How do I show them my Asperger's son is not being "Rude

Post Reply New Topic

Found a note from my son's speech therapist that reads the following-

He has been working on "RUDE" behaviors- not looking at conversation partner, interrupting, personal space invasion, using voices.

I don't know if I was meant to see this note. I wrote an email to the school explaining that because my son doesn't look at people in the face doesn't make him rude. I also explained that he doesn't mean to interrupt people but he does if they make a mistake or do something wrong, that he doesn't mean to touch other people but when he is over stimulated he does and that if it is to loud he will make noises to cover up those other noises. I received a email back from the school telling me his behaviors are "RUDE" and that I shouldn't blame all of his issues on Autism.

I guess I am just wanting to know how to show the school that he isn't rude he is Autistic. He is very intelligent and at the age of 11 he has a 9 grade reading level, he has terrible social skills and have very few friends. My biggest concern this year is that he is being bullied sadly I feel it is coming from some of the teaching staff as well. Any suggestions on how to get the school to see my son not as typical but as a child who in fact is Autistic? I have a meeting this week with the school because I realized they were not following his IEP and also had been sticking him in the hallway by himself for weeks knowing he is a flight risk. His grades this year have dropped so bad he received 2 F's and 2 D's which he has never gotten before.

My son said to me recently- "You have no idea how horrifying it is to go there everyday!" How heartbreaking!

Thanks
Kristie

Just because he is autistic doesn't mean he can't learn appropriate behavior. What's wrong with teaching him? Rude is rude. It can be done unintentionally and intentionally. Can they teach him other strategies to avoid him doing such behaviors? As a parent, you need to figure out what is causing the behavior and do something about it to prevent that behavior from happening. Like if he is being over stimulated, can something be done to avoid him from being over stimulated, if he is touching other kids or using voices, can they do something to stop the stimulation like remove him from the situation and bring him to a safe room or something? Also I am sure he can learn to remove himself from situations and should be allowed to to avoid such behavior. Autistic people learn different coping mechanism as they get older so they may not be going around touching others or using voices when they are an adult. However I do agree that it was ignorant on their part for thinking you shouldn't blame all his issues on autism. They probably don't believe he is doing those things because he is autistic and they just see it as a behavior issue.

Sadly schools try to find short cuts and parents have to fight with their child's school to follow their IEP. Mine had to do the same and I was also seen as a behavior issue when it was the anxiety I was dealing with and other stuff. Now my oping mechanism is avoiding situations that trigger it but if I can't avoid it, then I am screwed and that be school if I went. My psychologist even had to go to my school to set them straight in my last year I was in elementary school. They were going to put me in a class with kids with behavior issues and it was just that one teacher that wanted to do it. It seems like the other staff followed. Maybe you need you son's therapist (does he have one he sees) to go to his school to explain autism to them. My parents also asked me to be video taped in class when the teacher claimed I was being disrespectful and also when I said other kids were allowed to misbehave and I was not so perhaps you can also do the same for your son to see how the staff treats him but of course they can just put on an act but at least it would keep them from treating him bad if your suspicions are correct. .

My heart goes out to you and him. Take him out of school immediately. I'm guessing you live in a country were homeschooling is a legal option?

I went through that with my son - diagnosed at age 12, very self-aware and analytical, school was a nightmare where he tried to get himself out of situations that caused him pain but sometimes wasn't able to, then had meltdowns. His health was bad because he just couldn't take it.

At age 13, after another communication breakdown between the headteacher, a math teacher, the (quite clueless) special needs coordinator, and me, he finally decided it was all too much and refused to go back, and I decided to try homeschooling.

After a year of getting over the pain and the feelings of inferiority, my son is now curious and peaceful, researching absolutely EVERYTHING without being prompted and can't stop himself from learning. He tends to make things difficult for himself by trying to do everything, without (of course) doing any sort of structured learning - but at least he has the option to try things his own way. He still hates people and is a complete recluse, and that's ok too.

I so wish I had taken him out of school years ago. But we can't change the past.

hmmmm....short on time, so I have to be brief.

I see two things: I would tell the school not to push the issue of eye contact. Many people with autism cannot process other information as well when they are forced to make eye contact. As one person told me "I can either listen to you, or look at you, but not both at the same time."

Regarding interrupting and understanding personal space...While I would encourage them to label the behaviors--and not your son--as rude, if they can help him to learn not to do this, I think it would be beneficial overall.

