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New here- I've been reading several of the forums here on Wrong Planet and am just so impressed and fascinated with many of the stories and viewpoints of families and individuals. My 8 year old son has not been officially diagnosed with an ASD yet, but I believe that he will be eventually. He has always been an amazing, unique child. Diagnosed with verbal apraxia at age 2 for speech delays, then with minor sensory processing disorder symptoms a few years later. At his most recent EIP meeting, they are suggesting ADD, without hyperactivity. He has some learning disabilities, but is in a mainstream classroom, with about one hour of help each day.

He is an extremely sweet, hard working and kind child. He charms many adults, but is rather clueless with his peers. He comes across as rather naive and will blurt out whatever he is thinking at times. He does filter this somewhat, and considers what might hurt someone's feelings. He plays with his 7 seven year old sister quite a bit, but on the playground at school, mostly wants to play by himself to recharge during the school day. By the end of the school day he just seems wiped out, and needs a while alone. I think many of his peers see him as pretty odd. He is just not very natural with reciprocal play and conversation. He is beginning to be teased much more often by several boys in his class. Some children are protective of him, but he is feeling stressed by the bullies.

He has always had sort of intense special interests. Right now it is the Bakugan characters and game, which is pretty typical for an 8 year old boy, I guess. He draws pictures of them often, even during the school day any chance he gets, and loves the handbooks, videos, etc. He really likes to talk about them, but will have other conversations. He also has a great sense of humor, understands jokes and irony, loves slapstick type humor. He wants to tell jokes, but has no grasp of how the language part works.
He is very loving with his family and enjoys hugs, etc.

We have no behavior issues with him. We have three childern, two clearly neurotypical, and he is probably the least oppositional and difficult (and the other two are pretty sweet kids as well.)
He tests at a high normal intelligence, with gifted scores in visual-spatial areas, but is lagging behind his peers academically. For the most part because of trouble focusing in the classroom, slow handwriting and some reading and memory problems.
The special ed teacher and his speech therapist don't feel that he is on the spectrum. But my instincts tell me that he is, with rather good coping skills.
Does this seem to make sense? Do you think trying to get a diagnosis would be helpful?

Thanks so much for reading all of this!

Ya know - a diagnosis is really up to you. It sounds like the school is already working with him and from the way you have posted - you seem to feel fairly comfortable with the school and the way they are working with him. And if that is the case - plus the confidence you have in his teachers - maybe what they've suggested is the direction you should look. I think if you see your pediatrician and talk to him/her, bring up the school concerns - the doctor will give you some paperwork for an evaluation. These papers will be filled out by each of the teachers that work with him, you and his Dad (or whomever is a major caretaker) - the doc will look them over and talk to you.

No one here can diagnose - and speculating about a child can be a bad thing - it could put totally wrong ideas in your head which could lead you to worry more or not enough.

That said - he sounds like a cool kid. I know the Bakugan obsession (here it goes from Bakugan to Bionicle to Lego Teknix). Truly amazing what these kids can come up with while playing with these things.

Howdy neighbor! And welcome to Wrong Planet!

If your son is being bullied, I suggest you talk to the school principal and teacher right away. Bullying is illegal in this state and should not be tolerated, ever. Your son may need your advocacy at this age and if I were you I wouldn't put up with bullying for one second longer.

If your son has an IEP (sounds like he does), and you are using it to help him in school, and you anticipate using the IEP in the future, then I suggest you talk to your pediatrician about a diagnosis. Do not let the school staff diagnose your son. They are not medical professionals and are generally unqualified to make such diagnoses. If you want to get a diagnosis for your son, I suggest you "interview" your pediatrician to find out her/his level of experience with autism spectrum disorders, like how many patients is s/he treating right now with ASDs? How many ASD diagnoses has s/he made in the past six months? If your current pediatrician is not well-versed with ASDs, then I suggest you look around and find a different pediatrician who has lots of experience with ASDs.

Good luck!

