Re:The future of our children

[Guest guest]

I hope I'm wrong, but I read you post as a kind of criticism of how many of us are raising our children. And I hope you're right. I hope what you're doing with your son will head off the many problems that develop as these children get older. We have three sons with AS. The oldest is 19. The other two are 15 and 12. The 15 yo is less affected, and will, I think, have a relatively normal future. The 19 yo and the 12 yo are facing a different set of challenges. When my 19yo was 7 the way your son is now, I too thought he had a bright future ahead of him. There were problems at school but none of his classmates had really sophisticated social skills and they were very nonjudgemental. He also had a friend and we had just learned that his verbal IQ was/is about 200. He taught himself to read grown-up novels shortly after his third birthday. He was truly brilliant. I was envisioning a future for him that might include being an author or a college professor. You know, quirky, but brilliant. When he was 7 1/2 the military transferred us to a different state, and we elected to move into a district that had a fabulous program for gifted kids. The biggest problem for my son was that he eventually lost contact with that one friend he had (and has never been able to make another one).At 8yo he was moved to a full-time gifted program. I was so proud of him and it just reinforced my hopes for his future. AS wasn't going to stand in the way of anything for my son. It wasn't going to be an excuse for a failure to achieve. Yeay! Unfortunately, a gifted program involves lots of transitions all the time. The typical gifted children thrived, but my son was totally overwhelmed. The day came when the principal told us that if we brought him back to school the next day, he would expel him. I was completely new to the IEP world, and didn't know that this was an empty and illegal threat, so I pulled him out and homeschooled him for the next couple of years--all the while working on social skills and learning coping mechanisms. He did *wonderfully* academically, but when I put him in school I asked them to have his repeat the year we had just completed to give him an extra year to prepare socially for middle school. The school agreed, and, again, I was hopeful that things were back on track for a successful future.Middle school was a mess. He got lumped in with ED classes because he needed a smaller group and the same district that has such a wonderful program for gifted kids has literally nothing for kids with high functioning autism. The ED kids victimized my son--especially in gym class--to the point that his teachers had him pulled out of that setting and moved to an LD setting instead. Well, so much for that brilliant academic future. LD classes don't move as quickly as even general ed. classes for obvious reasons.High school rolled around, and my son got a wonderful case manager who took a personal interest in him. He was available to support my son throughout the day, and many of the problems we'd seen in middle school improved a lot. But he still had no friends, and he was constantly getting in trouble with his grades because he was so very disorganized. You see he has executive functioning deficits. Keeping himself as organized as a typical high school student is literally impossible for him. Where could he get more help with staying organized? The LD classes. He did, however, have some non-special ed. classes. Latin for example--and he did *very* well on tests and quizzes because he has a photographic memory--but he was still so disorganized about his homework. Also, by now his lack of friends was really hurting him. He wrote an entry in his journal concerning how hopeless he felt and wondering why he didn't just kill himself. I got a call to come to the school immediately. We talked with his case manager and I took our son home for a mental health day. We also contacted his psychiatrist (by now he was on several meds--including ADHD meds in an attempt to improve his executive functioning skills--so he had a psychiatrist. He was also in social skills therapy with a social worker, and we brought her in on the problem. The specialists couldn't really do much about the root of the problem though. The boy was lonely and you can't *make* other kids accept someone as a friend. We hoped that he'd make friends with someone from his social skills group which had several kids with AS, but what we found was that then *neither* boy had much in the way of social skills, and they would tend to get involved with their focal interests and ignore each other. Skipping forward a couple of years, we found that it was time to start thinking about what our son would do when he finished high school. I was still thinking that a 4-year college was a natural choice for such a smart kid. The case manager gradually broke it to me that our son should get some trade skills in case college didn't work out. I was seeing here on this board that *many* parents who tried to send their AS kids to college were failing despite herculean efforts. Our son's social worker told me that AS kids "crash and burn" in college. Her daughter--also with AS--had just completed the required classes for a degree in teaching, but at the last minute, the faculty informed her that she wouldn't be granted the degree or certificate or whatever because they knew she lacked the social skills to teach and they couldn't in good conscience grant her the credentials she would need to become a teacher. She fell apart (including moving out and