Hi, father of 8 year old boy diagnosed with AS

My 15 year old son has been diagnosed with aspergers I feel somewhat releived in a way because I now understand he is not being difficult on purpose .My concern is that I dont know what to do now

Hi

My 8 year old recently was diagnosed with Aspergers. We found that he thought we knew things. Have you tried social stories to explain that you don't know everything and he can tell you. Does he know about his diagnosis?

Hi again - I would strongly advise getting him statemented.  It is a legal document + they will have to provide him better support (try to get lunchtimes + playtimes included in that).  You can check things out via the nas home page and/or the ipsea site.  I'm sure others will be along to contrubute on this. My son compartmentalises his life.  He'll only tell me what he wants to. As you know, sometimes asking a particular question can get a response, rather than saying "what's the matter" which can be too general.  Also my son seems to think I'm a mind reader!

Hi all, many thanks for taking the time out to reply. 

To: IntenseWorld and Pink68 - The problem is that he does not talk about himself, at all. If I ask him what's wrong, he shouts "YOU KNOW!" but he won't actually tell me, no matter how much I prompt him. It is the same if I ask him about school, he won't say one thing about it - not what he learnt, what lessons he had, even what he had for school lunch - nothing. 

To: Crystal12 - his teacher and SENCO are aware that he has an official diagnosis, but he has not, to my knowledge, been statemented. I think he gets one or two hours every other day in a small group, but the school tells me that they don't have much money for special needs, so his time is limited. 

It is true, that this behaviour has gotten worse during the holidays. I think he is lacking the structure of the school day, but he was aggressive before the hols. 

Hi - I agree with the other posters.  Has your son get a statement of educational needs, an amount of 1-1 support?  Also it's worth bearing in mind any other changes that may be happening such as changes to his routine which may unsteady him.  How long has this been going on?  Hope you all can make some progress soon.

Hi Nemesis,

I was going to say the same. Do you know what triggers him? I assume the school is aware of his diagnosis? Do they have anywhere he can go if he feels overwhelmed?

My daughter is 9 and probably Aspergers, I know that the unstructered time at school is a problem for her, this is in the playtime and lunch breaks, also in the afternoons the children have time to work on topics and art, where the noise level tends to rise. She told me that at these times she sometimes feels like she wants to run away and hide. In the mornings they have numeracy and literacy where the children have to be quiet and are all concentrating on their work, she's fine then.

Her school has a 'nuture group' made up of 2 teachers and around 6 - 8 pupils, for the kids that struggle in the classroom for whatever reason. Leah was going there in the afternoons and it has been a great help to her.

I really feel for you all going through this, I suspect your son is struggling with everything that's going on in his head. Is he aware of his diagnosis? After reading a book on Aspergers my daughter was just so relieved, she recognised so much of herself in the book that everything just 'made sense' to her, she understood why she was so different. Everyone said that she was much happier after we looked into Aspergers as a possibility for her issues and 'quirks'.

I hope it starts to get a little easier for you.

It's worth looking at what his sensory problems are as these could be triggering his aggression.  It's because of stress of some sort.