My 7 year old son is showing some signs of having Aspergers syndrome. He is funny, querky, very articulate, like a little professor at times and is excellent at maths and on target in most areas at school. His problems lie in the area of social functioning (other children just don't 'get' him and he doesnt 'get' them), his handwriting is very poor he does have some limited eye contact, and has a problem with tags on clothes, loud noises etc.
He has had an initial assessment with the psychologist that visits the school and is now waiting for his formal assessment which, the teacher told us, can be ages as there is a huge waiting list. We have been waiting about 3 months already.
He seems to have some sort of auditory processing disorder. For about 18 months now he, and the theachers in class, have been noticing that when he is sat there listening to instructions or to people speak he sort of 'blanks out'. He describes this as 'freezing' and doesn't know what has been said. He can do this anything from once or twice a day to ten or twelve times on a bad day. Most of this takes place at school and only occasonally at home. He askes the teachers to repeat it for him which they sometimes do but if he still doesn't understand he simply sits there and does nothing. This is causing him to begin to fall behind in class.
My first thought was epilepsy as his father is epileptic. However his behaviour isn't typical of epilepsy as if you notice and tap him on the shoulder he comes out of it immediately. Around four months ago we did take him to see a neurologist and have an EEG. The EEG came back as negative and the neurologist also seconded this and said that as his behaviour did not suggest epilepsy. She felt that Aspergers was an appropriate alternative explanation for these freezing up episodes.
I have been having a lot of problems with his teachers as they have been telling him off or making a big deal of his freezing up episodes, which has been making it even worse. I have written a letter to the scchool and also spoken to his form teacher but she just sighed sadly and said that they didn't know what else they could do as in a class of over 27 children, a child blanking out like he did was very difficult to deal with.
I was just wondering if any other parents or people with ASD or Aspergers out there have had any experience of doing this blanking out thing and/or offer any suggestions as to what we could do to help. Thanks xxxx
