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<blockquote data-quote="Marguerite" data-source="post: 354360" data-attributes="member: 1991"><p>Something I want to emphasise with regard to the people who are trying to assess your son, with a view to getting a valid label - they are spending time with him, one-to-one. This was what put a spanner in the works for us with difficult child 1 at that age, with friends, family and psychologists - they were spending one-to-one time with him at which time, of course, he seemed a perfect gentleman. But looking back at what they observed, it fit Asperger's very well.</p><p></p><p>The problem of course, we can now see (with the benefit of 20:20 hindsight and 20 years) is that anyone trying to identify the underlying "disorder" were looking for evidence of dysfunction when, of course, in a one-to-one setting Asperger's actually can manifest (especially at a young age) as something really positive. And so of course that is what they saw.</p><p></p><p>The psychologist who was assessing difficult child 1 saw a very bright, rather serious boy who really wanted to talk about birds in detail. He was involved with his father in a scientific study that required them to go out early in the pre-dawn, capture birds, measure them, identify them, tag them and release them. Certainly nothing wrong with that, nor anything wrong with a kid who is able to identify most Australian birds on sight. During the assessment, difficult child 1 would at times say, "I don't want to talk about this any more. I don't want to answer any more questions. I want to talk about birds."</p><p></p><p>That is a big tip-off. But the psychologist said, "OK, we'll talk about birds for a few minutes, then go back to the test. OK?"</p><p>And they did. difficult child 1 went on to complete the assessment and score around 130 for averaged out IQ in the WPPSI.</p><p></p><p>Of course, when the school counsellor had previously been assessing him and difficult child 1 became non-compliant, she closed off the test at that point but scored it as if he had completed it. This gave difficult child 1 an IQ score which she wouldn't reveal to me, except to say it was significantly below 100. And yet he was near the top of his class in every subject! To the school counsellor (who for reasons I won't go into here but nothing to do with difficult child 1, needed to shoot me down, big-time) this was gold - she had ammunition to attack me for "pushing this poor boy to achieve well beyond his capability."</p><p></p><p>Now anyone with half a brain knows that you can't push a kid to achieve better than he is capable of. It's illogical. If difficult child 1 were a performing seal who could perform amazing mental gymnastics but only when I was present to feed him the answers with hand signals, then that would be a valid criticism. But difficult child 1 was performing well in school, in my absence. And, according to the school counsellor (who admitted she had to close off the test because he became increasingly agitated and fidgetty) he was performing way above average, with a "borderliine" IQ.</p><p></p><p>Back to difficult child 1 and how he was perceived - when he was 10, he stayed with an elderly couple we know from church. He stayed for almost a week while I was in hospital giving birth to difficult child 3. This couple loved difficult child 1, they were very close. Sort of honorary grandparents at our church. And for a week, they lavished all their attention and time on difficult child 1, who lapped it up and behaved like a perfect gentleman. difficult child 1 played chess with them. "Grandma" reported with amusement the condescending way difficult child 1 spoke to her when she kept losing chess games to him. Then when they took him for ice cream, she reported the stilted "little professor" conversations with him, again with amusement. At the time, difficult child 1 had a diagnosis of ADHD but in a one-to-one setting with all activity revolving around him, difficult child 1 was apparently faultless.</p><p></p><p>As with the private psychologist - all attention in that test had been on difficult child 1. Plus the psychologist was prepared to be flexible. The school counsellor was not.</p><p></p><p>THis is the thing - these kids love routine and order, but they also do well if everything revolves around their interests. They are often very bright, so they really respond positively to an environment which is giving them what they want - mental stimulation and education. My boys loved every teacher (until difficult child 1 got older plus got some really unpleasant teachers) because the teacher is the person with the hand on the tiller of their education. The teacher is the conduit, someone they value for what they can give. I've found that difficult child 3 even still likes the teachers he had who were atrociously mean to him. He didn't see the meanness (as I did) but instead saw any discipline issues as inevitable because he himself was innately bad (in his own eyes). Over time as he matures, he is realising he is at heart a good person after all and that we see him as such.