I found the key to learning in school was learning things before class, so I don't actually have to learn things in class. Are there textbooks he could read ahead of time? Getting him interested in the subject matter may help too.

I'm not sure about YOUR school district, but in mine the Special Education Department within each of our schools has Certified Special Education Teachers that have various specialties including ASD's, there are Speech Pathologists and Occupational Therapists, Psychologsts and Social Workers. All of the schools have their own staff and these staff members participate in the IEP's and in mapping out the educational needs of each student. Even the kids that have special needs or learning disabilities but can be mainstreamed with 'support' from the special education department are technically under the supervison of the Special Education Department. To say that these people are not qualified is ridiculous. If anything - they probably see more children with various 'disabilities' on a regular basis than a lot of pediatricians. They are also spending more time with these kids on a daily basis than any pediatrician does with any of his/her patients. (Unless of course - that patient also happens to be their child.)

You can look up you own local school system (XXX School District) and they will more then likely have links to all of their departments as well as the staff members for each of those departments as well as their specialization/s and/or position within the department.

Hello oncebitten, it seems my post has made you very defensive of educational professionals, so let me first say that I did not intend to imply that educational professionals are unqualified to make education-related opinions. I have met many intelligent and caring educational professionals whose opinions I trust. My intent was simply to provide suggestions and try to help the OP, not attack anybody.

However, since you seem to have misunderstood my post, I feel the need to clarify even though I prefer not to make long posts. In my family, we go to medical doctors for medical opinions including diagnoses. We go to educational professionals for educational opinions. The line between the two, at least in my opinion, is very clear…there is no grey area. If an educational professional renders a medical opinion about my family member, then I will go to a doctor for a second opinion. If a doctor renders a medical opinion about my family member, then I will go to a different doctor for a second opinion, not an educational professional. This is my approach and my opinion, and I respect yours if it is different.

Now, I don’t know about YOUR school district, but in my school district educational professionals are required to have at least a bachelor’s degree and, for specialized services, a master’s degree, which amounts to a total of about five to six years of education, and no experience before entering the work force as a professional. Medical doctors here are required to have about eight years of school and three to eight years of residency, which amounts to a total of about 11 to 16 years of professional training before they can practice on their own. So medical doctors are required to have two to three times the amount of training compared with educational professionals, at least in my school district. But that's all I need to know. So when it comes to important opinions about the health of my family, we rely on medical doctors. You and yours are welcome to go anywhere you want. As a matter of fact, if you feel so strongly that educational professionals are well-suited to making medical diagnoses, then rather than go on the defensive about my post, I suggest you take a more constructive approach and make some suggestions of your own to the OP. Best of luck to you.

Last edited by DenvrDave on 11 Mar 2010, 11:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

Thank you for all of your replies. I have been trying to address the bullying. Most of it has been a couple of kids verbally making fun of his naivete, and a few of the boys chasing him and trying to scare him. I do believe that his classroom teacher is taking this seriously and is not tolerating any teasing that she sees. Unfortunately I think that alot of it takes place where she is not a witness- on the playground, which is not well supervised and in the hallway, etc. I'm trying to do some role playing with him to give him some ideas of what to do and say in these situations, but he tends to just freeze up when it happens.
The special ed department in our school is quite small. Our new pediatrician does have some experience with diagnosing autistic children. In fact, she brought up Aspergers when I mentioned my son's school's concerns and his developmental history. She has only known him a short time, though, and I guess that we are going to address and try to treat the possible ADD before going on to any additional testing.

If it weren't for his unhappiness about the teasing, it wouldn't all seem so urgent. He's just a great kid, and I believe that we all develop and grow at our own pace.

Well Dave --- maybe it's just me, but I find your posts a bit on the negative side.

I did make some suggestions to the OP. Her child is working with the teachers and they have observed some things that they suggested may be an issue. She did not state in the original post WHAT kind of special education department her school district has.

