5 y.o. son just diagnosed with mild Asperger's

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My 3 year old son was just diagnosed with mild Asperger's a few weeks ago, so I definately can relate to what you're going through. Fortunately for us, he is only 3 and has two more years of preschool which our developmental pediatrician thinks will be more than enough time to prepare him for kindergarten. Our mainstream classrooms are all integrated, so that is beneficial as well.

Even though his doctor said that his Asperger's is very mild, she said her report won't state that it's mild because she wants to make sure he receives all of the services he needs, we agree 100%. He is in an integrated preschool class with a special ed teacher for 3 hours a day, 5 days a week. He get's speech 5 days a week and OT 3 days a week. He will also go through the summer. I can't believe the progress he's made in a short time (he started school in October, and his services in January).

I guess it all depends on your school district and making sure the services he needs are available to him. Good luck, I know it's not easy.

This is all so great. I love the idea of having two evaluations, one with "asperger" and one without. I will broach this with my wife and the developmental pediatrician.

As far as I know, the Special ed kids are in the same classroom as everyone else, which is what I would like and think he needs. I worry most about his writing. He is very exact and slow (he'll draw and write his name), and I am sure this will follow to his normal school writing. My other worry is his slight mannorisms that seem odd. We've been calling them tics, but that isn't the right word. For example, I feel that when he is in a situation where he may have some slight anxiety, he will pat his head once and slide his hands down his face. Then touch his feet and slide his hands up to his knees. He does this whole process very quickly, and can do it while moving without it slowing him down much. I noticed it a lot last summer, but he does it much less frequently now. Either he is growing out of it, or the winter clothes preclude the necessity of him doing it, or I am not seeing him in situations where he would do it. I'd hate to have others see him as 'odd' and have him be the target of bullying, but this may just be an unfortunate side-effect of all this. One thing he has going for him is that he is not as sensitive as some of his peers, and can brush off some light teasing. But one thing he has going against him is that he is so tall, that adults and other kids see him as older, and expect more maturity out of him than reasonable. If he has the episodes of not picking up on social cues, or having a tantrum because something isn't "just so", then it is amplified even more.

Speech is no problem as far as I can tell. Sometimes he talks impressively (the little professor talk that some AS kids have), but the rest of the time his speech and vocabulary is on par with his peers.

Everything is going to take time. My son's writing used to be completely illegible and all over the place. He uses his Alpha Smart when writing narratives etc. But when it comes to writing for fun, I can actually read what he has to say now!

And as far as the "tics"..you may eb referring to stims. My son used to bite his shirt collar, sleeves, hum etc. His O.T. had given him a "chew toy" to use at home during homework time. He now just chews gum!

As far as friends, my son used to be off in a corner. But now, everybody is so fascinated by what he has to say. The only thing I have had to him about is making sure he is not talking down to kids like they are dumber than he is. He used to get so frustrated (and still does on occasion) if a kid has no idea what he is talking about.

And kids will always pick on other kids. That's how some kids are! AS or not. Kids picked on kids when I was in school. my son used to be bullied, but never stood for it. He has a smart mouth like me! The bully ended up apologizing and now they are friends.

My son was 10 before we had a "label" and it was a relief to the fact to know he wasn't the only one. He is now 13 and middle school is becoming an issue between social & basic classes. He finds all classes boring - except when the diasected a pig in science class and learned about the heart functions to which he talked to my dad's heart doctor about when my dad was recently in the hospital. (great doc she was to talk to him). The only class he really looks forward to is band. He has an IEP, for which I am starting to think isn't worth much, but it does help some. He is too HF to go to our county's school for the kids who aren't HF or have other serve disablities.
imo, I say go with the "label". It is easier for some educators to see just the name & then you explain. My son sits in with us at the IEP meetings because he tells the teacher what will make it easier for him. We just have to repeat it b/c he is only 13.
Good luck!

We've decided to go with the evaluation w/o the asperger dx. He needs to have a follow up evaluation in 6 months, so we will review it again then. We can always have the eval rewritten.

It's kind of funny, I look at him and say to myself, that's my little asperger boy! I'm looking forward to his OT sessions, and perhaps they give an IQ test at some point?

It's also funny how many things I notice about him, and after some reading find that it is common with AS. For example, when we walk into his pre-K classroom, it is common for him to say something like "wait a minute! That table wasn't right there yesterday!" It turns out that a table, way across the room, may have been moved less than a foot. Yet he notices it the second we walk in the door. He constantly amazes us like that, and his memory is also phenominal. He can recall some things from 1 to 2 years ago as if it was yesterday, even conversations.

