Hi there. Sorry this might be a long post. I have some social issues and I am not very good at communicating concisely.
I have a son nearing 13 who has just been diagnosed ASD. He's had issues for a number of years but has taken a while for diagnosis for various reasons. We're still awaiting an assessment for ADHD and Dyspraxia but not sure how long that will take.
He's had some issues in school since, well, always really. He finds it really difficult to make friends and unfortunately quite often seems to become the target of bullies. He is being bullied in his current school, I have spoken to them twice about it but it still seems to be happening. The school counsellor is very good but is stretched extremely thinly so it's sometimes hard to get a hold of her to talk to about it. I've dealt primarily with her up until this point because she's been aware that my son has some difficulties and asd traits, whilst the other staff have been aware of general problems but we haven't had a formal diagnosis to point towards. I think some of the children find it very difficult to understand my son, they tell him very often that he's annoying or a loser or a waste of space. One day recently he came home very upset because they'd told him to kill himself. I called the head of KS3 who said she would speak with the students involved but I don't really know what came of it. My son still gets comments from them, the other day in class he asked a question beginning: 'Why...' and half way through someone interrupted him and said "Why were you born". He says that the teachers aren't aware what's going on and I feel like it's difficult for him to speak to a teacher and explain what's going on. He also doesn't like me intervening and is very reluctant most of the time for me to report things to the school for fear of making it worse. I'm really worried because this is having a big impact on his self-esteem. I feel like the way he views the situation is that they are targeting him and just getting away with it.
He has a tendency to rock/tap/click and a few other things which the teachers highlighted at parents' evening. When he's at home he has things that he can play with when we're talking or he's doing homework and it actually helps him focus and stop doing those things, but obviously school is a different environment and I don't think they'd allow it, also I'm not sure if it might draw more attention to him which he obviously doesn't want. I understand it must be distracting for other students but I think it's difficult for him to just stop doing what he's doing, he gets agitated and it's stressful when he can't do those things. I'm not sure whether I should be discouraging him from these things but I feel like they're comforting to him and I don't want him to feel ashamed of them. He's been sent out from lessons before, and the teacher has said to him in a nice way, can you please stop doing that. He had a day where he was tapping a lot and a teacher asked him to step outside so she could concentrate and that he could come back in after. I understand she needs to focus but it makes me feel uneasy that a) it draws attention to my son in an obvious way, and he tells me that they say he's doing something like that sometimes when he really hasn't been and b) I think it makes him feel ashamed and that it reinforces the idea that he is annoying.
He does very well academically and attains mostly As but his teachers seem to push him a lot for more in areas that he's already doing well in, and they sort of just ignore when I try to explain something is difficult for my son and assume that I'm making an excuse for him. They all had a consistent message of "he needs to transfer what he can orally express onto paper", but I don't know how to translate that in real terms, I don't know if I understand how to do that.
Sorry for the rant, I'm not good at formulating things into questions because I'm not sure what information is relevant. I feel a bit stuck and if anyone had any advice for me on any of these things I'd really appreciate it. Thank you very much for your time.