My son is near the age of your son, and we finally had to tackle socially inappropriate behaviors head on. We had to stop tip-toeing around them (not saying you are doing that, but we were) and call them what they were: socially inappropriate. While I initially thought this would be damaging to my son's self-esteem and sense of self, it actually left him feeling more empowered because he finally started to understand what he was doing that was making him such a target for teasing and bullying. He has been able to learn to modify his behavior and it has been very helpful for him.

Also consider that if the note was not meant for you, it might have been written in a more "shorthand" kind of way...perhaps the person who was to be receiving the note had already had a conversation with the speech therapist and knew the background. IOW, I could see myself writing a similar note in a hurry, even though I realize the kid is not being rude, ykwim? I mean, the behaviors are perceived as "rude." And it appears--through your son's comment--that he is struggling socially, so it would be negligent of them not to do anything to help him IMHO. I guess the best thing to do would be to ask the speech therapist to explain her thoughts on your son in a non-confrontational way.

This part here tells me they do not get it. I do not understand how they think eye contact issues etc. are not related to autism. If the speech teacher does not get it (They should be trained to deal with communication issues) I do not even know what to say. They are usually the more informed ones.

I would try to find out the best you can from your son all of what is making him miserable at the school and address it. You may need to bring an expert on your side to the meeting (Can you get access to a local advocacy agency for guidance?) to help you. They sound very uninformed.

Welcome to WP! It sounds like a tough situation but if he is getting speech therapy, at least the school is doing something so perhaps you have something to work with. My personal tactic is to be involved at the school as much as possible. Whether the classroom teacher likes it or not, I come into the classroom EVERY day. Of course my son is in 1st grade and this is probably much more "acceptable" at this age. Still, for you, get in there and make sure they are following the IEP. I highly recommend finding/hiring an advocate. Our situation has improved significantly since I got an advocate involved. Ours has been at no cost to us, she works for a non-profit that helps families with kids with disabilities. Request regular home-school communication. The bullying has to stop. For that to happen, you are probably going to have to get some understanding of the specifics, who, what, when... The school isn't likely to do much in response to a general statement that he is being bullied. If you can give specific situations where is most often happens, you can get them to target those areas.

As far as the note about "RUDE" behaviors; that is an unprofessional term to use however it may not be intended as insulting (I should hope it is not, anyway). As League Girl said, rude is rude and the skills listed that they said he has been working on are ones that he needs to be working on. Perhaps the suggestion to the school staff is that they use more sensitive language, I mean these kids aren't dummies, if the teachers use derogatory terms to talk about students, the students will pick up on it. I would be interested in what curriculum they are working on in speech therapy. Michelle Garcia Winner's approach is becoming the gold standard http://www.socialthinking.com/ and she purposefully has built her system to avoid using words with such negative connotations.

It sounds like the school is not doing its job. IMHO one of the jobs as a parent of a special needs kid is to make sure that the school is doing its job. It is HARD and time consuming work but if we don't become and remain active members of the IEP teams, we won't have much influence.

On the other hand, there are a good number of folks here who have said *&ck it to the public school system and are home-schooling their kids. For some that is the best option and if you have questions about that, there are plenty of folks here who can tell you about their experiences.

Hi, My heart goes out to you and your son. I just wanted to say that your post makes me think that the staff simply don't understand autism. It's going to be a matter of educating them as well as helping your son with the behaviour which is being regarded as rude.

I've had similar issues with my daughter's school, in relation to her being 'lazy' - she's not lazy, she has significant concentration difficulties. I wrote a stern response to her additional needs plan, basically stating that they need to keep their end of the bargain, if they want her issues to improve. My daughter has said that things have been better since then. The teachers are praising her for her efforts, instead of constantly telling her to hurry up and threatening her that she won't get out to play, if she doesn't finish her work. She's getting more done, as a result.

Good luck

I believe the OP, like any caring parent, is constantly teaching her son. However, it can take a long time to teach some children things which we regard as good manners, etc, especially those on the spectrum. Meanwhile, she needs the teachers to accept that his behaviour is not intentional rudeness, it's just part of his autism. I expect she would want the teachers to help with her teaching and not just disregard the behaviour as insolence.

My own daughter was about 5yrs old before she learned to say 'Please' and 'Thank you', despite me leading by example and explaining over and over why she had to do this. No matter what I did or said, it had no impact on her, until she was ready. She's very polite these days, she not a rude child at all, but her autism meant she found this difficult to pick up.

the term they used was inappropriate. They coud have said that the behaviors they are targeting will help increase his social skills, his communicative skills, etc...Id be awful annoyed if someone said my son was rude. His behaviors may APPEAR rude to those who are ignorant about ASD, but they are normal behaviors for ASD people, and he needs to learn waht works in the NT world. Professionals shouw have worded that more...well, professional!

