PE in elementary school could be culprit of "bad"

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My 5 year old is currently in Kindergarten and has classic ASD and is HFA. He is mainstreamed in a class of around 20-21 students and has been doing better with listening and following directions. He has an IEP for speech alone because his school didn't put his medical diagnosis in his IEP (but that's a whole other story that we still need to work on getting fixed) and they developed a behavior intervention plan during the IEP meeting. His teacher has told me that he has been doing a lot better ever since I started volunteering every now and then in his classroom and since we started working on his writing skills at home. He has been coming home with great days where he has done awesome but then there are the days where he has PE and I've noticed that his behavior after PE is a lot different. Last week after PE he has been disruptive, on his chart the PE teacher also wrote that he was going the wrong direction on the track and he got in trouble for that. Needless to say, the rest of the day was just not a good day. Then today they had an hour extra of PE and his classroom teacher wrote on his chart that he has not been listening at all. So, I wonder if I can ask about this at the school or if this is just a far stretch as far as his behavior goes? I just have a feeling (although I've never met his PE teacher) that she sounds and seems like a bully. My son isn't very athletic and rather clumsy (he gets it from my DH) and finds it difficult to understand the games they do at PE.

Does anyone have any input? TIA!

[sarcasm]
I think the teacher is prejudiced against kids who don't listen and who do things wrong. I mean, why are some teachers so bloody insistent on correct behavior and having their student listen to them? I think that if one child out of 50 is disruptive, then the entire class should be made to accommodate the one child instead of forcing the one child to endure the emotional trauma of being corrected and made to conform. It's only fair, right?
[/sarcasm]

I was sorta the same way in PE. Honestly, I'd say to try to get him pulled out of PE, but don't withdraw him entirely. See if you can replace his PE with some other kind of activity. Right now, I know girls who figure skate, and usually, they're in high school, mind you, the school lets them out early to pursue their skating practice. The only requirement for PE is you basically show physical activity, some girls also home school, too, and their PE is their skating practice. But as far as I know, in most states, legally the only thing PE class has to do is make sure the kids are active. In high school, at least here, generally PE and health class are combined at least in name, but in practice, different people teach both, they just didn't want to have separate periods for it. Yeah, you can't really have your super amped jock gym teacher talking to kids about sex ed, you know?

So what I'd do, the problem likely isn't going to make itself go away, and I remember for the most part in gym class, it was an extreme case of anxiety unless it happened to be the few sports I was good at. So what I'd recommend is, if your boy can find an athletic sorta special interest, and you can work with the school to count it as PE in a Special Ed plan, go for that if you have the money to do so. If not, at least when I was in public school, there was special ed one on one gym. It's kinda tough to decide on what you want, either way he's going to get stigmatized. On one hand, kids are gonna laugh at him for sucking in gym class and getting disoriented and all that. On the other, they'll think he's dumb for needing special ed gym class. I'd lean more toward the special ed gym class on this, though. Special Ed gym class, they'll do it individually with your child, and if not individually, they'll be with a few other special ed kids. Yeah, now that I remember, I was in special ed gym class for 8th grade, with a few kids with ADD/etc. It was very much easier for me, and didn't cause the social havoc and stress normal gym class caused me.

So that's my suggestion. If you can find your kid some activity he'd like to do that you can work out a deal with the school to fulfill his PE requirements, that'd be the most ideal thing to do, but it'd require more work on your end, to commute him during school hours to practice or whatever. But it's a win win, socially, he's doing even better, as he gets to practice a sport seriously while the other kids play kickball with each other. Also, it's entirely possible he'll like his sport he finds and be super duper good at it and be a national champion/Olympian/etc, you never know 'til you try with that sort of thing. But, since that might not be a realistic option, I'd say get him put in special ed gym class. Otherwise, in regular gym class, he's going to have to just sink or swim, and I don't know if you want to really risk your child with it. Regardless of what happens in that class, yeah, he'll get "stronger" but it might come at the cost of psychological problems later in life. For a long time, I hated physical activity mostly because of gym class, and my health deteriorated, and it's only now that I've gotten myself back into doing physical stuff, and I love it and am quite good at my sporting "special interests."

Then again, he might "come around" to swing of regular gym class in a couple months/weeks, you don't really know.

Fnord, what gives? Why the sarcasm directed at this particular post?

Anyway, Momofboys, it would be worth talking with the PE teacher and getting her perspective. It is quite possible she doesn't know of or doens't get his diagnosis at all and if you asked her to be a little more explicit in her instructions, maybe giving your son a little more help in how to do things, the whole situation could be improved. Several folks here have found that PE is pretty difficult for their kids though. Maybe they would let him do something else during that time. How much is he really getting out of PE anyway? Recess has been a big FAIL for my kindergartener this year so he spends about 1/2 of the recess times inside on the computer. Nobody gets bit and he is calmer and happier for it.

PE is probably overstimulating for him.

PE is the hardest part of my kiddo's day as well. It is a compilation of everything he has a hard time with: Mimicking movements, listening for direction, gross motor planning, and sensory overload. He participates for half the time with an aide helping when needed and is allowed half the time to use as his "down time." It is not fair for him to get in trouble for something he has little control over.