becoming homeless for a while), and her mother was desperately trying to pick up the pieces.We decided to let our son try the high school's technical school. Two years later, he has five professional certifications in the computer repair/website design area. He loves the work, but his instructors informed me that they don't think he'll be able to hold a job in the field. Lack of social skills. For example, he finished the unit way ahead of other kids, but when his teacher asked him to help a fellow student who was having problems, he wound up asking the kid if he was stupid or what? Also, that executive functioning issue is rearing it's ugly head again. He can't really problem solve the way he would need to be able to in a professional capacity.Then there are the day to day issues. He can't remember to take his medicine by himself. Simple problems confuse him because he has trouble generalizing one experience to a similar, but different, one in the future. Personal hygiene is getting better, but we still have to remind him every day to use deodorant, shave, and brush his teeth. If we don't do that, it doesn't get done because he really can't see why he should care about how other people see him.So here we are. He's 19 and taking a fifth year of high school to give him a little more developmental time (kids with IEPs can do that). His psychiatrist suggested that we needed to make him our ward because he still needs someone to take care of him--we're hoping he'll "grow out of" this, but realistically, only time will tell whether that's possible. I've had him evaluated by the Department of Rehabilitative Services, so he can get job placement and job coaching help--but I'm worried that means they'll get him hired on at Mc's to sweep the floor. I *still* want to see him go to college, but we've learned that colleges that offer support programs for kids with AS are *very* expensive. There's a really attractive program at NYIT--but it's so expensive that we can't possibly afford it. I'm supposed to be working on getting our son qualified for SSI because we could use that income to help him with a program like that, but I'm kind of overwhelmed and *he* certainly can't do it himself.This has gotten hideously long, and I hope I haven't lost you, because what I really want to say is that even *very* high functioning children (and their parents) have major hurdles to overcome. The social and executive function deficits are *so* much more handicapping than you think they are when your child is very young. Also, children who can be diagnosed at 5 or 6 yo probably *aren't* all that high functioning. Most kids who are truly high functioning Aspies aren't diagnosable until they're in late grade school or even high school because they can compensate up until then.As a parent, raising a child with Asperger's can mean dealing with the death of one dream after another for your child's future. It truly is heartbreaking. I know because we're living it. My son is still a wonderful person. He's sweet and innocent in a way that other people aren't. He's cute. He's brilliant. And yet none of that is enough to keep him from having the sort of limited future I could never have envisioned for him when he was 7yo.I sincerely hope that your experience with AS follows a different pathway from ours. It's entirely possible that it will because every person with AS is different from every other person with AS. I'm just saying you need to be careful about judging other parents because you could so easily be walking in their shoes in ten years.Peace.SueThe future of our childrenPosted by: "" teamjakob06@... teamjakob06Mon Jul 19, 2010 12:48 pm (PDT)Lately I have been reading some of the posts on here and thinking a lot about my child's future. I have NO doubt in my mind that my son will be a productive, sucessful citizen. I homeschool him and we get very indepth with certain subjects. He can learn much better than at a private or public school and the resources are endless. He is 7 now and when he graduates he will attend college like every other child in America. It will not be a special college either, it may very well be Washington University as it is in our city of Fredericksburg. I know that one day he too will have a family and I look forward to having grandchildren. Not one time have I ever thought that he would be a stock boy at Walmart or the service guy at our local Exxon, Shell, Wawa, etc.. Not one time have I thought that he would never amount to much or ever let him think that. Never ever have I thought of his disability as a bad thing. There is greatness in all these children and our job is to guide them to become greatness! Sometimes I think that we tend to hinder our children more than their disability by setting the bar so low that they believe thenselves that they can't do anything or won't amount to much. We used to live in Georgia and they had very little resources to help, so I moved to Virginia, where I was born and my parents were raised. Here there is a lot of help, BUT DON'T RELY ON THE SCHOOL SYSTEM TO TELL YOU ABOUT IT OR HELP YOU GET IT! You have to do your home work as I have read that many of you have and you have to know, have to have faith, and have to believe that God blessed you with this special child for a reason! The road is less traveled, tiring, and we all feel that we are treading on broken glass barefoot, but we all choose to be parents even though God choose us to be parents of Aspie children, again for a reason! If you stop clipping their wings and allow them to fly, who knows how high they will soar!

