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I am the mother of a 16 year old ( my oldest) who has been told the likely source of my daughter's many problems stems from Asperger's Syndrome.

To give you a brief summary of her history, it was believed since about age 3 that she was ADHD. They put her on Ritalin. As she got older, her behavior became more bizarre, and they changed her diagnosis to being bi-polar. They changed her medication to Concerta and then along the lines some doctor put her on Lithium. Along with this she has tourette's.

Now, the thing of it is she isn't necessarily hyperactive, which was one of the things which made them look elsewhere for her exact problem. She has problems with peer relationships of any sort. Like many of the posts that I have read here, she choses to sleep in school and stay up all night. Her hygeine is horrible, she bites her fingers until they bleed and likes it more when they become infected and she picks them open. She cares little about what others think about her.

On the other hand, she is a former honor roll student ( in Elementary School) to making a career out of the 9th grade ( which I just found she will repeat for the third time in the fall). Recent IQ testing has her IQ in the 130 - 140 range, and the only class in school she passes with perfect grades is Art. She is an incredible artist, and can draw anthing from still lifes to Anime in the matter of minutes and once sat at the kitchen table and within 20 minutes completed a whole still scene from sailor moon which included three human figures which looked as if she herself was the actual creator of the scene. Forget any other topic. She is failing severely every other subject in school. We as parents are wondring if she will ever funcition in the real world as an adult. I would love to hear from other parents who have teens with this condition.

welcome to wrongplanet!

did you get an AS dx?

Hey Im the UOPHA so feel free to PM/IM me sometime

Have you considered looking for an alternative placement or homeschooling since school is not working out for her as it is right now. Does she have an IEP in place. If so, there may be different accomodations you can look into to work with the school on. There is no reason any kid should repeat a grade 3 times - and I imagine it is only going to be more ackward for her to be 16 in the 9th grade with much younger kids. If the school will not cooperate, you could look into homeschooling (not sure what where you are located) and it may be something you and your daughter could work on together. Some kids who are very adversarial towards school or refuse to do work may change their attitude alltogether when they feel like they are doing something purposeful and have some input in their learning. You could look into it over the summer and do a test run to see if she would cooperate with you. If that is not something you are interested in then I would say to have a meeting with the school and say that simply repeating grades over and over is not acceptable. Depending on where you live she may even be able to drop out of school right now - which is not something you would want but could be a possibility if she gets frustrated enough. So - if you do not have a diagnosis of AS try and get one documented and have the school do additional testing if needed to try and plan a more productive school year for her.

welcome! my son , too, went from being a fantastic elementary school student with A's and B's to an anxiety-ridden pre-teen in middle school ( he's in 8th now). we've found that the combination of meds that actually work and a smaller school setting~ that his anxiety has decreased tremendously. when he was in the big middle school he'd spend most of his time with his head down on the desk, twirling his hair, biting his nails, and scratching his arms~when provoked, he'd end up in the hallway rocking back and forth on his heels, or climbing the furniture in the quiet room.
in the new, smaller school his teacher has only seen this behavior once~and that's because he hadn't taken his meds for 2 days ( fortunately for us, son realized how horrible he felt not taking his meds and hasn't done that again).

Yes, she was officially diagnosed. She has been on a changing IEP since grade 5, and is currently in a self contained classroom,(due to the fact that otherwise, she will up and leave school because she feels like doing so). This has been very fustrating for us, her parents as well as her younger siblings. Her younger brother has already passed her in school and at 15 is in the 10th grade. Her younger sister, 13 is in the 8th grade. Both of my other children are very high performers in school.

