Re: New here; 8-year-old AS DD

[Guest guest]

Deb your daughter sounds darling and sweet.

About social skills at school, camps etc: Some parents

do seem content with their schools social skill programs.

In my school district a Mom I know is very statisfied

with her AS son's progress. Her son learned to make better

eye contact.

I have never been content with any program they have

offered. Or any of the programs around our area based

on Dr. Jed Baker's book.

I would love it if there was more Michele Winner training

and classes on the east coast. She is on the west coast

and gives presentations more in the west region.

I have an 11 year old daughter. She needs to know especially

how other girls think. And Michele Winner teaches kids

how other people think and that people judge you not

on the accuracy of the factual material you provide

but on how you stand, if you seem interested in them at all,

if you have any interest in them, their feelings, their

interests.

Her DWD social thinking across the day is very good. I would

recommend you get the DVD.

http://www.socialthinking.com/

In all the a programs my daughter has attended she does well

in facilitated settings. But put her in an unstructured

setting where the topics change frequently, the point of the

conversation is to have fun and interact she can't keep up

at all. She may get caught up in what the rules are in a game

rather than having fun and just agreeing to play it a way that

is agreed upon.

My 11 year old said that she thinks boys can make friends

by having similiar interests but girls that is not enough.

I thought this was perceptive of her.

I am out of luck I think on the east coast because even the

spec education and therapuetic schools don't teach these

skills. I noticed on the east coast private special needs

school taught " Social Problem Solving " which is often taught

as group and around the theme of getting along and cooperating.

These same schools said they taught social skills but that is

so broad ...in a school for kids that are mostly intrusive

or impulsive that may mean a certain set of skills around

good behavior.

I am very frustrated but not giving up yet and finding someone

that can and will help us.

I am sure I could do more at home to teach her she could ask

me about my interests more etc.

Good Luck

Pam

>

> Hi everyone,

>

> I've been lurking for about a week and have already learned so much from

reading past posts!

>

> My daughter is 8 and received a diagnosis of AS about 3 months ago. In some

ways getting the diagnosis was a relief, because it explains all the many ways

(large and small) that she has been different from other kids, since pretty much

the moment she was born! Things like screaming bloody murder as a baby if the

sun got in her eyes, preferring to be swaddled till she was 8 or 9 months old,

eating only stage-1 baby food till she was 16 months old -- now I know those are

all sensory issues. She has always had very poor muscle tone and is very clumsy

and started PT at the age of 1 (now I know that those things are associated with

AS, too). She also has an amazing vocabulary. She's a really smart girl (she

just qualified for the gifted program), but her social skills deficits are

getting more and more obvious as she gets older. She has a lot of trouble

working with other kids and she gets very upset about any changes in routine at

home or suggestions that she do things in a different way.

>

> Everything I've read about AS mentions the obsessive interests that people

with AS have, but my daughter doesn't really have that. She does ALWAYS have

her nose in a book, though. She also tends to go on and on and on about whatever

it is that she's thinking about.

>

> I was interested to see some past posts from moms of other girls with AS,

about their daughters' interests in animals. My daughter could absolutely care

less about animals, except for our cat! It's sort of weird how uninterested she

is in nature. But she loves science and math. She counts things wherever she

goes; every morning she tells me exactly what time she woke up; and she's really

bugged by the fact that the clock in my room is two minutes ahead of the clock

in her room!

>

> Luckily we have a really supportive school. It's a small Montessori

elementary school. My DD got an IEP when she entered in first grade, for

speech, and then in second grade her teacher recommended adding OT to help her

atrocious handwriting. So she gets OT 3 times a week there, 30 minutes at a

time. The Special Ed teacher who coordinates the IEPs doesn't seem very

familiar with the needs of autistic/AS kids but is trying to find out from the

district what else they can offer.

>

> My big question at this point is whether public schools typically (or ever)

offer social skills training. I would love for my DD to get that. She is going

to go to a social skills camp over the summer, so I'm hopeful that that will

help, but it doesn't seem like a 3-week period in the summer would necessarily

have much lasting effect. I'd love to hear about your experiences with IEPs and

social skills.

>

> I could go on and on, but I guess I should stop now! I do have about a

zillion other questions and I'm looking forward to hearing your perspectives.

>

> Thanks for reading all this!

>

> Deb

>

[Guest guest]

>

> My big question at this point is whether public schools typically (or ever)

offer social skills training.

Hi Deb. I have a 14yo son with Asperger, so can't answer to all the girl stuff.

Our school district has social skills training, but it is hard to get. My

son is getting it for the first time as he starts 9th grade next fall.

I suspect school districts vary considerably, but I'll give you our BTDT. In

our school district, if a student has been awarded special ed services

classified under autism, they will get social skills training. The trick is

getting awarded services.

Just having autism doesn't do it. And I don't think they'll declare a child

disabled just because of social skills issues. There has to be something else.

Once my son was declared disabled under the classification of autism, he got

social skills training as an other need that needed to be met.

My son was finally given an IEP because of his processing speed and executive

dysfunction. The processing speed was open and shut because he tested in the

1st percentile this time. They wouldn't consider him disabled regarding the

executive dysfunction until he got to the point where he couldn't pass

grade-level classes without supports (he was in gifted classes like your

daughter is going to be) despite his neuropysch eval showing him to be in the

impaired range.

The social skills training they will be providing looks good, although of course

I can't tell you from experience yet. He has a 5-day a week elective class that

is for both social skills and organization skills specifically for autism

spectrum students. Along with exercises they will do in class, he will be given

assignments to do throughout the school day in conjunction with his other

teachers and staff. School staff are supposed to watch him in class and out,

and give the social skills teacher things specific things for him to work on.

They tell me, even though he is in a class with other ASD students, it will be

totally individualized for his needs. I think a nice benefit will be that he

will get to meet the other ASD kids in his school.

This is how they do social skills in jr and sr high in our school district. I

don't know how they do it in elementary school. Since the schools are smaller,

they would either have to do it differently or bus the kids to different schools

to get enough ASD kids to make a class.

Welcome to the group! Hope this helps!

Ruth

[Guest guest]

>

> My big question at this point is whether public schools typically (or ever)

offer social skills training. I would love for my DD to get that. She is going

to go to a social skills camp over the summer, so I'm hopeful that that will

help, but it doesn't seem like a 3-week period in the summer would necessarily

have much lasting effect. I'd love to hear about your experiences with IEPs and

social skills.

By the way (adding to my other e-mail), when my son just had informal

accommodations in 6th grade, the school counselor gave him some one-on-one

social skills for a semester. This was once a week. Obviously not the best,

but better than nothing. Just to give you some more BTDT. They did this

because he was getting severely bullied and the teachers were also complaining

about his behavior (kinda being bullies themselves).

Ruth