Hi, my son is 11 years old, and was seen by an educational psychologist Dec 2009 because of his behaviour at school. In September 2009 my son started a new school, because his last school were going to exclude him.
My son has a moderate hearing loss in both ears, and is supposed to wear his hearing aids on a daily basis. However, when wearing the hearing aids hes gets overloaded with noise and destroys his aids.
When seen by the psychologist there was a concern that my son could have aspergers syndrome. Nearly 2 years on, we still have no official diagnosis. CAMHS have been involved and did the ADI-R with me, and came to the conclusion that because my son developed within normal limits, but shows autistic traits in the communication and social sections, he doesnt have any form of autism.
I know theres something wrong with him, at the present time he is not attending school as he cannot cope with it. When i try to get him to go, i get punched and kicked, but educational welfare aren't listening and are going to fine me.
He was seen by an autism specialist who went into school to observe him for 2x30 mins sessions, and she said he has no signs, because he was using eye contact. I think what they havent thought about is that with my son having a hearing problem, that he lip reads!!
My son got a statement for 20 hours a week 1-1 or small group sessions, but has not accessed this because of the none attendence at school. His statement review has gone through and is now not being reviewed till May 2012, which means he will have been in a mainstream high school for nearly a year before they review it. Another educational psychologist and the high school have raised concerns about the transition to high school and think that my son will not be able to cope with the constant moving from classroom to classroom, and having 13 different teachers a week, so they have wrote letters to the LEA to see about provision for him at a special school.
So at the moment i don't know who or what to believe. The DISCO assessment was mentioned by the original psychologist, but the psychologist i saw last week said it wont be done because the ADI-R has been completed.....feel like screaming!
With regard to lack of eye contact, this is just ONE of the possible signs of autism.The diagnostic criteria give many examples of possible behavioural signs, and a child is not expected to display all of them unless the child/adult is a 'textbook case', which is quite unusual. I have AS and eye-contact has always been an issue, even though, like longman, I have been told that I have quite good eye-contact. But it is only very recently that I have started to look at the actual eyes; more often than not I look at the nose and mouth. And when I do look at the eyes, I don't get any feedback or information from them.
I know many other people with AS who make what appear to be good eye-contact, but they too have disclosed to me that they can't read the eyes.
With regard to lack of eye contact, this is just ONE of the possible signs of autism.The diagnostic criteria give many examples of possible behavioural signs, and a child is not expected to display all of them unless the child/adult is a 'textbook case', which is quite unusual. I have AS and eye-contact has always been an issue, even though, like longman, I have been told that I have quite good eye-contact. But it is only very recently that I have started to look at the actual eyes; more often than not I look at the nose and mouth. And when I do look at the eyes, I don't get any feedback or information from them.
I know many other people with AS who make what appear to be good eye-contact, but they too have disclosed to me that they can't read the eyes.