It's been my experience that the teachers that have worked with my child throughout the years have been most helpful in detecting the early signs of her autism. They made the suggestions and I followed up those suggestions with her pediatrician. The doctor AND the professionals at her school (and my husband and I) went through an initial process of evaluation all of the information and documanted behaviors and concerns that all of us had observed with my daughter. The pediatrician used this information to form an initial diagnosis and referred my daughter to a specialist at U of M.

Okay - here's the realllllllllly nifty part. Had it NOT been for the school and the teachers that were working with her making those observations based upon their experience in working with sooooo many different children and recognizing the signs that something was possibly wrong I probably would have written much of it off in the earlier stages due to many factors and considered her learning disabled - but with the hope or expectation that she'd outgrow it; an impulsive child with an active imagination that had a rebellious streak. Thankfully I was receptive to the school's suggestions and I followed through with them instead of ignoring them as 'unqualified'.

As yes - I do advocate for the schools that really do take an interest in their students and care enough about them to bring concerns to the parents. Look at some of the garbage that goes on in many of our public schools - teachers who don't give a damn about the students - but by God they had better get their raises!! ! If it were not for the school system and their consistent help, support and advocacy for my child (and mine is not the only one) - my child would not be the well adjusted, talented honor student that she is today. I can admit - I could not have done this by myself. Her teachers and the school's support system have played a key role in her development as a student and as an individual that I am totslly and unabashedly proud of. Her doctor probably would never have known she had a reason to look closer at my daughter had the school not suggested it.

So you can take you misguided assumptions about my demeanor or the offensiveness you perceive and file them away as a reference to look at when you respond to someone. Now - I'll give you a clue - this was meant sound like you will be taking it. Seriously.

Nice euphemism. And who is being negative here?

To the OP and mods: Apologies this thread has devolved to the point it has.

Oncebitten, for the record, I would say that DenvrDave is not known to post with an abrasive style. He is currently justifiably upset with the school system and if that comes through, well, I think we can give him a little leeway right now, given what is going on with his child.

As for school v. medical ... it so totally depends. I happen to have received what I instinctively felt was an accurate assessement from my son's school (even they will say it isn't a diagnosis - that is a medical term) and was comfortable leaving it at that. But I've been on these boards long enough to know that my experience is NOT the norm. The reality is that the level of expertise and ability in a school special ed department varies so much - as does the staffing level (I can't imagine having 5 specialists per school - we only get fractions and then not in all disciplines) - that there is no blanket statement that can be made. And what the schools require to get an AS IEP in place varies just as much. All any of us can talk about here is our personal experience, and none of us can make a generalization that will accurately extend into a different school district. As long as we all post keeping that in mind, we should be fine.

Last edited by DW_a_mom on 11 Mar 2010, 1:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

IF the treatment being proposed for the possible ADD is medication, I would postpone the treatment and look into AS first. Medication for ADD looses effectiveness over time and may have no positive effect at all on an AS child. AS can easilly appear as ADD, so I think you do want to know which is which. As an overly broad generalization, ADD is something that will keep your child distracted no matter where and when he is trying to focus, while AS is more likely to interfere with focus due to external matters. I have a daughter who is probably ADD and a son who is AS. Both have trouble staying on task at school. Put my son in the right environment and with a little motivation, and he'll stay on task really well. My daughter, however, struggles no matter where she is and no matter what the task. Reminding my daughter to stay on task is really helpful to her; with my son, it just sets him off further. Different causes = different protocols for solving.

Velmom- I believe that ADD can accompany a diagnosis of Asperger's. It sounds like you already have the school working with your son, so it is probably just up to you if you would like to pursue a further diagnosis. Your son's lack of socializing with his peers and his intense special interests may indicate ASD, however I am not a doctor, so I can't know for sure. Regardless if he is diagnosed with ASD or not, the school will be working on the same things with him.
However, if he does have the diagnosis of ASD, it may make them understand better what they are dealing with.

I think each of us has had our own experiences with pediatricians, therapists and educators. Even though a doctor may be qualified to diagnose, in my personal experience, the therapists and teachers have helped my son way more than his doctor has. Unless you are going to a doctor that has alot of experience with autism, I think the therapists and educators have more experience in treating it, since this is what they deal with all of the time.

