Aspergers Resources/Input

[AMDG]

Thank you all in advance for all the help you've given me over the years. I'm not on here often; usually only to ask questions and get feedback. I have homeschooled, and I currently have my kids in public school(PS). 

 

My oldest son is 9, and going into 3rd grade in the fall. He's an extremely challenging child, although bright. I put him in school because I *could not* homeschool him. Last spring he was diagnosed with Aspergers, which made my dh and I breathe a sigh of relief over his sometimes odd and difficult behaviors. PS has been ok for him, but not great. There have been some big issues, mostly having to do with my son's fixation on certain things (right now it's morals, and people using language that is inappropriate in our home, and he not able to let it go). 

 

When he is at home, he can't really play with my younger two sons, who play very well together. He causes problems, fighting, constant demands things, etc. However, my younger sons will go to kindergarten, and preschool this year, respectively. I PLAN on having my son start 3rd grade, but I am extremely worried about how it will go. I also worry about having him home, too, because to get him to do one simple thing could take all day. 

 

Does anyone have experience with this? Is your environment extremely structured, or more loose? Do you run things like a drill sargent? I kinda feel like I'm in a lose-lose with my son's education. If he's home, I'm afraid I'll be fighting with him all the time. In PS, and he getting in trouble or driving the teachers crazy. Thoughts??

[MomatHWTK]

A good therapist can help you work out the conflicts in your home.  It may take time, but there are methods of interacting that make things better.  In the meantime, I would look at the information provided by the larger autism organizations. 

[Jean in Newcastle]

My Aspie is now 18.  What worked for us at that age.  Routine, routine, routine.  Routine over schedule (ie. do the next thing but don't worry about timing).  Announce transitions ahead of time if possible.  (for example, "In five minutes we will be putting away the math manipulatives.). Magnesium - we went the pill route because my aspie refused to drink Kid's Natural Calm or to take epsom salt baths but either of those are good ways to get magnesium as well.  Gluten free.  We weren't gluten free back then but I wish we had been.  It has made a difference in his anxiety levels and behaviors and now at 18 he sees it and keeps himself gluten free.  (It doesn't affect his bowels at all and isn't celiac or anything.)   Modeling of social behavior and giving him scripts.  ("If you want to interrupt me say, "Excuse me, mom, can we. . ."'  I don't have to do this with my NT kid but with my aspie it helped a lot.)  Allowing him to have ear protectors at times to reduce the sensory load (this will vary by kid, I believe).  

 

Obviously YMMV and we had tough days as well as not so tough days so none of the above made things perfect. 

[SweetMissMagnolia]

My aspie is 12 1/2....agree with therapist and routine.....works wonders...still has his fixations and odd behaviours at times....it is not easy....hang in there

[Storygirl]

You might want to post your question on the Learning Challenges board to get responses from the helpful people there.

[PeterPan]

Does he have an IEP at school?  Are they giving him services?  In our area they will try to mainstream an ASD dc and refuse an IEP and services unless the parent FIGHTS for it.  Seriously.  It's sort of like "ASD, oh well, we have lots of kids with ASD with no IEP."  Seriously, this is what they told me.  But when I started my ds on OT (as part of his IEP), he became more workable.  The SLP at the ps can run a pragmatics test and they can put social into his IEP.  There's more they can do for him that maybe they aren't doing, kwim?

 

My ds is very bright with his multiple labels, so I call him 4E, lol.  I've decided, and this is just me, based on watching the boards, listening to people, etc. etc. that we HAVE to put our energy, at least for our situation, into social and functional.  I'm not worried about his ability to learn or how bright he is or even content (I give him TC courses to listen to on his kindle and he watches documentaries and NOVA and whatnot, he has broad content exposure).  I'm MUCH more concerned about his ability to interact in the expected way when he's older and people's willingness to overlook these behaviors decreases.  

 

I've been looking at Floortime (our library has the dvds) and RDI, and my theory right now is to use our academic interactions to work on our goals.  So the social goals are actually MORE important than the academic in that sense.  So, for instance, if we do the TOPS Lentil Science, we're not just working on the lentil science skills but are targeting our social and interaction goals, kwim?  Floortime suggests having eight 30 minute sessions a day where you target social/interaction.  

 

In that sense, games, activities, anything we can DO together is more important than formal academics.  He's still young enough that his formal needs are slight, no matter what the opinion is of WTM.  My choice is to focus on the social/interaction skills and worry about the rest later.  He drives his own academics enough, creating his own challenges, asking to do small amounts of copywork, etc.  It just isn't the most important thing.  Give yourself PERMISSION to focus on social/interaction, using academics as a foil, and get off the "must do school" gravy train.

 

PS.  That's eight 30 minute sessions a day focusing on interaction and another 4 playdates a week.

[Mom22ns]

My Aspie is now 18.  What worked for us at that age.  Routine, routine, routine.  Routine over schedule (ie. do the next thing but don't worry about timing).  Announce transitions ahead of time if possible.  (for example, "In five minutes we will be putting away the math manipulatives.). Magnesium - we went the pill route because my aspie refused to drink Kid's Natural Calm or to take epsom salt baths but either of those are good ways to get magnesium as well.  Gluten free.  We weren't gluten free back then but I wish we had been.  It has made a difference in his anxiety levels and behaviors and now at 18 he sees it and keeps himself gluten free.  (It doesn't affect his bowels at all and isn't celiac or anything.)   Modeling of social behavior and giving him scripts.  ("If you want to interrupt me say, "Excuse me, mom, can we. . ."'  I don't have to do this with my NT kid but with my aspie it helped a lot.)  Allowing him to have ear protectors at times to reduce the sensory load (this will vary by kid, I believe).  