</p><p></p><p>Some kids still do badly in school, it all depends on how they are perceived by the other kids and by the teacher, as well as how they are treated. If their foibles are accepted and tolerated, they can do a lot better. When they are younger they often do a lot better. There are a lot of reasons for things to work well in school, or similarly - reasons for things to NOT work well in school. You can generally work out why, once you can get inside the kid's head. Sensory issues are a factor (noises, distractions, vibrations) depending on how the child is affected by Sensory Integration Disorder (SID) and to what extent. Control is another big factor. So is routine. A change in teacher (substitutes were a nightmare for us) could bring everything unstuck. Teacher attitude can play a huge part - teachers who are strict and controlling can have headaches with our kids. But teachers who are supportive, calm, aware of the spectrum of humanity in their classroom and accommodating - they have a lot of success with Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) kids.</p><p></p><p>I have two, possibly three, Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) kids. difficult child 1 is diagnosed Aspie. He was the classic withdrawn kid who was fine with us, but would curl up into a fetal position if people began to pay attention to him. "Come out the front of the class and get this award!" would have him in a ball on the floor for several hours.</p><p>easy child 2/difficult child 2 was odd, but brilliant, so a lot of her behaviours were seen as immaturity or insolence. In a dance class at school she insisted on having her head on the floor and would not get up and dance. She backchatted the principal, I was told, because for my girl, having her head on the floor was more important than cooperating. She was cut form the dance class and was absolutely gutted - the principal said it was because of insolence and obvious disinterest, but she never bothered to really dig to find out. If she had, we'd have had the Aspie diagnosis nailed down - easy child 2/difficult child 2 had been obsessed with feeing the vibrations of all those dancing feet, through her head as she rested her head on the floor. She HAD to do it, it was imperative. It was soothing. She would disobey if she had to, to do it. Classic Sensory Integration Disorder (SID). Of course, there were other Sensory Integration Disorder (SID) issues and other factors, but because easy child 2/difficult child 2 was outgoing, friendly, often outspoken, she slipped under the radar. The brighter they are, the harder they are to diagnose because they adapt a lot faster. As difficult child 3 put it, they get very good at "pretending to be normal". </p><p></p><p>easy child 2/difficult child 2's pediatrician won't diagnose Asperger's "because she makes good eye contact". But in fact, she doesn't. She only makes eye contact with people she knows well (such as her pediatrician!) She is now 23 and says she forces herself to make eye contact with customers. She also has realised (in her 20s) that she has partial face blindness (also fairly common in Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD)) and so makes a point of commenting to the customer about something they're wearing ("I like that scarf, it really brings out the colour in your eyes."). This fixes in her mind the link between the customer's appearance and what they are buying, so if they forget a bag (and she said this happens often) she can recognise them when they come back. This is one of her coping skills that she has worked out for herself.</p><p></p><p>Confuzzled has some good points - if you have people not able to agree on the label, then go with your gut and do what you can based on symptoms. Also, try to not focus only on dysfunction - we found we had to really throw a lot of mental stimulation at our kids. Boredom was their worst enemy, it led to a great increase in behaviour problems if they got bored. Trouble was, they would get bored quickly. This happened also with easy child - her teacher in Grade 1 found that the only way to handle her, was to keep giving her more and harder work. Keep the kid working.</p><p>We found the same thing with ALL our kids (possibly excepting difficult child 1) - we loaded up the computer with educational games and let the kids loose on it. As long as we had a variety available, the kids used it and it helped them by boosting their confidence for school.</p><p></p><p>In short, we gave the kids what they wanted. Don't like the feel of the label inside that shirt? It's OK, I'll unpick it and take it out. With food, it was like raising Jack Spratt and his wife. difficult child 3 won't eat anything with a creamy texture. easy child 2/difficult child 2 won't eat anything with "bits" in it. So I would cook multiple dishes, but keep them in the freezer in small serves so I could easily reheat multiple meals. At the same time I tried to desensitise these kids to the problem foods. Interestingly difficult child 3, my most autistic child has also been the one most able to adapt.</p><p></p><p>All these kids are different. difficult child 3's Grade 1 teacher was chosen because she herself had an autistic child the same age as difficult child 3. I warned her, "He won't be what you expect."</p><p>At the beginning of the day she assured me, "I understand autism."</p><p>At the end of the day she said, "He IS different, isn't he?"</p><p>By the end of the year she was saying, "I'm certain he has ODD!"</p><p></p><p>Learning to drive - difficult child 1 said when he was old enough, "I'm not going to be able to drive safely. I'm too distractible." So he chose to not drive, until he was a lot older. But difficult child 3 IS able to multi-task and so he's got his Learner's Permit almost as soon as he was old enough. What is more, he has shown a lot of aptitude for driving.