive he can be. The difficult thing is that they don't understand how something like a race is just asking for trouble. Sigh. I've spent a LOT of time talking to the kids around my son and explaining some of his quirks, so that the road gets easier on all of them. They WANT to have a positive relationship with him, so they ARE willing to work on the building blocks. They don't like being confused by his reactions any more than he likes having them act in ways he doesn't like. Being in a school where the kids DO want to engage and learn to do it in a positive way is a HUGE gift, and one to be taken advantage of.

My son and I have spent hours upon hours talking about how you can't expect other kids to follow your rules, that you have to bend like a branch in the wind, that the ideas and desires of others matter, too. Lunch bunch is where my son works on social skills at school, working out give and take, turns, etc. My son LOVES lunch bunch! Overall, these are difficult concepts for him, but he IS growing and developing on them. Now a fifth grader, he rarely has those confrontations anymore, and he rarely writes rules that others have to follow anymore. It's been amazing to see him blossom.

My son is an inventor. That is his "thing." Since he loves to invent games, and to get others to play them with him, learning to engage in a give and take manner actually has been essential for him. He now has a devoted group of younger kids he calls his "beta testers." It has reached a point where other kids at school have had the opportunity to get a window into his talents, and to really appreciate them. Hopefully something similar will happen with your son and his talent with 3D - that eventually it will make a bridge between him and the other kids, something he will be admired for.

At this point in his life I can use the level of control he is trying to exert on the world around him as a good indicator of his stress level. The more rules I see him trying to enforce, the more I know something is bothering him, and we will try to sift through it and find solutions. Keep that in mind, how the "rules" are a clue for you as to how HE is coping with the things going on around him. Our kids don't always show their stress to the outside world. What is positive progress to the school may at the same time be huge stress to him. So, fingers on the pulse, and keep working on it.

As for strength of temper, I know that one to. I sometimes wonder if the extreme forms of autism, where a child no longer experiences emotions, is a defensive reaction to too much emotion, too much feeling. Everything about my son seems more intense than with other kids. More intense happiness, more intense anger, more intense skills, more intense weaknesses. That must be so difficult to live inside. My son has even admitted to working to control his own levels of pain! With success, I may add. So, could a young child overwhelmed by his own emotions simply say, "I'm going to shut them off now"? I can TOTALLY see that, knowing how intense my son is, and strongly he can try to control life. But, fortunately, it won't be that way for my child, because he really is free to be who he needs to be, within reason. He is learning to monitor his own temper and his own stress levels. He knows his own warning signs, and he knows to tell me so that I don't push things further. They can learn this, it just takes patience and time.

Anyway, lots to do today. It's a journey with our kids, and a really interesting one.

It's probably good to keep the AS label and see how he is as he develops, as you said, you can get services for him with it, and that's the important thing.

For those who distinguish between HFA and AS, the former is more severe (it's not that much better than "LFA" in reality).

Generally, the differences between HFA and AS are (this is as young children):

HFA: socially and emotionally aloof to others (sometimes can bond with family members, treats others as objects for the most part); repetitive behaviours manifest as fixation on parts of objects, motor mannerisms, marked distress to change; a delay in the acquisition of speech that usually needs speech therapy to correct; motor development is usually above-average.

AS: social and emotional disturbances are more varied (some bond with family members, but are aloof to those outside of the group; some approach peers/others for social interaction, but it's usually eccentric, one-sided, and verbose); repetitive behaviours manifest as a single topic of interest in most cases (dinosaurs, astronomy, etcetera); speech is usually on time (sometimes it's advanced, i.e., talking like an adult at an early age); motor-development is usually delayed.

The above is a relatively accurate picture of the DSM-IV-TR, generally anyway.

DW_a mom, you are right its good to know kids want to say hi to our kids & I’m almost giving up on my son saying hi back too. I think that is a good idea explaining to the other kids some of your son’s quirks. I will talk to the teacher whether we should do the same because some of his classmates must think he is so rude or naughty at times. You give me so much hope when you say how much your son has blossomed. It means so much when I hear that. I hope my son can share his talent too. Should we get our two together – an inventor & a 3D expert – we could make a lot of money!! ! I also agree with you re the intense emotions. Guess our kids need so much longer to learn how to handle such intense feelings as well as all their intense senses. Thanks so much for your reply it really helps.

Danielismyname thanks to you too for such a helpful reply. I will def keep the label so he gets the supports he needs. I think my son is def more AS than HFA but then again there isn’t really a whole lot of difference.

He’s on mid-term this week from school & is sooooooooo happy – I dread the thoughts of next week having to go to school. The school are brilliant though & gave me a calendar for May which has the non-school days & weekends coloured in blue & the school days we have to put an X through when its over. I’m counting down to the summer holidays myself