Please help! AS 5th Grader vs Public Schools

Post Reply New Topic

My nephew has Asperger's, and he's in 5th grade. We are at our wits end trying to deal with the public school system.

Summary of situation:

My nephew is diagnosed Asperger's and has been since he was in pre-k. He has developed some interesting manipulative tactics in the last couple years, and I think it's learned from his mother who I believe has a mild case of Borderline Personality Disorder. Mother and son have struggled in the last few years with personality conflicts; however, major improvement in the last 6 months. His biggest issue in school is classroom environment (too much distractions while he's trying to learn plus unorganized classroom and lousy classsroom management from teachers), social issues (especially when it comes to girls), and meltdowns (usually a result of teachers and principal not owning up to his expectations and lack of understanding for autism by said faculty).

Last year, he was at School A where the principal was awesome to deal with. She really tried hard to help him. She didn't know much about autism. I did give her handouts to help her, but I think it was too little too late. Her biggest flaw was she would lecture him during meltdowns and then didn't understand why they would escalate so bad. His meltdowns were so bad, the other kids were afraid of him. He spent most of last year either suspended, requested to stay home for so long so not to go on his record as a suspension, and in school suspension. They also pulled him out of recess and stuck him behind a computer for that time. They gave up on him and sent him to a school with a Behavior Disorder (BD) program.

So school B, he finished last year up with a few months. Things weren't as bad there though he hated it. Summer passes, new school year, he's back at School B. His meltdowns started out infrequent but severe. During one, he hit the principal who then called the police, and hit the cop, tried to run out in front of moving traffic, so the cop called the paramedics, and THEN they all called his mother. Stupid right? Meltdown started in that case... BD classroom, he was haggling over a bean bag chair for 20 minutes with another kid before it escalated into a fist fight. My question nobody would let me ask, "What the hell was the BD teacher doing while two kids were arguing over a bean bag chair?" Meltdown escalated to violence when the principal was "mocking him" by repeating what he said in a stupid fashion. Anyway, eventually his meltdowns at home were really awful. He was trying to hurt people including his mom who just lacks the strength to handle him. I witnessed one of them, and it wasn't a real meltdown because the whole thing was manipulative. Anyway, his mom without knowing what else to do admitted him to a hospital. I think her mentality was our mom keeps pushing medicating him. His pediatrician gave him some prozac, and I don't think he was taking it properly (skipping doses). He had an appointment with a prescribing shrink, and it was made 2 months prior to the appointment, and I think she missed that appointment, so admitting him was the only way to get a prescribing shrink to see him immediately. So he spent a couple weeks there. They changed his Prozac to I forget what it's called but it's an anti epileptic mood stabilizer. Now the meltdowns are becoming frequent again and less severe. So we are now back to where we were last year. The flaws at School B... regular classroom environment does bulk of work as group work, and things are unorganized and chaotic. BD classroom is obviously not watching the kids at all. The principal has been sued for being unprofessional with other teachers, and I don't trust him. I talked to him asking why the paramedics were called that day of that meltdown, and he put on my nephews file a bunch of things i never said, and there is no obvious reason why our conversation needed to be documented anyway.

So my sister wants him out of School B. She goes to the special ed department (he has an IEP). First, the lady swears he's labeled "BD" instead of "other impaired." He's supposed to be other impaired. After a long research, my sister finds her copies of the report, and "other impaired" is what the computer had down, but someone went through and marked that out and wrote in ink "BD" over it without initialing. No idea who or why. So then my sister asked if he could go to a different school. The lady said that if he changes school due to the parent's request, the new school wouldn't welcome him. So then my sister asks the lady if he can be placed in the "autistic program." I thought that is where he was this whole time. She responded with arguing profusely on how she doesn't recommend that program for him. My sister said she didn't care that's where she wants him, so the lady said she needed a more current diagnosis. My sister had one from a week before this conversation. Lady was mad she didn't have yet, though they were closed for Thanksgiving that whole week. My sister drops it off. Lady wants a note from the doctor explaining how he came about that diagnosis. My sister gets that and provides, "DSM IV criteria." Lady then argues that he's on different areas of the Asperger's scale they use depending on who performs it, and still does not want to put him in the Autistic program. So then she tells my sister there is only one school with any openings left (school C). That school has a crappy principal who doesn't believe my nephew has Asperger's. That's where he went in Pre-K. But my sister is still game out of desperation. So then nobody hears from this lady, and my mother gets wind of all this, and being in the school system employed as a guidance counselor for a middle school, she had some questions. She couldn't get a hold of the lady, so she called the principal at School C who had no idea what she was talking about. The principal of School C then called the superintendent complaining about it all and stated she refuses to accept my nephew as a student. Then the lady from the special ed office called and chewed my sister out for telling her mother the details of their conversation saying she told my sister not to tell anyone (when she didn't) as if my sister had signed a confidentiality agreement.

