Problems with School!

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I think the most important thing we do for our AS kids in their early years is pay attention to them, learn how they tick, and what they respond to, and adapt our parenting accordingly. That can and should be done even when you think you have a "normal" child. Since it sounds like you are the type of parent who did this, I don't think you shorted your child in any way.

I am glad to hear you are making progress with the school district. It was disheartening to read your earlier posts, and how little the school seemed willing to recognize your son's needs.

My son is also "mild" Aspergers, but ours is a school diagnosis. It actually started from OT issues, because my son has trouble with his hands. That alone couldn't get him help, but the SST at school went over the list of possible qualifiers for special education under our state rules, selected a few possibilities, and tested for those (at our request, I should note). The results were really interesting. I think the one that struck me the most was the componetized IQ test. Brilliant scores for some components; well belong average on others. Did you ever get to see the components on your son's IQ test? If not, you should ask. Even though my son's "average" score on the IQ test wouldn't have been high enough for GATE (gifted and talented education), we've gotten him GATE qualified now based on the areas he excels.

The thing with our kids, as you recognize, is that their talents will languish unless they can get support for the areas they have trouble with. You can't just hold them back waiting for the weak skills to catch up, because the brilliant parts of their brain desperately need feeding. If the balance is not handled correctly, there is a real risk of them withdrawing and refusing to engage; of giving up.

I hope you get it worked out with your school. If not, don't hestitate to find a better one. Every child can thrive at school, if in the right one.

And I think I should remember to give my thanks to my son's school's amazing resource team more often. Once I brought their attention to my child, they became the most amazing partners. Every child should have dedicated advocates like this. It should be the norm. It's really sad that it isn't.

Last edited by DW_a_mom on 31 Jul 2008, 2:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

He's going to OT 2x a week and skills trainging about everyother week. I do feel like we got a late start not getting him Dx till he was almost 9, and we wasted all of last school year with them not doing a FIE. The good thing is I have always him some kind of extra help and I've worked hard with him since he was 2.

Absolutely I agree,


Your son will do well because he has an available and observant parent.

Ahhh thanks guys, he's my heart and my little hero. His interest is pokemon video games and can tell you anyting you want to know about it. I do wish he showed a little interest in school work, then this wouldn't be so hard for him. I have a feeling most of the school day is head is really in his own little pokemon world.

We go back to the Dr. in the morning I'll let you know if we have any updates.

Oh, no I have never looked at his IQ test, but the school should do a new one soon, so I'll look in to it.

My daughter was on a 504 for much the same reason for the longest time. Now that we are heading into highschool, even though she is gifted, support is needed because she can't meet standards! This was the point I had to make for them to "get" the need.

Here we have a gifted child with Asperger's. She also has ADHD. Depending on the content of her assignments she can either complete them well or not at all. For instance when social content is put into her classwork or homework, or there is an open-enede type of assignment as opposed to one that is more concrete, she can not answer effectively. her answers to such questions would be a one-line concise and literla answer that she can't expound on any further. The standard states that a paragraph answer when asked for, must be 5 sentences long. There are others to note, but to save time, this is just one of them and based on that and graduation requirements I said to them, We have a child who makes straight A's since kindergarden, who won't graduate from high school based on your standards. Ohhhhhh, they said. So now we have an IEP with her gifted needs in it, rather than the Gifted IEP or a 504 with with accomodations.

One of the other big accomodations we need is reduced homework, as she needs downtime at home due to the exhaustion she feels from the social demands of her day. One of her sensitivities is to spoken communication and various types of voices, and a day of listening is also very tiring.

While we work on these things and others, sometimes there is regression for short periods of time as well. It's just how things go.

Emily is college bound too and needs to be able to graduate from high school! So we now have a dual diagnosis.

Also, schools are not equipped in any way to make a diagnosis of Autism or Asperger's, just like they should not diagnose an ear infection or the flu.

Good luck to Emily, I wish our kids didn't have to worry about these state '"test". In Tx. they have to pass them to go on to the next grade, I think if they pass their classes that should be good enough. It's to much for these kids.

It sure is!

School has become test prep! Of course on all those standardized tests she score in the 99th percentile and makes them look good. Wish in return they didn't make it so hard, meet her half way without a big fight.