It sounds like they are being very unproffessional, they could have dealt with the situation better I think. I would be seriously considering changing school or as previously mentioned home schooling if possible, as he is finding it unbearable

Hope you can get something sorted to make him happy.

Do you have access to any outside help? Schools often respond better when you call a meeting and bring an advocate who understands autism. Usually most autism service providers can come with you; see what your health insurance will cover.

I am concerned, I think like you, that this characterization of this behavior is leading them to correct him instead of being proactive and teaching him appropriate replacement behaviors.

They may know that it's the AS that causes him to have more trouble than other kids at controlling those behaviors, however those behaviors are still perceived as rude by other people. I'm not saying that people shouldn't be somewhat tolerant of that stuff when they know he has AS, they should. The problem comes about when he's interacting with others who don't know he has it, or just meets someone

The problem is, those behaviors are still considered rude in this society. He needs to learn to function in our society, so he needs to know that while he may not be trying to be rude to someone, they are going to perceive it as rude. He needs to know that people consider certain things rude, so he knows why he is being taught to control them and even needs to control them to begin with. By knowing that people consider certain things rude, he will know to try not to do it, and if he accidentally does it, he can say "Oh, sorry".

They aren't calling him rude, they are calling the behaviors rude. Even if a person doesn't mean to commit a rude behavior, the behavior is still rude. An example would be a person who has a medical condition that causes a lot of lower abdominal gas and very little ability to control the passing of it. They wouldn't be being rude if they passed gas while sitting next to you on the bus, but the behavior of passing gas in public is rude. To show that they weren't being rude, they would turn to you and say "Sorry, it's the <whatever condition>, I can't help it."

Not interrupting is something I have a horrible time with. I struggle very hard not to do it, so I get furious when people do it to me. I do understand how AS can make it hard to not do certain things that are considered rude, even if I don't mean them rude, but I'm glad that I was taught that people think it's rude or else I'd still do it all the time. People wouldn't want to be around me because they couldn't finish a sentence. You'll be doing your son a favor by explaining to him that people think certain things are rude, even if he doesn't mean them that way, because that's the first step in his learning to control it somewhat. It would be a disservice to your son for him to end up without friends because they didn't like some of his behaviors that he wasn't told why to stop or that he should stop.

Just realized, I can recommend a book! The Blue Bottle Mystery by Kathy Hoopman (who wrote All Cats Have Asperger's Syndrome) shows the perspective of a child with AS. It's written for about 3rd graders, I would guess, but I learned an awful lot from it.

There's a great but somewhat painful scene in the book where the poor child is answering the teacher's rhetorical statements literally, and the teacher finally blows up at him. You see it from his perspective of being completely bewildered by the whole thing. I've found this to be a helpful way for people to understand just how disconnected DS is from the social world.

Did they say he was rude or he was displaying rude behaviors? There's a huge difference.

Those behaviors are rude, and they need to be addressed because your son probably wants friends.

Eye contact is hard for aspies. I know a few people who can do it though with practice.

The other conversation behaviors are things people with AS struggle with, but they are so essential to functioning in society. I think they need to be addressed head on.

This sounds like what happened to me in 7th grade in 1971. One of my teachers I think did not like me and wrote bad things about me to the principal and my parents and when they went to find out what was wrong the principal just "blew them off".

It seems that you and the speech therapist have to pick your battles. They should work on him not doing the touching people and he should be allowed to avoid loud places, but in an overcrowded school that may be impossible. The eye contact they can work on later.

Home school was not possible back then but it could help now. At least he would not have to deal with the crowds.

If your school system is not cooperative with you now, long term it may be time to call a real estate agent. That is, if they don't cooperate now they never will about anything and if they are leaving him in a hallway, they don't care if he learns anything. As expensive and disruptive as it is, at some point you may have to face the fact that you are in a crummy school district and have to move to a better one. Later on, your son might thank you for recieving a better education and when it comes time to retire and sell, you will have property value. I think it helps to take a long view on this, I wish my parents had.

I read this really differently. Of course you know the situation far better than I do, but here's how I read your post. The therapist was telling you that the behaviors they are working on are generally considered to be rude. Since he/she used quotation marks ("rude" vs rude) he/she is acknowledging that your child is not intending rudeness, but is using the term for lack of better terminology, or maybe just as a shortcut. If he/she thought your child were actually being rude, there would not be quotations.