Advertising Your Kid's Diagnosis

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As someone who works with children with autism and other learning difficulties, any information we can have from the parents in regards to behaviour management is really useful. It doesn't have to be "my child has this diagnosis" because that's not really very helpful, but saying "my child may sometimes do this, and this is how we deal with it" is. You don't necessarily have to make a big deal of it, but it might help your daughter be treated fairly if people aren't assuming she's naughty/difficult etc but know how to deal with her behaviour.

I wonder the same thing!

hi mljt

I have no problem with telling teachers about a diagnosis...the biggest problem with me is she is almost always fantastic at home. She helps with chores, she dotes on me if I don't feel well, she listens when I say no (most of the time anyhow), and I feel very blessed to have her as my child. The difficulty comes in when she goes to school. I get these reports of wierd behaviours I don't see at home, it has made my work life very difficult because they sent her home so many times, not to mention the extra financial burden because of her suspensions I would have to find someone to watch her (she is 6 years old). When I get feedback from the teachers it has basically been whining..oh your kid did this and this and this...so I say well what happened before she did whatever? They answer nothing they saw would have set it off. So then when she started this last new year I didn't know what to tell the teachers. The teacher this year gave me no more assistance to bring to her new school as to what exactly she has the biggest trouble with. These reports have made me observe her almost constantly and while there are some things...I have now become so confused as to what is normal for a kid her age and what is abnormal I can't determine what the hell bothers her so much. So when the new principal, asks me what her triggers are I am sort of guessing at things I see that bother her but not to any serious extent. I ask her but she doens't understand what puts her in a bad mood, she is finally giving me some clues, but she won't come home and tell me what she did at school, she more will blurt out something if she sees something related to an activity. I want her to tell me when she fights with a friend, or if she did something she was not supposed to, or especially if the teacher was frustrated with her. She talks all the time but doesn't go into events of the day and sometimes I get overly anxious about it. I get anxious because (if you see before) I thought daycare was fine for 2 years and then suddenly it wasn't and I had to make other arrangements quickly and it forced me us in a direction we weren't ready for.

You need to insist that they do a functional behavior analysis on your daughter. A trained observer will go in the room and identify what the triggers are for your daughter's behavior. That should help you all figure out how best to help her adjust and maintain her behavior in class.

My AS child is in fourth grade, and on an IEP related to the DX. So his school/teachers know. A private after-school program my kids attend asks to have the IEP (if any) of my kids, (which since they do special things for my son to make their program work for him, is more than reasonable!) so they know.

Everyone else, I tell on an as-needed basis. I try to be around for any extracurricular activity (especially in the early going) so I can observe my child's behavior myself, and intervene (if possible) or decide if I need to share information about him based on what I see happening. His piano teacher knows now (wonderful person, suggested very tactfully to me after a few months of teaching my son that I might want to seek a DX of ADHD for him, and I shared back that actually, it's AS). On the other hand, my son has done town sports programs for years and I never shared the DX with his coaches or the league (parent or high school volunteers, typically) because he does well enough to be accepted by his teammates socially, and contribute to his team's success.