So now, I don't know the details in between because now my sister doesn't want me to know in fear I might get involved (too late, I'm going to get involved)... while waiting for the BS to pass the board of education/special education, she and the principal of school B has decided to keep him in BD all day. My nephew hates this, but the principal didn't leave any other options besides home school.

If he were my kid, he'd be in private school now. I don't think my sister can afford the tuition, but it's one of those things. I've also offered to home school him (I too have AS, but I'm undiagnosed, seems rather pointless at this point in my life to seek diagnosis) taking him to the boys and girls club after school hours as part of the school day, and she's not interested in that. I really think what is going on at School B is emotional abuse. I don't think he's getting any assistance with his autism at all but the school is getting IDEA funds I bet to cater to him even though they aren't. I think that school's issue is it's the rich school in a majority white community. My nephew is out of its district from a lower class/middle class neighborhood, and he's mixed. I don't think they consider him important enough to do their job right. And I surely think the principal is more concerned about his own agenda (he keeps getting sued for being a jerk) than he is about doing his job.

So ANY ADVICE would totally be appreciated. ANY STORIES like this would so be appreciated because it does help to know other people do empathize at the very least. OPINIONS are totally also welcome. I'm not sure where to go, but I'm thinking my next step might be to write the Board of Education. If he were my kid, I'd be at their next meeting with a power point presentation, but since he's not, I think a letter would suffice, maybe one with pictures since people like pictures. My daughter has AS, and she's Pre-K, and I haven't dealt with any BS, but I don't invite it obviously. I can't help it my sister isn't smart enough to trust me to help her, so I don't know what else to do but to just do my own thing. I definitely want the situation resolved because I'm really concerned about his well being. He's not getting educated in suspension or BD classrooms. He's really advanced in Math, and the regular classroom can't keep up with him. He's really behind in social studies, and he is just going to get worse if he doesn't get into a learning environment. More importantly, I'm afraid the emotional roller coaster these people are setting him on is going to lead to more aggression and violence, and other students might get hurt in years to come. Can I call CPS on the school?

What a complete and utter mess.

The worst part is that I'm not sure you can actually help at this point. I love your desire to, but the family dynamics you've described leave me wondering if it's possible.

That child is in the wrong environment, period, and it is unclear if a suitable environment exists for him within the district.

One small thing, please don't think of any of your nephew's behaviors as being manipulative. Manipulation is something people do to get what they want when maybe they shouldn't get what they want. It isn't the right word for a child using the only tools he has to get people to recognize that he has unmet needs. And that is what this boy has: tons of unmet needs.

I'll have to think more about suggestions. It seems you've already tried the ones that come to mind (like offering to home school him for your sister) and gotten nowhere, so dreaming up option Z isn't something that will come naturally.

I have had a similar experience with my son’s school. It is sad when the adults don’t have any more sense then the kids. My son had meltdown at school often. The adults at the school were not mature to handle my son. He has average intelligence and does not fit in to the special Ed category. After my son got beat up and stable. The school wanted to punish my kid for throwing a binder in self defense. When we tried to educate the principle for the school (i.e. Give him materials on aspergers) He came back with “your son is in regular classes and will be treated regular.” We took our son out of regular school a placed him in a private school for children with disabilities. Every body in his class has some type of learning disability. They except each other for how they are and understand when he has a melt down. My son loves school now. His behavior has improved. He rarely has meltdowns, because the staffs at his new school are able to see it coming before it happens. I recommend finding a School that is specialize in children with disabilities. Not a Special Ed situation but a class with other that has a difficult time. I think it helps my some know he is not alone.

I don't think we have a school like that in this area. I've seen them in other states as a boarding school option, but I don't think my nephew wants to be away from family like that. We do have a Christian school where the kids work out of "paces" and it's very individualized learning. You read on your own, do your own homework, and the teacher is there to babysit, answer questions, and grade tests. Now I think that's the most ideal option my sister has, but she doesn't believe me, and I think it's because of the two obstacles that school would have. A, she'd have to pay tuition. B, she'd have to drive him to school and pick him up every day because they don't have school buses. Also, I'm not sure how they would handle his autism, but I'm willing to bet that environment by itself would dramatically reduce the meltdowns. But Nobody is taking me seriously with that idea.