[Guest guest]

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You expressed beautifully what I was too upset

and angry to say, I am glad you did not cut a single word.

Sue in TN

>

> I hope I'm wrong, but I read you post as a kind of criticism of how many of us

are raising our children. And I hope you're right. I hope what you're doing

with your son will head off the many problems that develop as these children get

older. We have three sons with AS. The oldest is 19. The other two are 15 and

12. The 15 yo is less affected, and will, I think, have a relatively normal

future. The 19 yo and the 12 yo are facing a different set of challenges.

>

> When my 19yo was 7 the way your son is now, I too thought he had a bright

future ahead of him. There were problems at school but none of his classmates

had really sophisticated social skills and they were very nonjudgemental. He

also had a friend and we had just learned that his verbal IQ was/is about 200.

He taught himself to read grown-up novels shortly after his third birthday. He

was truly brilliant. I was envisioning a future for him that might include

being an author or a college professor. You know, quirky, but brilliant.

>

> When he was 7 1/2 the military transferred us to a different state, and we

elected to move into a district that had a fabulous program for gifted kids.

The biggest problem for my son was that he eventually lost contact with that one

friend he had (and has never been able to make another one).

>

> At 8yo he was moved to a full-time gifted program. I was so proud of him and

it just reinforced my hopes for his future. AS wasn't going to stand in the way

of anything for my son. It wasn't going to be an excuse for a failure to

achieve. Yeay! Unfortunately, a gifted program involves lots of transitions

all the time. The typical gifted children thrived, but my son was totally

overwhelmed. The day came when the principal told us that if we brought him

back to school the next day, he would expel him. I was completely new to the

IEP world, and didn't know that this was an empty and illegal threat, so I

pulled him out and homeschooled him for the next couple of years--all the while

working on social skills and learning coping mechanisms. He did *wonderfully*

academically, but when I put him in school I asked them to have his repeat the

year we had just completed to give him an extra year to prepare socially for

middle school. The school agreed, and, again, I was hopeful that things were

back on track for a successful future.

>

> Middle school was a mess. He got lumped in with ED classes because he needed

a smaller group and the same district that has such a wonderful program for

gifted kids has literally nothing for kids with high functioning autism. The ED

kids victimized my son--especially in gym class--to the point that his teachers

had him pulled out of that setting and moved to an LD setting instead. Well, so

much for that brilliant academic future. LD classes don't move as quickly as

even general ed. classes for obvious reasons.

>

> High school rolled around, and my son got a wonderful case manager who took a

personal interest in him. He was available to support my son throughout the

day, and many of the problems we'd seen in middle school improved a lot. But he

still had no friends, and he was constantly getting in trouble with his grades

because he was so very disorganized. You see he has executive functioning

deficits. Keeping himself as organized as a typical high school student is

literally impossible for him. Where could he get more help with staying

organized? The LD classes. He did, however, have some non-special ed. classes.

Latin for example--and he did *very* well on tests and quizzes because he has a

photographic memory--but he was still so disorganized about his homework. Also,

by now his lack of friends was really hurting him. He wrote an entry in his

journal concerning how hopeless he felt and wondering why he didn't just kill

himself. I got a call to come to the school immediately. We talked with his

case manager and I took our son home for a mental health day. We also contacted

his psychiatrist (by now he was on several meds--including ADHD meds in an

attempt to improve his executive functioning skills--so he had a psychiatrist.

He was also in social skills therapy with a social worker, and we brought her in

on the problem. The specialists couldn't really do much about the root of the

problem though. The boy was lonely and you can't *make* other kids accept

someone as a friend. We hoped that he'd make friends with someone from his

social skills group which had several kids with AS, but what we found was that

then *neither* boy had much in the way of social skills, and they would tend to

get involved with their focal interests and ignore each other.

>

> Skipping forward a couple of years, we found that it was time to start

thinking about what our son would do when he finished high school. I was still

thinking that a 4-year college was a natural choice for such a smart kid. The

case manager gradually broke it to me that our son should get some trade skills

in case college didn't work out. I was seeing here on this board that *many*

parents who tried to send their AS kids to college were failing despite

herculean efforts. Our son's social worker told me that AS kids " crash and

burn " in college. Her daughter--also with AS--had just completed the required

classes for a degree in teaching, but at the last minute, the faculty informed

her that she wouldn't be granted the degree or certificate or whatever because

they knew she lacked the social skills to teach and they couldn't in good

conscience grant her the credentials she would need to become a teacher. She

fell apart (including moving out and becoming homeless for a while), and her

mother was desperately trying to pick up the pieces.

>

> We decided to let our son try the high school's technical school. Two years

later, he has five professional certifications in the computer repair/website

design area. He loves the work, but his instructors informed me that they don't

think he'll be able to hold a job in the field. Lack of social skills. For

example, he finished the unit way ahead of other kids, but when his teacher

asked him to help a fellow student who was having problems, he wound up asking

the kid if he was stupid or what? Also, that executive functioning issue is

rearing it's ugly head again. He can't really problem solve the way he would

need to be able to in a professional capacity.

>

> Then there are the day to day issues. He can't remember to take his medicine

by himself. Simple problems confuse him because he has trouble generalizing one

experience to a similar, but different, one in the future. Personal hygiene is

getting better, but we still have to remind him every day to use deodorant,

shave, and brush his teeth. If we don't do that, it doesn't get done because he

really can't see why he should care about how other people see him.