My son has what you might call "mild" AS...or HFA. Let me just say that we started out deciding not to worry about it, not to say anything and see how he did. He did fine for a while and we've always been told by his teachers that unless we say anything, they'd never know. Well - that only lasts the first few weeks of school and then by parent teacher conferences in November, they are starting to notice, then by March conferences there are problems, and by June they are glad to see him leave their class. That said, we're going for the IEP now. (he's 9 and in 4th grade) I think that academically, he's doing just fine - not great, but he might be doing better if some of his other issues are being helped...for instance he could really use some social skills help, and some occupational therapy for writing He has a very hard time writing the words that are in his head, so as a result he tends to try and take as many shortcuts as possible while writing! 3 word sentences are his specialty! He seems to suffer a lot from stress. School really starts getting stressful and the workload is far more in 4th grade, so I'm not really surprised. It's just FAR more difficult to get the school to realize there's a problem because up until now, he's done fine. I am thankful we've got a diagnosis letter saying that he has High Functioning Autism, because it might help the process a bit. (we're in California) The fact is, I think it's worth letting the school know about the autism diagnosis, because they are NOT going to give any child more services than they need....and just because you have a child on the spectrum does not mean they are going to be put in a special day class or anything like that. Schools aim for Least Restrictive Environment these days, and while they will help your child with the things he needs - they will also run assessments and evaluate your child so that they don't do more than they need. The years go by very quickly, and the next thing you know - your child will be in 4th grade and needing help - and it's much harder to get the ball rolling at that point than it is when they are first starting out.

my son just turned 5 years old now and has a dx of pdd-nos from one doc, and aspergers from another. either way he's a high functioning autistic. right now, he's enrolled in a half-day pre-k. he is doing very well and learns a lot every day academically. socially, he usually sticks to himself during free-play and needs an adult to initialize conversations with his peers (sometimes he will interact spontaneously to other children but it's rare.) as far as his self-help skills, he needs some verbal prompts and assistance (that's probably my fault, i always put on his shoes and clothes for him.) his handwriting is something he needs to work on definitely, but he's almost on his way to reading so he is right on track. in my situation, it was important for me to let the school know that he is autistic. the reason for that is..they will not promote socializing with his peers if they did not know what his dx is. he's in a special education school with children who have delays and some with high functioning autism like himself. i believe this environment is a good match for him right now. he has educators that understands his needs and his different learning style but he has children who he can learn from as well. in our state, it doesn't matter what the child's dx is, they do their own testing and they actually didn't diagnose him as asd, they diagnosed him as developmentally delayed because he had a bad score as far as speech but scored above average on visual aspects of the test. so my answer to your question depends a lot on what how your state determine services. sometimes it may be beneficial to you to tell them he has asd and sometimes not. i would do some research and talk to some people in your local area.

another thing i want to add is that i've talked to a lot of teens in regular classes or even advanced class because of their iq and are very unhappy. of course i want the best education for my child but i also want him to thrive and be confident in himself. frankly i've seen regular kindergarten classes (my nephew attends a regular kindergarten class and i drop him off and pick him up daily) and it scares me!! the kids are extremely loud, rambunctious, and very "clicky." i thought i would worry about that in high school but kids now-a-days are growing up very fast. my son would be completely lost in that class. don't get me wrong his iq is normal and he has no academic problems at all but with all the social things going on around him would definitely be distracted. he will NOT be able to concentrate (one of the main complaints from teens who has asd in a mainstream class) and therefore be held back. dont get me wrong, one day i do want him in a mainstream class and go to college but right now while he's growing and learning about himself and his world, i would never in my wildest dreams put him in a mainstream kindergarten class without any aids. that's just my personal experience. btw my son is very mild too, there are days where i dont even think there's anything wrong with him except being a little quirky.

i would think that having the Dx might help then understand certain behavioural issues that may come up that if they didn;t know may have been dealt with in a different manner which would likely not be beneficial to him.

my son;s school knew the dx right ff the hop, and while he is still expected to do the same things as his peers i know that occasionally certain accomidations are made, which is not a bad thing, cause i am sure it helps to keep his stress levels down, and may help him function better in his class.
for me it is that his teaches know he is not being a defiant difficult child it is that he has dificulties with it and doesn;t fully knw how to express it, cause you deal with defiance differently than with a legitimate concern.

i hope that helps. good luck!

We've flip flopped a bit, but I think we are going with the dx. Since he is very capable in many tasks, the school just may not see some of the special needs he may require. So we are writing a request for the school to evaluate him, and we are mentioning that he was diagnosed with Asperger's. Now we just need to call the developmental pediatrician back and tell her to include the dx on her evaluation.

whew!

My son has been called lazy to combative, to downright sweet (which he can be all three if you're around him long enough! ) He's still a kid....regardless of his diagnosis.

In any case, it sounds like a lot of us are in the same boat with our children - we just had our first IEP meeting with the school study group. They agreed that it's time for my son to be evaluated and we're going to go from there. They are doing everything from a social skills inventory to pragmatic speech evaluation to a standard IQ test and everything in between. I don't know if he'll get actual academic help, but they'll at least have a baseline for him and know how he learns - which is huge in and of itself. I'm really looking forward to seeing how it all turns out and going forward from this point. Hopefully I'll learn a lot in the process so that I can be a better parent for him at home!

This is an older thread, but I have a question.

Is this the "wiggle seat" referenced or is it something else?

http://www.amazon.com/Isokinetics-Brand-Exercise-Balance-Cushion/dp/B000WQ4Z94/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=sporting-goods&qid=1299952546&sr=1-1