my son's teacher believes he could be AS ....I'm not so sure

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Hi There!
Well i'm a little concerned with the fact that my son's teacher believes he's AS. My son has an evaluation scheduled later this week but I figured I would give you guys some info and possibly get some opinions as well.

I have a nine year old son who does pretty well in school. He seems like the rest of the kids and doesn't seem AS to me. I've had friends who were AS and I just see a huge dif in him. Are there kids with AS who don't seem different? Her reasonings are that my son has problems yelling out answers in class and following directions. He's also a bit socially akward and expects everyone to play by the rules and get's upset easily if they don't. That's probably the most prevalent concern that I have. He doesn't seem to make friends as easily as the rest of kids but he has a good group of friends. I also just read that people with AS have ocd type issues. My son use to have a problem with constantly rubbing his lips. He would rub them till they became red and inflamed. He felt that he had to lick them. At the time I thought it was him having dry lips, but now i'm questioning that. He also will occasionally "twitch" his nose as well. He will also say "um" alot....while reading in school, but weirdly enough that's only at school?

Three days ago I was sitting in the car and my son states "i'm parched can i have some water" i told him to say drink that it's normal for his age...He always uses words that are unnecessary ....I just read that it's typical for kids with AS to do this....He quotes funny things on tv and loves them and get's the funny part of it...so idk

What i;'m not sure is if the teachers taking my son's past in to consideration...he witnessed a very bad thing a few years back and it did affect him....idk what do you all think

To WrongPlanet!! !

You might want to make more observations before calling this random bag of idiosyncrasies Asperger's. Why can't kids be a little different without some expert telling them they have a mental illness/cognitive dysfunction these days? Some kids have little tics and deficits in their motor skills but they grow out of it. And just because he's inflexible and can't see someone else's point of view at times... well, that just sounds like a typical kid. Many of our kids fall short of that kind, considerate, clean, charming, quiet ideal -- that doesn't mean we should broaden the autistic spectrum so they can all fall into it.

You might also want to see if that teacher might have some kind of agenda in wanting this diagnosis. A public school gets extra funding for every special education case they get. Inner-city (read: poor) school districts have higher populations of students with ADD, ADHD, autism and learning disabilities that suburban ones. I speculate that other than some socio-economic factors there must be some financial incentive for why this is so.

He sounds like me at that age - but if he witnessed something very bad, it could also easily be an expression of PTSD.
What's wrong with parched? If the word fits the situation, you should be happy he has a grasp on vocabulary, as long as he's not doing it to make you feel inferior. Which I doubt he's doing.

...and Asperger's may just be the term that teacher is most familiar with - given the relatively mild effects he is exhibiting, he might be considered as PDD-NOS as a diagnosis, or BAP (Broader Autism Phenotype) or another generalized term to define the characteristics in the absence of making a formal diagnosis. It's worth getting the information; based on what I have read here and elsewhere however, I would caution strongly against ever making the diagnosis into a set of limitations because shedding those preconceptions of the self are extraordinarily hard... and I believe even moreso for those on the spectrum as those are learned structures instead of automatic responses.


M.

Why? Because he might be smarter than his peers? AS is not a disease, its merely a neurological difference. He won't grow a hump, or a third eye, or antennae if he's diagnosed. Well, at least I didn't.

Sounds mild, but there. I love the parched thing.

I DID. I GREW ALL THOSE THINGS. AND I DON'T APPRECIATE YOU MAKING FUN OF MAH DEFORMITIES

I am not sure, but he just sounds like a very intelligent kid that might have a few nervous habits and maybe some control issues. I would schedule a meeting with the teacher to go into more details as to why she thinks it is AS. It sounds like he has friends, and doesn't have any communication issues. Does he have any obsessive special interests? What about his motor skills? Is he clumsy or does he have trouble writing?

I would keep an open mind, and not worry too much, because it sounds like your son is doing just fine!

Good luck!

If the school is willing to do the evaluation, your son has no objections, and there is no cost ... why not? AS is one of those things that is very hard to diagnose without a full process by a professional, and I would prefer that teachers send in kids who turn out to be fully normal for assessment, than miss those who needed it. There is no way to say at this point if your son is on the spectrum, and the teacher isn't making a conclusion, either - it sounds to me like she is simply saying, "it's possible, so let's find out." So that is what I would do - find out. Or, at least, find out what this one assessment team thinks (AS isn't an exact diagnosis no matter who is doing it). Unless your son has difficulty with a process that can be personal and a bit invasive, you will get valuable information from the process that alone will make it worth it, regardless of the outcome.

In my experience, most public schools avoid special ed kids like the plague. The costs outweigh any extra funding. Are some schools throwing around labels out of ignorance? It happens, particularly with ADHD, where the protocol of choice is to get the family to put the child on meds, and the school pays nothing. But an AS diagnosis is a costly process to engage in ( my son's school spent thousands on it), and a costly education to offer, between the services, aids and other accommodations that are common.

One reason not to get diagnosed is that having a diagnosis can have ramifications later. I've noticed that, for example, the employment forum on this site contains lots of stories about how no one ever gets hired if they reveal that they have an Asperger's diagnosis on their application. They get hired at reasonable rates otherwise. You can refrain from mentioning the diagnosis on your application, of course, but a lot of people on that forum feel that's dishonest.

In an ideal world that wouldn't be an issue, but in the real world, it is. In my opinion, unless there is a problem and you need a diagnosis to get help, it's better to stay undiagnosed.

It definitely sounds like he has some aspie traits. I have many aspie traits, but I'm not on the spectrum. If these traits are effecting his schooling, as the teacher appears to think they might?, an evaluation might be useful.

You mentioned he witnessed something very bad a few years ago, if this was affecting his behavior now, I would expect to see different types of behaviors to the ones you describe. So at face value, I'm not inclined to think that is related.

All the best!

Yes, there is that issue. I guess I'm assuming that the school would provide a school use only diagnosis, which is what my son has. Once he leaves school, the diagnosis has no standing and he can choose to embrace it ... or not. There is nothing official in his medical file.

Ah, thanks. I hadn't realized such diagnoses existed - useful information.

Technically, it isn't a diagnosis at all, given that schools are not qualified to give medical diagnosis. I guess a "tentative evaluation by the IEP team" would be most accurate. But, in our district (and this is NOT true everywhere) it has been enough to get the IEP with all the services and accomodations that befit an Asperger's diagnosis. I've been totally happy with that, but I do know we are lucky to not have had to jump through more hoops.