>

> So here we are. He's 19 and taking a fifth year of high school to give him a

little more developmental time (kids with IEPs can do that). His psychiatrist

suggested that we needed to make him our ward because he still needs someone to

take care of him--we're hoping he'll " grow out of " this, but realistically, only

time will tell whether that's possible. I've had him evaluated by the

Department of Rehabilitative Services, so he can get job placement and job

coaching help--but I'm worried that means they'll get him hired on at Mc's

to sweep the floor. I *still* want to see him go to college, but we've learned

that colleges that offer support programs for kids with AS are *very* expensive.

There's a really attractive program at NYIT--but it's so expensive that we can't

possibly afford it. I'm supposed to be working on getting our son qualified for

SSI because we could use that income to help him with a program like that, but

I'm kind of overwhelmed and *he* certainly can't do it himself.

>

> This has gotten hideously long, and I hope I haven't lost you, because what I

really want to say is that even *very* high functioning children (and their

parents) have major hurdles to overcome. The social and executive function

deficits are *so* much more handicapping than you think they are when your child

is very young. Also, children who can be diagnosed at 5 or 6 yo probably

*aren't* all that high functioning. Most kids who are truly high functioning

Aspies aren't diagnosable until they're in late grade school or even high school

because they can compensate up until then.

>

> As a parent, raising a child with Asperger's can mean dealing with the death

of one dream after another for your child's future. It truly is heartbreaking.

I know because we're living it. My son is still a wonderful person. He's sweet

and innocent in a way that other people aren't. He's cute. He's brilliant.

And yet none of that is enough to keep him from having the sort of limited

future I could never have envisioned for him when he was 7yo.

>

> I sincerely hope that your experience with AS follows a different pathway from

ours. It's entirely possible that it will because every person with AS is

different from every other person with AS. I'm just saying you need to be

careful about judging other parents because you could so easily be walking in

their shoes in ten years.

>

> Peace.

> Sue

>

>

> > The future of our children

> > Posted by: " " teamjakob06@... teamjakob06

> > Mon Jul 19, 2010 12:48 pm (PDT)

> >

> >

> >

> > Lately I have been reading some of the posts on here and thinking a lot

about my child's future. I have NO doubt in my mind that my son will be a

productive, sucessful citizen. I homeschool him and we get very indepth with

certain subjects. He can learn much better than at a private or public school

and the resources are endless. He is 7 now and when he graduates he will attend

college like every other child in America. It will not be a special college

either, it may very well be Washington University as it is in our city of

Fredericksburg. I know that one day he too will have a family and I look forward

to having grandchildren. Not one time have I ever thought that he would be a

stock boy at Walmart or the service guy at our local Exxon, Shell, Wawa, etc..

Not one time have I thought that he would never amount to much or ever let him

think that. Never ever have I thought of his disability as a bad thing. There is

greatness in all these children and our job is to guide them to become

greatness! Sometimes I think that we tend to hinder our children more than their

disability by setting the bar so low that they believe thenselves that they

can't do anything or won't amount to much.

> >

> > We used to live in Georgia and they had very little resources to help, so I

moved to Virginia, where I was born and my parents were raised. Here there is a

lot of help, BUT DON'T RELY ON THE SCHOOL SYSTEM TO TELL YOU ABOUT IT OR HELP

YOU GET IT! You have to do your home work as I have read that many of you have

and you have to know, have to have faith, and have to believe that God blessed

you with this special child for a reason! The road is less traveled, tiring, and

we all feel that we are treading on broken glass barefoot, but we all choose to

be parents even though God choose us to be parents of Aspie children, again for

a reason! If you stop clipping their wings and allow them to fly, who knows how

high they will soar!

> >

> >

>

[Guest guest]

I completely agree with both Sue and Sue!

> >

> > I hope I'm wrong, but I read you post as a kind of criticism of how many of

us are raising our children. And I hope you're right. I hope what you're doing

with your son will head off the many problems that develop as these children get

older. We have three sons with AS. The oldest is 19. The other two are 15 and

12. The 15 yo is less affected, and will, I think, have a relatively normal

future. The 19 yo and the 12 yo are facing a different set of challenges.

> >

> > When my 19yo was 7 the way your son is now, I too thought he had a bright

future ahead of him. There were problems at school but none of his classmates

had really sophisticated social skills and they were very nonjudgemental. He

also had a friend and we had just learned that his verbal IQ was/is about 200.

He taught himself to read grown-up novels shortly after his third birthday. He

was truly brilliant. I was envisioning a future for him that might include

being an author or a college professor. You know, quirky, but brilliant.

> >

> > When he was 7 1/2 the military transferred us to a different state, and we

elected to move into a district that had a fabulous program for gifted kids.

The biggest problem for my son was that he eventually lost contact with that one

friend he had (and has never been able to make another one).