When I say manipulative, let me tell you about this meltdown I saw. He was upset and trying with force to leave the house. When my husband intervened by using force to make him stay, he got worse. That was very Asperger's. What wasn't Asperger's, beginning of the meltdown, he was intentionally trying to get upset to go into a meltdown. It was like he was forcing it. It started I think because I brought my daughter home from school and she had part of an ice cream cone she was eating, and I didn't pick him up one (mainly because I can't drive with 2 ice cream cones for all the kids at the house who wasn't getting any) and he was upset that I didn't stop what I was doing to leave and get him an ice cream cone. Then I get in, and he argued with everything my husband said because he was in a bad mood over the ice cream. So then my husband decided to tell him to stop arguing, and then he claimed he wasn't arguing so that became an argument. We even had to look up the definition, and he read it and said that's what he was doing, and then when he realized the definition defined arguing, he made me look up "talking" and then changed it to that was what he was doing. So they argued about the definition of arguing for a long minute, and because my nephew was losing that argument, it was like he was trying to work up into a meltdown like he really wanted to have one. I kept trying to end the argument because I could see where it was going with all the context, and it was hard because my husband felt compelled to teach this boy a lesson on how to talk to grown ups because he was sick and tired of the disrespect. So then I get him calm from the full fledged meltdown by putting a special interest on the tv via netflix. I talk to his mom who showed up to pick him up for a good half hour while he was calm. Then he tried to get himself worked up again stating that he "tricked us into believing he was calm when really he wasn't" and it was back to violently trying to leave the house.

The other thing I found strange is most Aspies I know are embarrassed by their meltdowns. This kid brags about em. After the one where he hit the cop, he was bragging to everyone about it. "The cop was telling me to calm down, so I pulled him aside and said, 'Listen bub, YOU don't tell me what to do,' chuckle...."

I understand using it to manipulate the school administration because they are morons and not helping him but making things worse for him and his autism. But, he has no need to manipulate me. I give him his way more often than not, and if I say no to something, it's only because there is a good reason. I always explain reasons, and I warn in advance whenever I can. I do think he's learning this manipulative tactics from his mother because this is the stuff she does to manipulate people. I think he's been around it so much he doesn't even recognize it as manipulation. He thinks this is the norm.

OH and the other thing that got me ticked. One day he was here at my house, and I was having an issue uploading my website. I couldn't get certain pics to upload (of course the reason was stupid, spaces in the name), but anyway, I was losing my mind trying to figure it out. His advice. "Give up, just give up, if you get stuck, give up." Where did you hear that from? "School. That's what my teacher tells me to do." Do you mean when you are working on a problem during a quiz and she tells you to skip and move on then come back to it? "Well, she doesn't tell me to go back to it." Not at all? "nope" Well, are you sure it isn't people telling you to give up on a meltdown and forget about it? "No, it's anytime you have a problem, you give up." I mean I understand Asperger's misunderstands things and takes things too literal sometimes, but to tell a child to "give up" in those words... really?

I'm telling you, I think what that school is doing is abuse.

But anyway, I understand what you are saying about manipulation. I don't think he really tries to manipulate, but somehow has been classically conditioned to use manipulation without intention. I think this is why many people are starting to question the Asperger's diagnosis, but also, I think it's possible he might be developing a little Borderline Personality Disorder himself. I think there is another diagnosis afoot, and nobody will look into it.

I don't know what state you are in (or if you are in the US) but in our state there is an AU supplement that the schools must abide by if a child is designated AU-autism. That is why the schools want to place a child in any other category, including ED (Behavior Disorder) or OHI. Your sister needs to write a letter to the school Special Education Dept asking for an IEP meeting. They have so many days (depending on your state) to call the meeting. At that meeting she needs to state that she disagrees with his placement and would like him qualified as an AU student. If they protest, have her tell them she would like an IEE or mediation. She needs to keep pushing the school for his proper classification because under the AU supplement they can provide home training and many more services. Do not allow them to change his placement (I don't think they can anyway) until after this meeting and until all parties agree with a new placement. At that meeting your sister needs to come prepared with her diagnostic evaluation and a log of any instances where there were problems at school. You must not be in the US because if you were they could not suspend him and if you are not in US none of the above would apply, possibly. If they have been suspending him due to behaviors that are part of his disability that is a big no no. In that instance you need to contact the Federal DOE and file a complaint. Do not call CPS. Use the avenues that are proper in your situation and only discuss facts. If you have a meeting, record the meeting.

Good reason or not, if I brought an ice cream home for one child and not for my daughter she would really be upset about it as well and that would not be the time to try to "teach her a lesson about speaking to adults".

I would not trust his perception of what the teacher is telling him to do as evidence of abuse. He may very well be generalizing a specific incidence that had reasonable merit by the teacher.

Being he's your nephew, you really don't have much say in the situation other than what his parents will agree to you having.

First I have to say, even if one has AS, that does not mean all of that person's actions can be blamed on it. I was never violent as a child. The problem with children with AS and the school system is, no matter how much sanding you do, the school system is a round hole, and the child is a square peg.

The child is constantly being backed into a corner. If the school system is so horrible there, the parents really should consider moving to a different district or placing him in a private school.