You may want to be a little careful about this. If he has Asperger's, he's likely to learn the responses by rote rather than having a true social understanding of the situation, and that may result in responses inappropriate for the specific situation. That could result in teasing escalating to physical fighting.

Does the teasing bother him? If not, freezing up may not be all that bad a solution.

A couple things to add:

Yes, ADD and AS can co-exist. But AS can also be miss-diagnosed as ADD. Just something to be aware of.

Our school was sorely lacking on the playground supervision, as well, and it was greatly improved by drawing in parent volunteers. The parents generally run games and other group activities, leaving the teacher supervisors open to deal with the complicated problems. With more kids choosing to join the group activities, discipline issues went way down. It may be something to lobby for.

I guess I am one of te lucky ones - the schools have been a tremendous asset in my daughter's life and education.

With that said ---- I NEVER stated that a teacher could diagnose a specific problem like a doctor can. Perhaps my comments were taken wrong or I did not make it clear enough to be understood. Teachers can and do make observations that even we, the parents, can miss or simply overlook. They can and do make suggestions - I think the definition of suggestion and the definition of daignosis can be found in any common dictionary and both mean entirely different things. A school or teacher that shows enough interest or concern for a child shouldn't be written off like they're some whack-jobs with nothing better to do than worry a parent or single out a child for mental experimentation. The fact that they reached out to a parent is what they are supposed to do.

My beliefs may be screwed up as far as some of the others here are concerned, but my kids spend a good portion of their days in school, a good portion of the year in school. Because they spend so much time there in an environment that is meant for instruction and socialization, the adults they spend so much of their time with have an impact upon their lives. What goes on in school can influence them in ways that can have an effect on them throughout their lives. Especially in the younger years. Due to this fact - I do make it a point to be involved, to know what is going on at the school and to be open to what their teachers have to say to me as well as letting them know what I expect from them regarding my children. I insist on it. I am truly sorry for parents that have had bad experiences, especially knowing that the vast majority of us (here) see our children as a precious commodity that is unique and we want and expect the best that we can give them.

Maybe the relationship I have been blessed with in our school system is rare, my kids' teachers (and even their bus driver) call me when anything is going on. I know from speaking to them that there are many - many parents that just don't care, don't want to hear it, refuse to believe what they are being told or find some reason to excuse what is going on. Whatever the reasons - when a teacher knows they have a parent that is concerned, they will reach out. I'm sorry when this does not happen, but not all teachers are like that.

Don't ignore concerns brought up by your child's teacher. They may be nothing or they may be something. But the very least a person can do for their child is to take a closer look and follow it up if they feel the concerns have merit. I stated that if this is the case - the next step would be the doctor. As I said - I had no intenton of offending anyone.

I was one of the lucky ones, too. When my son was in elementary school. Middle School ... not the same.

I, too, believe in using the entire team and I've always valued the input. But I believed in that more strongly when my child was in a lovely small elementary school where it was clear they knew and understood him. With the middle school, it seems they barely know his name, much less anything about him. Some really try, others say they will and don't, and others ... well, maybe shouldn't be teaching. It gets harder to remember how well things can go when the teachers know and care. I'm not a combative parent - I know they have a hard job - and I've chaulked up a lot of my issues with middle school to sheer size. But it doesn't change the fact that the experience is so different, it definitely changes ones views.

I've always been super involved in the school and that does help, but that tool drifts off with middle school, too. Half of what I gained from being involved was the ability to run interference with the bullies. In middle school, the way you volunteer is different, and there is much less connection with teachers and students. Not to mention, if I tried to run interference with the bullies now, he'd become a bigger target.

Anyway, discussion is good. Often threads here run off in tangents and hopefully the OP will understand that, while the tangent doesn't help her, it can help the community. Sometimes we need to disagree because, well, disagreement is real.

Last edited by DW_a_mom on 12 Mar 2010, 2:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.