> >

> > At 8yo he was moved to a full-time gifted program. I was so proud of him

and it just reinforced my hopes for his future. AS wasn't going to stand in the

way of anything for my son. It wasn't going to be an excuse for a failure to

achieve. Yeay! Unfortunately, a gifted program involves lots of transitions

all the time. The typical gifted children thrived, but my son was totally

overwhelmed. The day came when the principal told us that if we brought him

back to school the next day, he would expel him. I was completely new to the

IEP world, and didn't know that this was an empty and illegal threat, so I

pulled him out and homeschooled him for the next couple of years--all the while

working on social skills and learning coping mechanisms. He did *wonderfully*

academically, but when I put him in school I asked them to have his repeat the

year we had just completed to give him an extra year to prepare socially for

middle school. The school agreed, and, again, I was hopeful that things were

back on track for a successful future.

> >

> > Middle school was a mess. He got lumped in with ED classes because he

needed a smaller group and the same district that has such a wonderful program

for gifted kids has literally nothing for kids with high functioning autism.

The ED kids victimized my son--especially in gym class--to the point that his

teachers had him pulled out of that setting and moved to an LD setting instead.

Well, so much for that brilliant academic future. LD classes don't move as

quickly as even general ed. classes for obvious reasons.

> >

> > High school rolled around, and my son got a wonderful case manager who took

a personal interest in him. He was available to support my son throughout the

day, and many of the problems we'd seen in middle school improved a lot. But he

still had no friends, and he was constantly getting in trouble with his grades

because he was so very disorganized. You see he has executive functioning

deficits. Keeping himself as organized as a typical high school student is

literally impossible for him. Where could he get more help with staying

organized? The LD classes. He did, however, have some non-special ed. classes.

Latin for example--and he did *very* well on tests and quizzes because he has a

photographic memory--but he was still so disorganized about his homework. Also,

by now his lack of friends was really hurting him. He wrote an entry in his

journal concerning how hopeless he felt and wondering why he didn't just kill

himself. I got a call to come to the school immediately. We talked with his

case manager and I took our son home for a mental health day. We also contacted

his psychiatrist (by now he was on several meds--including ADHD meds in an

attempt to improve his executive functioning skills--so he had a psychiatrist.

He was also in social skills therapy with a social worker, and we brought her in

on the problem. The specialists couldn't really do much about the root of the

problem though. The boy was lonely and you can't *make* other kids accept

someone as a friend. We hoped that he'd make friends with someone from his

social skills group which had several kids with AS, but what we found was that

then *neither* boy had much in the way of social skills, and they would tend to

get involved with their focal interests and ignore each other.

> >

> > Skipping forward a couple of years, we found that it was time to start

thinking about what our son would do when he finished high school. I was still

thinking that a 4-year college was a natural choice for such a smart kid. The

case manager gradually broke it to me that our son should get some trade skills

in case college didn't work out. I was seeing here on this board that *many*

parents who tried to send their AS kids to college were failing despite

herculean efforts. Our son's social worker told me that AS kids " crash and

burn " in college. Her daughter--also with AS--had just completed the required

classes for a degree in teaching, but at the last minute, the faculty informed

her that she wouldn't be granted the degree or certificate or whatever because

they knew she lacked the social skills to teach and they couldn't in good

conscience grant her the credentials she would need to become a teacher. She

fell apart (including moving out and becoming homeless for a while), and her

mother was desperately trying to pick up the pieces.

> >

> > We decided to let our son try the high school's technical school. Two years

later, he has five professional certifications in the computer repair/website

design area. He loves the work, but his instructors informed me that they don't

think he'll be able to hold a job in the field. Lack of social skills. For

example, he finished the unit way ahead of other kids, but when his teacher

asked him to help a fellow student who was having problems, he wound up asking

the kid if he was stupid or what? Also, that executive functioning issue is

rearing it's ugly head again. He can't really problem solve the way he would

need to be able to in a professional capacity.

> >

> > Then there are the day to day issues. He can't remember to take his

medicine by himself. Simple problems confuse him because he has trouble

generalizing one experience to a similar, but different, one in the future.

Personal hygiene is getting better, but we still have to remind him every day to

use deodorant, shave, and brush his teeth. If we don't do that, it doesn't get

done because he really can't see why he should care about how other people see

him.

> >

> > So here we are. He's 19 and taking a fifth year of high school to give him

a little more developmental time (kids with IEPs can do that). His psychiatrist

suggested that we needed to make him our ward because he still needs someone to

take care of him--we're hoping he'll " grow out of " this, but realistically, only

time will tell whether that's possible. I've had him evaluated by the

Department of Rehabilitative Services, so he can get job placement and job

coaching help--but I'm worried that means they'll get him hired on at Mc's

to sweep the floor. I *still* want to see him go to college, but we've learned

that colleges that offer support programs for kids with AS are *very* expensive.