One thing that I feel that may possibly needed to be mentioned is the fact that we are an active duty military family. We move a lot. My husband is an electronics engineer, and me, I took a major in legal and a minor in history in college, and somehow fell into a position where I found myself teaching for five years. I worked with children of late Elementary School age and Middle School. Could I home school? Sure I could, I am qualified in every way, however, I do not believe homeschooling to be the answer to my daughter's situation. You may or may not know that each individual State has different laws and regulations to home schooling. Currently, we are in New England. If you check out the world wide web and look for home schooling laws and regulations, you will find out that New England along with NY and PA have the most highly regulated and controlled home schooling policies in the country. In order for me to home school my daughter, I would have to do the following... the first would be to prove that I was not doing so to allow her to elude regular attendance at school (which is exactly what she wants). The new laws put into place for the 2005-2006 school year states that she is legally obligated to stay in school until she has attained the last day of her 16th year, meaning that she turned 17 ( that came along with not allowing sixteen year olds to obtain driver's licenses any longer), and they would like to have seen the student completed the 10th grade. Even upon reaching age 17, parental permission is required for a child to quit school before age 18.

Here in Rhode Island, Beside proving that your child is not trying to elude attendence , in order to home school, you must also agree to the following... a professional evaluation as to why you are home schooling, you must agree to and then further submit your child to state wide standardized testing, just as if he or she were in school, have cirriculum approved by the State, using the approved textbook list, submit yourself to being screened for your ability to meet State teacher's qualifications and allow home visits by State Officials. In order to seek a High School Diploma in RI according to their new guidelines for the 2005-2006 school year, each student seeking a High School Diploma is required to complete a thesis and preform 40 hours of service to their local community. They upped the standard, and really raised the bar.

While I was looking into information about homeschooling, I found that PA as well as the State of Virginia require those who which to home school possess Teacher's Certification or hold a Bachelor's or higher degree (Virginia). I believe that only makes sense. Seeing how that Algebra is now required in most States for highschoolers, how can someone who never took Algebra teach Algebra when you know nothing about it?

My daughter's diagnosis came after spending a little time in a mental hospital. Not that having your child spend time in a place like that is something to be proud of. She has a whole team of psychatrists, psychologists, a child behavior specialist, and two neurologists. Recently her overall condition has seemed to decline rapidly and hence why the recommendation was made that she be admitted to the said mental hospital, so that evaluation could be performed. This was mainly done because of a decline in her condition with Tourette's, where she rocked and jerks so badly, it was wondered if she didn't have a more sinister problem along the lines of Parkinson's, a brain tumor. etc. The doctors working with her also wanted to be able to assess her behavior over the period of several days. She had an MRI and some brain scans done, and while her behavioral specialist had believed that my child was autistic for some time, what baffled her was that my child was functional almost to the point of being hyperactive. Before she was released last Thursday, and they said to us, we believe that your child has Asperger's Syndrome or what is sometimes called High Functioning Autism with Tourette's, and they gave us the information on it, as I sat and read a description of an Asperger's patient, I was like this is our daughter, to a T, including the Bi-polar tendencies. We were told it is hard to diagnose and there is no specific test which will point them in that direction.

My daughter has little regard with what they will do with her in school, and while it is sad for me to say, the few "peers" in which she has made limited friendships with are all also children or young adults who have similiar problems, who do not look at her as being odd. She even tried having a boyfriend for a short while. This boy (or should I say man, as he is now nearly 19) was in her self contained classroom with her for home room. He is still in school, WANTING to excel. He is in the 10th grade. His parents PAY for him to go to public school as he is over the age where they are not legally obligated to teach him any longer. I am not entirely sure exactly what this young man's condition is, although it is apparent that he is Learning Disabled. He is tall, athletic, and tries to keep my daughter out of trouble. Because of this we have nicknamed this poor boy Forrest, after Forrest Gump, because he reminds us so much of Tom Hank's character. After my daughter told him of it, he took it in stride, and said well, if I am Forrest, well since you are a rebel, that must make you Jenny. However, she has recently decided that for the moment, she hates him because he commented about her appearance one day, and told her that she needed to take a bath.

I hope that this clarified my original post somewhat. I am at the end of my wits, but now have come to realize that this just may forever be the norm for my daughter.