Can you please point me in the right direction

His teacher has said she suspect hes on the spectrum,when i asked here why she said shes worked with autistic children and hes showing the same signs they did, for instance following the visual time table to a tee and reminding her shes not changed it, not showing any emtions at school, just showing an anxious face,taking everything very literally. hes very strict in himself,he will follow the school rules to a tee,he deomstrates a lack if eye contact when talking to people and teacher ha also noticed that he cannot express how he feels.

His huge obsession is football, its football football football, before that it was trams.

So teacher has picked up on things others havent.

Im just waiting for this occupational therapist whos coming into school that does assesments and see what she comes up with and then hopefully i will have to push push push.

Just sometimes you need a little reassurance that what you are doing is right, i suspect that when he does call himself a name after a meltdown or says he wants to kill himself is actually because he is annoyed at himself and cannot express how he actually feelss to tell us, if that makes sense.

His teacher has said she suspect hes on the spectrum,when i asked here why she said shes worked with autistic children and hes showing the same signs they did, for instance following the visual time table to a tee and reminding her shes not changed it, not showing any emtions at school, just showing an anxious face,taking everything very literally. hes very strict in himself,he will follow the school rules to a tee,he deomstrates a lack if eye contact when talking to people and teacher ha also noticed that he cannot express how he feels.

His huge obsession is football, its football football football, before that it was trams.

So teacher has picked up on things others havent.

Im just waiting for this occupational therapist whos coming into school that does assesments and see what she comes up with and then hopefully i will have to push push push.

Just sometimes you need a little reassurance that what you are doing is right, i suspect that when he does call himself a name after a meltdown or says he wants to kill himself is actually because he is annoyed at himself and cannot express how he actually feelss to tell us, if that makes sense.

I know I'll get slapped down for this, but to be accurate, most people experience meltdowns (have you ever had one of those bad days when everything goes wrong and eventually you 'lose your rag' over something trivial that's the last straw?).

It is just the magnitude and frequency that differs with autistic spectrum.

It isn't really the meltdown that's the issue here, it's the lifestyle circumstances of someone with autism that's important. If it was feasible, if you want something to video, video eight hours of life with autism. Then perhaps you would understand the meltdown.

Perhaps he wouldn't notice being videod during a meltdown. But a video of a meltdown is not going to help the school understand what is happening.

The difficulty with videoing his life in school however is that parental permission of everyone likely to be involved is mandatory, and how do you film the things that only happen because they are 'unseen'.

However NAS could help many parents by producing a video using actors, based on collective knowledge of the kinds of things that go on in schools (they've done this on a small scale as video clips of social exclusion).

If school teachers could watch a video of all the subtle hurts, snide comments, pushing and shoving, dirty tricks, name calling etc that many children on the spectrum suffer in school, out of sight of the teachers, they might understand. So even if they manage to bottle it up through school, it is inevitable they explode at home.

Indeed there will never be sufficient understanding of the hell children on the spectrum go through until something like this is done, and used as an educational tool.

I was ever told the old 'sticks and stones will break your bones but words will never hurt you' myth. If you've got autism or aspergers your reactions to words are entertaining for others around you. It becomes fun to exploit your social vulnerability, literal understanding, and reaction to excessive visual and aural stimuli. That way words do hurt.

crystal12 said:

You should be honest with the professionals.  Write things down so you don't miss anything out.  Would your son object to being videoed when he's having a meltdown.  Many autistic children manage to hold their stress/anxiety in whilst at school+ then let it all out at home.  Check out the posts for examples of that.  You should also ask for a carer's assessment which may go some way to giving you a break.  Social services will have details.  Good luck.

When having a meltdown i dont think hed give a flying rat to be honest xx

Moonlight thats the thing that worries me, my father suffers manic depression, however having worked in specail schools myself and worked with autistic children in mainstream, i know my son is not right and if you look at autism and echolia, then that meets if you know what i mean.

oh wow, you guys are quick. 3 new posts by the time i finish typing one lol:)

Just to clarify my point, i did a year of the Special teacher course at the university, due to which i ended up doing alot of ADHD case studies(again, by no means im suggesting your son has this, its jsut an example to bring out similarities between conditions), im which cases the children were often very restless and agressive towards their family(yes, punching, pinching, hitting, scratching, pulling hair etc etc), very often picked at/bullied at school, not being able to fit in, often accompanied with communication/linguistical difficulties, temper, short attention span and often depression and sometimes also some sensory difficulties. Again, by no means am i suggesting he has it, especially since you said hes doing ok in school, but i am saying for a proper diagnosis everything, all the problems at school and at home need to be highlighted to get a proper diagnosis of whatever it happens to be and get him some proper support, and there may well be more conditions than one. Especially worrying is the repeatedly calling himself same name over and over, whcih so far ive only come across in some servere mental illness patients and in advanced dementia so far, but i do generally only deal with elderly, not young people:)

You should be honest with the professionals.  Write things down so you don't miss anything out.  Would your son object to being videoed when he's having a meltdown.  Many autistic children manage to hold their stress/anxiety in whilst at school+ then let it all out at home.  Check out the posts for examples of that.  You should also ask for a carer's assessment which may go some way to giving you a break.  Social services will have details.  Good luck.

Eamples of sensory issues, well we cannot use an outside toilet and have not been able to for around 4 years, he will have meltdowns in supermarkets, he will if someone has an expression on theyre face that is not normal he will kick off, in crows he will scream or sing at the top of his voice,it took us a few years to be able to use the hoover, he hates having his hair brushed, having a haircut is the cause of a huge meltdown and screaming, will not wash face, has to change clothes when wet, constantly harrasses his brother.

He has self stimulated since he was around 6 months old will go through periods of spinnng, will constantly jump up and down flapping hands.

Cant actually get out what he wants to say, if he has a meltdown you cant get to the bottom of it or you may hours or days later.

Has no danger awareness, can be awake till around 1/2am

the list is endless to be honest.

He definetly seems to have some sort of problem, although things like violent behaviour, extreme depression, communication difficulties etc may also be  result of other conditions, it is always to make sure the diagnosis you get is the right one(im not saying its not autism either, i am just pointing out the common traits with other conditions, due to which need to be very careful. for this reason many autistic people also get initially misdiagnosed with multiple other things). Can you tell us more about what hes like? IE you mentioned sensory issues, can you bring examples? and how is he with getting along with other people, the communication issues, are they with everybody? also does he have any strong interests etc?

As for the chams and the lady coming to see you it is always important to be completely honest, holding back stuff will never do anyoe any good in this situation:)