There's a really attractive program at NYIT--but it's so expensive that we can't

possibly afford it. I'm supposed to be working on getting our son qualified for

SSI because we could use that income to help him with a program like that, but

I'm kind of overwhelmed and *he* certainly can't do it himself.

> >

> > This has gotten hideously long, and I hope I haven't lost you, because what

I really want to say is that even *very* high functioning children (and their

parents) have major hurdles to overcome. The social and executive function

deficits are *so* much more handicapping than you think they are when your child

is very young. Also, children who can be diagnosed at 5 or 6 yo probably

*aren't* all that high functioning. Most kids who are truly high functioning

Aspies aren't diagnosable until they're in late grade school or even high school

because they can compensate up until then.

> >

> > As a parent, raising a child with Asperger's can mean dealing with the death

of one dream after another for your child's future. It truly is heartbreaking.

I know because we're living it. My son is still a wonderful person. He's sweet

and innocent in a way that other people aren't. He's cute. He's brilliant.

And yet none of that is enough to keep him from having the sort of limited

future I could never have envisioned for him when he was 7yo.

> >

> > I sincerely hope that your experience with AS follows a different pathway

from ours. It's entirely possible that it will because every person with AS is

different from every other person with AS. I'm just saying you need to be

careful about judging other parents because you could so easily be walking in

their shoes in ten years.

> >

> > Peace.

> > Sue

> >

> >

> > > The future of our children

> > > Posted by: " " teamjakob06@ teamjakob06

> > > Mon Jul 19, 2010 12:48 pm (PDT)

> > >

> > >

> > >

> > > Lately I have been reading some of the posts on here and thinking a lot

about my child's future. I have NO doubt in my mind that my son will be a

productive, sucessful citizen. I homeschool him and we get very indepth with

certain subjects. He can learn much better than at a private or public school

and the resources are endless. He is 7 now and when he graduates he will attend

college like every other child in America. It will not be a special college

either, it may very well be Washington University as it is in our city of

Fredericksburg. I know that one day he too will have a family and I look forward

to having grandchildren. Not one time have I ever thought that he would be a

stock boy at Walmart or the service guy at our local Exxon, Shell, Wawa, etc..

Not one time have I thought that he would never amount to much or ever let him

think that. Never ever have I thought of his disability as a bad thing. There is

greatness in all these children and our job is to guide them to become

greatness! Sometimes I think that we tend to hinder our children more than their

disability by setting the bar so low that they believe thenselves that they

can't do anything or won't amount to much.

> > >

> > > We used to live in Georgia and they had very little resources to help, so

I moved to Virginia, where I was born and my parents were raised. Here there is

a lot of help, BUT DON'T RELY ON THE SCHOOL SYSTEM TO TELL YOU ABOUT IT OR HELP

YOU GET IT! You have to do your home work as I have read that many of you have

and you have to know, have to have faith, and have to believe that God blessed

you with this special child for a reason! The road is less traveled, tiring, and

we all feel that we are treading on broken glass barefoot, but we all choose to

be parents even though God choose us to be parents of Aspie children, again for

a reason! If you stop clipping their wings and allow them to fly, who knows how

high they will soar!

> > >

> > >

> >

>

[Guest guest]

We just got the results back from testing that 2 of our AS children (ages 10 &

17) underwent through the Notre Dame University Family Center. At first it was a

bit disappointing--they scored normal IQ, normal social interaction, normal

communication ability; tentative diagnosis: Not AS, although the younger one

scored lower in most areas and was borderline for AS.

But then I realized that this is good news. They never received any professional

help, and this means that they probably never needed it, although they certainly

would have received it had we put them in school. Our choice to homeschool them

in a large family means that they never struggled with the issues that typically

confront AS children in a school setting.

What is interesting is that our 10 year old did score about a 10% higher IQ, but

lower on the social & communication tests. This indicates to me either that the

chronological component of the IQ score (which is designed for 10 year olds) is

defective, or that focusing on social and communication skills rather than

academics will probably result in a loss of most of that child's AS symptoms in

another 7 years.

So, our children may not qualify to participate in further University studies of

AS children, but that's great for their own futures as citizens in a

neurotypical society.

[Guest guest]

Please forgive if I have already sent this! Roxanna, I wish I could write with

the clarity that you do, it is like opening a window of fresh words!

I personally have gotten a lot out of this discussion/thread. The responses to

the initial post have been so helpful to me and seem very heartfelt. I have

always been so distraught and thought " if only son had high IQ all would be

well. " But yours and other's stories have helped me gain a much better

perspective on that...as the song says,'It Ain't Necessarily So!' I would like

to thank everybody that contributed.