</p><p></p><p>They're all different.</p><p></p><p>Marg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marguerite, post: 354360, member: 1991"] Something I want to emphasise with regard to the people who are trying to assess your son, with a view to getting a valid label - they are spending time with him, one-to-one. This was what put a spanner in the works for us with difficult child 1 at that age, with friends, family and psychologists - they were spending one-to-one time with him at which time, of course, he seemed a perfect gentleman. But looking back at what they observed, it fit Asperger's very well. The problem of course, we can now see (with the benefit of 20:20 hindsight and 20 years) is that anyone trying to identify the underlying "disorder" were looking for evidence of dysfunction when, of course, in a one-to-one setting Asperger's actually can manifest (especially at a young age) as something really positive. And so of course that is what they saw. The psychologist who was assessing difficult child 1 saw a very bright, rather serious boy who really wanted to talk about birds in detail. He was involved with his father in a scientific study that required them to go out early in the pre-dawn, capture birds, measure them, identify them, tag them and release them. Certainly nothing wrong with that, nor anything wrong with a kid who is able to identify most Australian birds on sight. During the assessment, difficult child 1 would at times say, "I don't want to talk about this any more. I don't want to answer any more questions. I want to talk about birds." That is a big tip-off. But the psychologist said, "OK, we'll talk about birds for a few minutes, then go back to the test. OK?" And they did. difficult child 1 went on to complete the assessment and score around 130 for averaged out IQ in the WPPSI. Of course, when the school counsellor had previously been assessing him and difficult child 1 became non-compliant, she closed off the test at that point but scored it as if he had completed it. This gave difficult child 1 an IQ score which she wouldn't reveal to me, except to say it was significantly below 100. And yet he was near the top of his class in every subject! To the school counsellor (who for reasons I won't go into here but nothing to do with difficult child 1, needed to shoot me down, big-time) this was gold - she had ammunition to attack me for "pushing this poor boy to achieve well beyond his capability." Now anyone with half a brain knows that you can't push a kid to achieve better than he is capable of. It's illogical. If difficult child 1 were a performing seal who could perform amazing mental gymnastics but only when I was present to feed him the answers with hand signals, then that would be a valid criticism. But difficult child 1 was performing well in school, in my absence. And, according to the school counsellor (who admitted she had to close off the test because he became increasingly agitated and fidgetty) he was performing way above average, with a "borderliine" IQ. Back to difficult child 1 and how he was perceived - when he was 10, he stayed with an elderly couple we know from church. He stayed for almost a week while I was in hospital giving birth to difficult child 3. This couple loved difficult child 1, they were very close. Sort of honorary grandparents at our church. And for a week, they lavished all their attention and time on difficult child 1, who lapped it up and behaved like a perfect gentleman. difficult child 1 played chess with them. "Grandma" reported with amusement the condescending way difficult child 1 spoke to her when she kept losing chess games to him. Then when they took him for ice cream, she reported the stilted "little professor" conversations with him, again with amusement. At the time, difficult child 1 had a diagnosis of ADHD but in a one-to-one setting with all activity revolving around him, difficult child 1 was apparently faultless. As with the private psychologist - all attention in that test had been on difficult child 1. Plus the psychologist was prepared to be flexible. The school counsellor was not. THis is the thing - these kids love routine and order, but they also do well if everything revolves around their interests. They are often very bright, so they really respond positively to an environment which is giving them what they want - mental stimulation and education. My boys loved every teacher (until difficult child 1 got older plus got some really unpleasant teachers) because the teacher is the person with the hand on the tiller of their education. The teacher is the conduit, someone they value for what they can give. I've found that difficult child 3 even still likes the teachers he had who were atrociously mean to him. He didn't see the meanness (as I did) but instead saw any discipline issues as inevitable because he himself was innately bad (in his own eyes). Over time as he matures, he is realising he is at heart a good person after all and that we see him as such. Some kids still do badly in school, it all depends on how they are perceived by the other kids and by the teacher, as well as how they are treated. If their foibles are accepted and tolerated, they can do a lot better. When they are younger they often do a lot better. There are a lot of reasons for things to work well in school, or similarly - reasons for things to NOT work well in