Re: Am I the only one?-Raena

[Guest guest]

> This is what we've seen in . Even though he is considered

> aspergers, he will shut down completely. >

You know, it's a funny thing...people think of shutdown as something

that only happens to " low functioning " kids...but people like Donna

(who is married now, working with people with autism

worldwide, and an established author) goes into great detail about

how it feels to completely shut down. It's about what your brain can

handle at the time. We don't think about it a lot, but NT people

shut down (at different levels) when the stress gets high enough.

There is an interesting observation in Garbarino's book, " No

Place to Be a Child " (kids in war zones)...he said that when workers

went back to the areas of Asia where the " killing fields " atrocities

took place, they found that a high number of the people who had

witnessed that had eventually gone blind...and his observation was

that the brain knows when it has " seen " enough.

> At school they have finally figured out that

> when he refuses to work, there is a reason. He has gone to the

> resource room after refusing to work, refused to work there, then

> told them that he was tired, put his head down and went to sleep.

> They now let him do this (it doesn't happen often) because they

> finally get that when this happens, he's dealing with something the

> only way he can. And, lack of sleep is not involved at all.

Going to sleep is a major signal of sympathetic overload...it's

wonderful that they give him some time away from things before he

gets to this point now...do they use the ALERT program at all? It

teaches kids to recognize when they need organizational strategies

and gives them tools for coping that they can keep with them to use

at the moment they need them without having to ask...sounds like

might do well with something like that?

Sounds like good things are happening...

Raena