Sue in Tennessee

" Just because you are a bird doesn't mean you can fly… " The Ostrich

> >

> > I hope I'm wrong, but I read you post as a kind of criticism of how many of

us are raising our children. And I hope you're right. I hope what you're doing

with your son will head off the many problems that develop as these children get

older. We have three sons with AS. The oldest is 19. The other two are 15 and

12. The 15 yo is less affected, and will, I think, have a relatively normal

future. The 19 yo and the 12 yo are facing a different set of challenges.

> >

> > When my 19yo was 7 the way your son is now, I too thought he had a bright

future ahead of him. There were problems at school but none of his classmates

had really sophisticated social skills and they were very nonjudgemental. He

also had a friend and we had just learned that his verbal IQ was/is about 200.

He taught himself to read grown-up novels shortly after his third birthday. He

was truly brilliant. I was envisioning a future for him that might include being

an author or a college professor. You know, quirky, but brilliant.

> >

> > When he was 7 1/2 the military transferred us to a different state, and we

elected to move into a district that had a fabulous program for gifted kids. The

biggest problem for my son was that he eventually lost contact with that one

friend he had (and has never been able to make another one).

> >

> > At 8yo he was moved to a full-time gifted program. I was so proud of him and

it just reinforced my hopes for his future. AS wasn't going to stand in the way

of anything for my son. It wasn't going to be an excuse for a failure to

achieve. Yeay! Unfortunately, a gifted program involves lots of transitions all

the time. The typical gifted children thrived, but my son was totally

overwhelmed. The day came when the principal told us that if we brought him back

to school the next day, he would expel him. I was completely new to the IEP

world, and didn't know that this was an empty and illegal threat, so I pulled

him out and homeschooled him for the next couple of years--all the while working

on social skills and learning coping mechanisms. He did *wonderfully*

academically, but when I put him in school I asked them to have his repeat the

year we had just completed to give him an extra year to prepare socially for

middle school. The school agreed, and, again, I was hopeful that things were

back on track for a successful future.

> >

> > Middle school was a mess. He got lumped in with ED classes because he needed

a smaller group and the same district that has such a wonderful program for

gifted kids has literally nothing for kids with high functioning autism. The ED

kids victimized my son--especially in gym class--to the point that his teachers

had him pulled out of that setting and moved to an LD setting instead. Well, so

much for that brilliant academic future. LD classes don't move as quickly as

even general ed. classes for obvious reasons.

> >

> > High school rolled around, and my son got a wonderful case manager who took

a personal interest in him. He was available to support my son throughout the

day, and many of the problems we'd seen in middle school improved a lot. But he

still had no friends, and he was constantly getting in trouble with his grades

because he was so very disorganized. You see he has executive functioning

deficits. Keeping himself as organized as a typical high school student is

literally impossible for him. Where could he get more help with staying

organized? The LD classes. He did, however, have some non-special ed. classes.

Latin for example--and he did *very* well on tests and quizzes because he has a

photographic memory--but he was still so disorganized about his homework. Also,

by now his lack of friends was really hurting him. He wrote an entry in his

journal concerning how hopeless he felt and wondering why he didn't just kill

himself. I got a call to come to the school immediately. We talked with his case

manager and I took our son home for a mental health day. We also contacted his

psychiatrist (by now he was on several meds--including ADHD meds in an attempt

to improve his executive functioning skills--so he had a psychiatrist. He was

also in social skills therapy with a social worker, and we brought her in on the

problem. The specialists couldn't really do much about the root of the problem

though. The boy was lonely and you can't *make* other kids accept someone as a

friend. We hoped that he'd make friends with someone from his social skills

group which had several kids with AS, but what we found was that then *neither*

boy had much in the way of social skills, and they would tend to get involved

with their focal interests and ignore each other.

> >

> > Skipping forward a couple of years, we found that it was time to start

thinking about what our son would do when he finished high school. I was still

thinking that a 4-year college was a natural choice for such a smart kid. The

case manager gradually broke it to me that our son should get some trade skills

in case college didn't work out. I was seeing here on this board that *many*

parents who tried to send their AS kids to college were failing despite

herculean efforts. Our son's social worker told me that AS kids " crash and burn "

in college. Her daughter--also with AS--had just completed the required classes

for a degree in teaching, but at the last minute, the faculty informed her that

she wouldn't be granted the degree or certificate or whatever because they knew

she lacked the social skills to teach and they couldn't in good conscience grant

her the credentials she would need to become a teacher. She fell apart

(including moving out and becoming homeless for a while), and her mother was

desperately trying to pick up the pieces.