Thanks everyone for your input. SC, I think you hit the nail on the head. We are going to observe him during PE on Friday and see how he is doing.
The problem with his school is that during the IEP meeting they basically ignored his medical diagnosis of ASD that also includes SPD, and hypotonia. His psychologist at the autism center we go to told us to make sure to request to get that fixed and put in his IEP so he will be able to receive autism services through the school district as well. If not, she told us to request for them to test him but we will see how far we will be able to get there. The waitlist through the autism center is long and he won't be able to get that done until next summer so we hope the school district will be helpful. I will just have to go through the higher channels rather than directly through the school.

My son also told me that his PE teacher is not nice. I'm not sure what to think about that because he loves his classroom teacher and teachers assistant as well as his art and music teacher. I'm just starting to think that perhaps the PE teacher is a little bit of a bully but this is just a mama bear talking.

My son's behavior in the classroom has improved a lot though and he usually has great days. It's just days when he has PE that it seems that he is disruptive. The PE teacher gets mad at him or says something and it really affects my son's mood/behavior because he is sensitive to that.

Is he clumsy and hypotonic enough that you could ask for him to be evaluated for Adaptive PE (APE)? Did the school evaluate him for OT? If not, I would ask for that evaluation, too.

I would definitely start by observing PE and talking with the PE teacher. Next, point out the patteren to the general ed teacher, and see if she has any ideas.

Do you have an advocate helping with your IEP's? It might be time to get one. We have one who isn't an attorney (she calls herself an educational consultant) who charges $50/hr -- much less than an attorney. An advocate can help you get the services you need, or let you know when it's time to take your case to mediation and/or due process.

I would definitely talk to the PE teacher...but I also think that, if she is not sympathetic to your son's needs, it might be beneficial to have your son's main teacher talk to her about the little accommodations that have been made for him that have really improved his behaviour. It might have more weight coming from another professional rather than mama bear!

I hated PE as a child....I always got picked last for games and I just could never do anything right. Also I think every PE teacher was as abusive to me as the kids were. In middle school I had this female PE teacher and she had her little "pets", all the girls who were good in sports. She would encourage the other kids to laugh at me in class when I couldnt do something. My family were into playing sports, my brothers were football and track stars. I played volleyball and my PE teacher was my coach. She would only put me in to serve because I could do that but was afraid of the ball coming at me and would duck instead of hitting it. At the end of the year she refused to let me be in the school picture with the rest of the team because she said I did not show up to practice (I showed up to ALL practices) and that I was not at all the games...again this was a lie. She laughed at me, along with all the other girls when I tried to argue and told me to take off my uniform because i was not part of the team. I cried for about a half hour in the locker room and then shoved my uniform in the garbage can next to her desk. My Mom was furious because she was the one that picked me up and took me to the games, she knew I went to practice and was at all the games but it was too late, I was not in the picture. It hurt me because I really didnt want to do it and mainly did it for my family, and I worked really hard. It was like I was finally good at one thing (serving the ball) but then I was mocked and laughed at and excluded anyway. Going to PE made me sick to my stomach and soured me to sports in general. Im fortunate that I found Kung Fu when I was older, that was something I enjoyed and no one cut me down even when I did not look so graceful doing forms.

I refused to participate in PE until like 4th grade. I was always "scorekeeper" or "teacher's helper" or something. I got decent grades... the problem was that I was so uncoordinated and in such sensory overload that I couldn't do what was required of me. There were a few games I would play (we played bean bag toe tag, where we'd slide bean bags across the gym and if your toe got hit, you were out. loved that!)... but any organized sports were too much for me.

I forgot to mention that my son does have an official diagnosis besides ASD for SPD, hypotonia, and a developmental coordination delay but none of that were mentioned (other than mom thinks he may be autistic even after having the original copy of the official medical diagnosis right there on their table) during the IEP meeting. Thanks everyone for your input. We are definitely not done with this! Instead of going through the speech and special ed teacher I will write a letter directly to the principal or perhaps the special education department of the district.

IMPORTANT POINT: if you haven't formally requested that your son's IEP or 504 or status be shared with anyone who wasn't at the meeting, it won't be. It doesn't matter if there are accommodations that can't happen if the teachers don't know about it. They should have explained this to you: it's a breach of confidentiality if they share your son's diagnosis or status with someone outside of the IEP team, and they either have to invite the person to join the team, or to get documented permission from you to share the diagnosis.

We found this out the hard way during PE as well - the poor PE teacher was totally clueless as to why my otherwise totally normal-looking boy exploded into a fit of cursing and screaming one day. We were lucky, she is an excellent teacher, and she handled it as best she could, but our assumption that she would know what to do because there was a 504 in place allowing him to take breaks - well, you know what they say about assumptions.

Adaptive PE is a standard accommodation for kids on the spectrum. Beyond sensory issues, there are all kinds of social issues that present challenges to our kids. My son can handle any single one of these things on a given day, but many days he sits out of gym because he can't do all of them at once.