 

Obviously YMMV and we had tough days as well as not so tough days so none of the above made things perfect. 

 

My ASD child is 18 now too and headed off to college. Routine (which I hate) was exactly what worked for him. Routine over schedule is a great way to say it. We had an order for things to happen, not a timed schedule. Mine was GFCF at that age and it did help, although I know it doesn't help everyone. We did Magnesium back then too, Epsom salts baths. Homeschooling really helped him gain social skills because I spent so much one on one time and could model, correct and discuss social situations as they came up. 

 

Mine was not defiant though. We were always able to get school done. He worked slowly, processed slowly had to be kept on task, but I never had to fight against refusals. 

 

Best wishes in whatever decision you make. Having an autistic spectrum child is challenging. However, I think I have appreciated every success more for having fought for it with him rather than having it all come so easily with dd. 

[MomatHWTK]

I have found a very important key is to remain non-antagonistic. I have a hard time not responding aggressively to aggressive/defiant behavior.   But my Aspie is not aware of how his behavior comes across to others.  So, I would find myself responding to what I felt was defiance when it was really just his best effort to express his feelings.  Keeping myself calm and neutral is very important to us having a good day.  (Leaving the room to go scream into a pillow sometimes works. LOL)

[Mom22ns]

I have found a very important key is to remain non-antagonistic. I have a hard time not responding aggressively to aggressive/defiant behavior.   But my Aspie is not aware of how his behavior comes across to others.  So, I would find myself responding to what I felt was defiance when it was really just his best effort to express his feelings.  Keeping myself calm and neutral is very important to us having a good day.  (Leaving the room to go scream into a pillow sometimes works. LOL)

 

This is SO good liking it wasn't enough. I can remember my ds asking "why are you yelling at me?" when I was responding in the tone and volume he was using with me. He had no idea his tone or volume were in the "yelling" range, but considered it that when he heard it mirrored back. Not letting his behavior, tone, or volume spread to me was extremely important and diffusing difficult situations.

[kbutton]

In finding resources, make sure you have labels for emotional concepts--lots of them. For a long time, my son had one or two buckets for emotion--good/bad, positive/negative, etc. There was no nuance, and he interpreted more things as negative than positive.

 

Also work on self-regulation as much as possible. Zones of Regulation with and OT was good for my son.

 

My son's need for control and competence has driven him to acquire a lot of executive functioning skills and accept scaffolding that other kids who have only ADHD types of issues think is overkill. He can see the before/after results when he uses good strategies. He's not proficient at everything he is drawn to trying, but it's really helps that he's motivated.

[Innisfree]

Nm

Edited May 15, 2019 by Innisfree

[kbutton]

I've been following this with interest, since we've got the same basic issue.

 

My dd10 is often defiant but I think (hope, pray) I'm starting to figure out how to deal with it, and the key is not letting it start. Anxiety seems to be so much a part of her negative emotions and behaviors. They don't look like anxiety, they look like anger, hostility, and irritability*, but anxiety is underneath.

 

So, where schoolwork is concerned, I've had the worst outcomes when she is confronted with a big visible lesson that looks intimidating to her: say, a Saxon math lesson. I can't count the number of those we've had wadded up, shredded or otherwise destroyed in extreme anger and frustration.

 

The best outcomes are when I sit down with her with a pad of graph paper ( built in structure) and write out one or two problems at a time, starting with the ones I know are so simple she can solve them easily, building her confidence as we go along. I'll say something like "do these three problems and then you can take a five minute break and play with {special interest}." Then she'll come back and we'll do three more problems.

 

This approach is a lot more trouble for me in some ways. I have to figure out what she needs to do next, write out the problems, be with her every step of the way. But she's learning without descending into that whirlpool of negativity. If I see that on the horizon, we stop. And, you know, the kid under all that anxiety and negativity is sweet, kind, funny, and wants to please me.

 

*Irritability: I was really slow to realize that artificial food colors do horrible things to dd's mood, but boy, they do. She reluctantly recognises it herself now.

 

Change a few minor details, and I could've written most of this about my son a couple of years ago. This is exactly how his anxiety looks. We got past it with school, but it's been coming out again lately as situations have changed. It's always a big deal during unstructured breaks as well.

 

Anxiety is terrible. For my son, feeling in control and being provided the appropriate supports for him to command his own destiny (so to speak) help the most. Because of this, he craves (and often uses) executive functioning supports of all kinds. (Whereas my ADHD-inattentive kid who is not on the spectrum couldn't care less about EF support a lot of the time.)

[Innisfree]

Nm

Edited May 15, 2019 by Innisfree

[Jean in Newcastle]

Math and spelling were our meltdown subjects every single day.  And then Latin when that started.  All very cut and dried subjects where things were either right or wrong.  And very hard for my perfectionist Aspie who wanted to be right 100% of the time.  We practiced saying, "Oh well, let me try again."  Kind of hokey but a verbal representation of the kind of self talk I wanted him to have.