> >

> > We decided to let our son try the high school's technical school. Two years

later, he has five professional certifications in the computer repair/website

design area. He loves the work, but his instructors informed me that they don't

think he'll be able to hold a job in the field. Lack of social skills. For

example, he finished the unit way ahead of other kids, but when his teacher

asked him to help a fellow student who was having problems, he wound up asking

the kid if he was stupid or what? Also, that executive functioning issue is

rearing it's ugly head again. He can't really problem solve the way he would

need to be able to in a professional capacity.

> >

> > Then there are the day to day issues. He can't remember to take his medicine

by himself. Simple problems confuse him because he has trouble generalizing one

experience to a similar, but different, one in the future. Personal hygiene is

getting better, but we still have to remind him every day to use deodorant,

shave, and brush his teeth. If we don't do that, it doesn't get done because he

really can't see why he should care about how other people see him.

> >

> > So here we are. He's 19 and taking a fifth year of high school to give him a

little more developmental time (kids with IEPs can do that). His psychiatrist

suggested that we needed to make him our ward because he still needs someone to

take care of him--we're hoping he'll " grow out of " this, but realistically, only

time will tell whether that's possible. I've had him evaluated by the Department

of Rehabilitative Services, so he can get job placement and job coaching

help--but I'm worried that means they'll get him hired on at Mc's to sweep

the floor. I *still* want to see him go to college, but we've learned that

colleges that offer support programs for kids with AS are *very* expensive.

There's a really attractive program at NYIT--but it's so expensive that we can't

possibly afford it. I'm supposed to be working on getting our son qualified for

SSI because we could use that income to help him with a program like that, but

I'm kind of overwhelmed and *he* certainly can't do it himself.

> >

> > This has gotten hideously long, and I hope I haven't lost you, because what

I really want to say is that even *very* high functioning children (and their

parents) have major hurdles to overcome. The social and executive function

deficits are *so* much more handicapping than you think they are when your child

is very young. Also, children who can be diagnosed at 5 or 6 yo probably

*aren't* all that high functioning. Most kids who are truly high functioning

Aspies aren't diagnosable until they're in late grade school or even high school

because they can compensate up until then.

> >

> > As a parent, raising a child with Asperger's can mean dealing with the death

of one dream after another for your child's future. It truly is heartbreaking. I

know because we're living it. My son is still a wonderful person. He's sweet and

innocent in a way that other people aren't. He's cute. He's brilliant. And yet

none of that is enough to keep him from having the sort of limited future I

could never have envisioned for him when he was 7yo.

> >

> > I sincerely hope that your experience with AS follows a different pathway

from ours. It's entirely possible that it will because every person with AS is

different from every other person with AS. I'm just saying you need to be

careful about judging other parents because you could so easily be walking in

their shoes in ten years.

> >

> > Peace.

> > Sue

> >

> >

> > > The future of our children

> > > Posted by: " " teamjakob06@ teamjakob06

> > > Mon Jul 19, 2010 12:48 pm (PDT)

> > >

> > >

> > >

> > > Lately I have been reading some of the posts on here and thinking a lot

about my child's future. I have NO doubt in my mind that my son will be a

productive, sucessful citizen. I homeschool him and we get very indepth with

certain subjects. He can learn much better than at a private or public school

and the resources are endless. He is 7 now and when he graduates he will attend

college like every other child in America. It will not be a special college

either, it may very well be Washington University as it is in our city of

Fredericksburg. I know that one day he too will have a family and I look forward

to having grandchildren. Not one time have I ever thought that he would be a

stock boy at Walmart or the service guy at our local Exxon, Shell, Wawa, etc..

Not one time have I thought that he would never amount to much or ever let him

think that. Never ever have I thought of his disability as a bad thing. There is

greatness in all these children and our job is to guide them to become

greatness! Sometimes I think that we tend to hinder our children more than their

disability by setting the bar so low that they believe thenselves that they

can't do anything or won't amount to much.

> > >

> > > We used to live in Georgia and they had very little resources to help, so

I moved to Virginia, where I was born and my parents were raised. Here there is

a lot of help, BUT DON'T RELY ON THE SCHOOL SYSTEM TO TELL YOU ABOUT IT OR HELP

YOU GET IT! You have to do your home work as I have read that many of you have

and you have to know, have to have faith, and have to believe that God blessed

you with this special child for a reason! The road is less traveled, tiring, and

we all feel that we are treading on broken glass barefoot, but we all choose to

be parents even though God choose us to be parents of Aspie children, again for

a reason! If you stop clipping their wings and allow them to fly, who knows how

high they will soar!

> > >

> > >

> >

>