I do not condone his lashing out physically. That is unacceptable in society, and he does need to learn to more appropriately express himself and to better control his emotions. However he should also be in an environment where the teachers and aids know how to defuse the situation before it escalates, and he is not mocked and ridiculed.

I would not put him on any SSRI class medication for anger management issues. That is NOT what it's for at all, and it can produce or exasperate emotional instability in children and most especially pre-teens and teenagers, and cause suicidal tendencies.

We are in the U.S. I didn't realize a lot of this. I'm trying to see what his rights are, but it's hard to navigate all the government ed web pages because they are organized lousy, half the links don't work, and the ones that do take forever to load. Then it's either written for teachers to be the intended reader with a bunch of goals and objectives that are very general and a complete waste of time, no wonder the system sucks. OR, they are written to satisfy some congress funding requirement where the IRS makes more sense when they write.

Not all states have specific minimums for autistic supports (although autistic support is one of the categories under IDEA). For a more user-friendly site, try Wrightslaw. They have tons of information about everything there is to know about special education, and on the lower left, there is a topic list. There is also a rather good search engine.

I totally agree. It's just my daughter I was bringing home from school has Aspergers, and when she gets something in her head, it's hard to change her mind. It made it harder when she was really good at school that day for me to say no. So I just got her an ice cream cone. I just can't drive with 2 ice cream cones in my hand melting all over the place (if I brought one home to my nephew, my middle child would want one too, the younger one is still a baby). This was a warm day and my car has no AC. At that point, I couldn't buy ice cream from a store and make it home without it melting like it sat out over night. But as far as the "teach a lesson deal" sometimes my husband listens to me well and sometimes he gets pretty hard headed. He's from Puerto Rico, and something about his culture makes the whole "respect for elders" thing a very important deal. They make a bigger deal of that all the time out there than we do here in the states. After the fact, I think I got him to understand how you have set some ideals and principles aside to deal with Aspergers. Like you can steal teach lessons, you just have to approach the method a little differently than you would someone else.

In the future, you might want to delay your return home until your daughter has finished her treat, so that it is not rubbing the other children's faces in the fact that she got a treat and they didn't.

I thought about that, but I don't trust the teacher either. I mean like I helped him with his math homework one time when he was suspended, and they were working with square roots, and all of them were like just the functions of square roots, nothing else like algebra which might include figuring a square root of something for purpose of solving an equation. The homework notes she gave me specifically said to use a calculator. I don't think other schools are using a calculator for that because then you don't learn how square roots work. I've been told math is not this teacher's favorite subject, and I truly believe she lets them use calculators so she doesn't have to learn how to do square roots to teach it. I also saw some weird stuff that was off on his tests where some of the "wrong answers" are very questionable. Like he chose an answer on one question that would be correct in a college course on the subject but was wrong for elementary school.

The problem is nobody is listening to me. I also get invalidated a lot like my opinion isn't worthy. Because his mom keeps doing everything I say not to do, it's getting worse. The SSRI, I kept telling them it will just make him more emotional and possibly more suicidal and more apt to act on suicide. Of course when they find out I was right the hard way, they pretend I never had an opinion on the subject. The other thing about it was they didn't realize it was prozac at all. The doctor prescribed the generic name. Nobody thought to google it but me. I even told them it comes from Benadryl and the FDA is still testing for the safety of that drug for his age group.

I don't condone him lashing out like that, especially when he threatens to hurt people. On a good day, he doesn't either, especially when he's in the wrong. But, the more I think about it, he brags about the ones I think started because he was cornered by the idiots our taxpaying dollars feed like a charity because they aren't earning their salary. People on welfare earn their food stamps more so than some of these people earn their salary in the county. Either way, I have to step in. I really think on this path, this child is going to be a lot more violent and a lot more unpredictable when he gets older. And, he's not the only one. A lot of kids get lost in this system from what I've heard. Until someone makes a stand, it's just going to continue to suck for everyone.

Haha. Yeah, I agree. Well now it's not so hard. They got the mini blizzards and snack size version of it at other places now, and it's winter, so it doesn't melt so fast. So I bring some home for everyone. They still complain that it's not a cone, but hey I didn't forget them. I'm also learning to say no much better for those times I'm not trying to spend money. But, yeah I have 3 kids with my oldest in Pre-K. Nobody watches my kids, but I'm always watching their's, so I don't always make the best decisions trying to manage time and tasks. I'm totally overwhelmed, and I'm Asperger's, so it's not easy for me to handle this normally let alone handle more than most people ever could. And it's not like she got a treat they didn't get except that it was ice cream in a cone. We did have ice cream in the freezer, chocolate bars, lots of candy, cakes... I always keep my house stocked with treats. It was just a matter of it being in a cone from a drive thru.

Oh yeah, I will be definitely checking out that site you recommend when I have a better window for computer time.