school. You can generally work out why, once you can get inside the kid's head. Sensory issues are a factor (noises, distractions, vibrations) depending on how the child is affected by Sensory Integration Disorder (SID) and to what extent. Control is another big factor. So is routine. A change in teacher (substitutes were a nightmare for us) could bring everything unstuck. Teacher attitude can play a huge part - teachers who are strict and controlling can have headaches with our kids. But teachers who are supportive, calm, aware of the spectrum of humanity in their classroom and accommodating - they have a lot of success with Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) kids. I have two, possibly three, Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) kids. difficult child 1 is diagnosed Aspie. He was the classic withdrawn kid who was fine with us, but would curl up into a fetal position if people began to pay attention to him. "Come out the front of the class and get this award!" would have him in a ball on the floor for several hours. easy child 2/difficult child 2 was odd, but brilliant, so a lot of her behaviours were seen as immaturity or insolence. In a dance class at school she insisted on having her head on the floor and would not get up and dance. She backchatted the principal, I was told, because for my girl, having her head on the floor was more important than cooperating. She was cut form the dance class and was absolutely gutted - the principal said it was because of insolence and obvious disinterest, but she never bothered to really dig to find out. If she had, we'd have had the Aspie diagnosis nailed down - easy child 2/difficult child 2 had been obsessed with feeing the vibrations of all those dancing feet, through her head as she rested her head on the floor. She HAD to do it, it was imperative. It was soothing. She would disobey if she had to, to do it. Classic Sensory Integration Disorder (SID). Of course, there were other Sensory Integration Disorder (SID) issues and other factors, but because easy child 2/difficult child 2 was outgoing, friendly, often outspoken, she slipped under the radar. The brighter they are, the harder they are to diagnose because they adapt a lot faster. As difficult child 3 put it, they get very good at "pretending to be normal". easy child 2/difficult child 2's pediatrician won't diagnose Asperger's "because she makes good eye contact". But in fact, she doesn't. She only makes eye contact with people she knows well (such as her pediatrician!) She is now 23 and says she forces herself to make eye contact with customers. She also has realised (in her 20s) that she has partial face blindness (also fairly common in Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD)) and so makes a point of commenting to the customer about something they're wearing ("I like that scarf, it really brings out the colour in your eyes."). This fixes in her mind the link between the customer's appearance and what they are buying, so if they forget a bag (and she said this happens often) she can recognise them when they come back. This is one of her coping skills that she has worked out for herself. Confuzzled has some good points - if you have people not able to agree on the label, then go with your gut and do what you can based on symptoms. Also, try to not focus only on dysfunction - we found we had to really throw a lot of mental stimulation at our kids. Boredom was their worst enemy, it led to a great increase in behaviour problems if they got bored. Trouble was, they would get bored quickly. This happened also with easy child - her teacher in Grade 1 found that the only way to handle her, was to keep giving her more and harder work. Keep the kid working. We found the same thing with ALL our kids (possibly excepting difficult child 1) - we loaded up the computer with educational games and let the kids loose on it. As long as we had a variety available, the kids used it and it helped them by boosting their confidence for school. In short, we gave the kids what they wanted. Don't like the feel of the label inside that shirt? It's OK, I'll unpick it and take it out. With food, it was like raising Jack Spratt and his wife. difficult child 3 won't eat anything with a creamy texture. easy child 2/difficult child 2 won't eat anything with "bits" in it. So I would cook multiple dishes, but keep them in the freezer in small serves so I could easily reheat multiple meals. At the same time I tried to desensitise these kids to the problem foods. Interestingly difficult child 3, my most autistic child has also been the one most able to adapt. All these kids are different. difficult child 3's Grade 1 teacher was chosen because she herself had an autistic child the same age as difficult child 3. I warned her, "He won't be what you expect." At the beginning of the day she assured me, "I understand autism." At the end of the day she said, "He IS different, isn't he?" By the end of the year she was saying, "I'm certain he has ODD!" Learning to drive - difficult child 1 said when he was old enough, "I'm not going to be able to drive safely. I'm too distractible." So he chose to not drive, until he was a lot older. But difficult child 3 IS able to multi-task and so he's got his Learner's Permit almost as soon as he was old enough. What is more, he has shown a lot of aptitude for driving. They're all different. Marg [/QUOTE]
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