is your ASD kid heading to college?
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Anonymous
| I ask because I will like to know how you did it thanks |
Anonymous
| Hope so. ASD is a big spectrum. His father and grandfather and great grand.... All did and went to the same Ivy League school. Father and grandfather would have gotten an ASD diagnosis if they were kids now. Don't know about great grand. In fact, lots of people speculate that Hans Asperger had many of the same namesake traits he is famous for first describing. |
Anonymous
We are this Fall. Not only is he going to college, he will be living in the dorm. He already found a roommate too, a boy with similar character traits. They are both obsessed with routine, have a bit of OSD in them and are bonafide geeks
OP, it took a lot of work and we were blessed with mostly good teachers in FCPS. What really helped us was all the Early Intervention we did with DS. |
Anonymous
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NP: this is a great post, OP, and I am most definitely following! For parents of older kids heading to college, can you also add what your kids were like at the start of your journey? I know all kids are different but I'm feeling kind of hopeless about my ASD preschooler right now.
Once again, thanks for posting OP and I hope my post here isn't considered a hijack
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Anonymous
| Experienced mom with ASD kid in college - we were surprised (compared to how well DC did in the home with high school) how poorly DC transitioned to college. DC had great difficult once the home supports were removed. I would strong recommend that you work now during the summer with the Office of Disability Services to set up a relationship and any accomodations, if needed. They will help with housing, seating in class if needed, extra time on tests, communications with teachers, if needed. But all of that work needs to be done now. Also, if your testing is more than three years old they may require new testing. Anyhow, we made more use of ODS than we thought we would. We were rather shocked how poorly DC did once the rigor of high school was gone. Many friends of ours had similar experiences - they would send their kid off to college and discover they didn't get out of bed, didn't go to class, let hygiene go. I hope your experience is different! |
Anonymous
They all attended elite private prep schools including New England boarding schools. We expect to do the same with DS since he has no academic or behavior issues and mostly needs small class size with high academic content but we will move close to the boarding school but plan on DS boarding. We have other family members (with possible ASD) who did not go to boarding school but went to elite private day schools who did very well and went on to college. |
Anonymous
+1 I'd also like to know how the kids' ASD presented and evolved through the years before college. Thanks! |
Anonymous
How does his ASD manifest, if he has no academic or behavior issues? I have an ASD child in a mainstream private, but there are plenty of ways his social communications deficits impact his academics and behavior, even if they aren't the root issue, so to speak. Am wondering if your child is similar or different. |
Anonymous
His main issue when he was younger, 4, was lack of participation and engagement and the main reason his teacher told us to get an evaluation. He did have major behavioral issues last fall at the beginning of 2nd grade but he had a functional behavioral assessment and a behavioral plan for three months and everything is fine again. Never had academic issues and has friends. We were in Italy earlier for a gala fundraiser which was a series of luncheons and dinner parties. DS was great and we had several jet setting socialites telling us how well behaved he was and congratulating him. No one knew that he has a diagnosis and he passes for NT. DS had to dress up. One night he had to wear a tuxedo. There was a private intimate performance by a Tony awarded singer on Broadway. We took his tutor just in case but we did not have any issues at all. Recently, he had to go to the oral surgeon and get a tooth pulled. Had laughing gas. Went fine. Was very cooperative. No issues. DS is off his ADHD med for the summer including the trip. Basically, DS has trouble reading social cues like his father. But no one can tell that with DH either. It's just something DH is aware of so he works at it. DS has cousins a little older with ASD who manifest pretty much the same but who do not have ADHD. They are both currently ranked #1 in the state where they live in their age group in chess. They will also be sent to boarding school for high school. FYI, DS was diagnosed with ASD/Asperger's when he was four by a developmental ped, ADOS/ADI-R at Children's and psycheducational testing. He was also diagnosed with ASD/ADHD from a neuropsych evaluation with Dr. Black last year when he was 7. |
lhart
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| Anyone have a 5-6 year old with aspergers? My son has not been diagnosed officially but I have a psych credentials. My son has had trouble with eye contact (improving with therapy), was playing alone more than normal at preschool, and is impulsive. He will on rare occasions hit or push another child. He can have loads of empathy but then again at times little. He is a true geek, even at his age- wants to learn about weather, electricity, pipes, cleaning products, etc. He loves animals as well. He has trouble reading social cues, just like his father. His father gives little to poor eye contact, and keeps talking even when others give cues that they are done. He is a nuclear physicist. When I brought my daughter home as a new born, my son was two. The first thing he said was "Put the baby down and hold me! Put her down!!!" My son wants to talk about things other kids are not interested in - drainage system in a water park, how a washing machine works, etc etc. |
Anonymous
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My child who is on the AS is going to college this fall. He is on the mild end of the spectrum, although if you are familiar with the spectrum it will be obvious to you almost immediately. He never had the hand flapping or other tics. His issues are mainly in peer to peer relationships and pragmatic language issues. For example, in 1st grade he was not invited to one birthday party. He was bullied and ostracized in ES and bullied some in MS. HS was much better.
We were clueless until 2nd or 3rd grade, but apparently the school knew from K and neglected to tell us. DH is also on the mild end of the spectrum and I have since figured out that my norm is being surrounded by people on the spectrum. i grew up in a town near Lincoln Labs in Massachusetts and it had more physicists per capita than any other place outside of Lawrence Livermore, Oakridge and Los Alamos. We also had tons or professors from the Boston colleges. Then I went to Virginia Tech and all my friends were engineers. I thought I was an empath for a while.
In 3rd grade he went to a school social skills group that fell apart at the end of the year (we had asked for one at the start of 2nd grade). We started sending him to a weekly social skills group in mid 4th grade and that was the key to the success that followed. Part of the weekly program included monthly parent group. We became educated as well as him. He was in it from 4th grade to the beginning of 12th. At first, it was the one place where kids his age looked forward to seeing him and he them. they learned some of the social "niceties". then the progressed to figuring out what they needed to work on and then it was more of a trouble shooting group. You can not solve everything at once. We learned to concentrate on one thing at a time and slowly things progressed. However, a once a week group is not enough. Kids on the AS should also be in groups like band, chorus or orchestra, scouts or sports teams (if they are athletically inclined). Group activities are essential and the more exposure the better. We found our community of faith to be a great resource too, it has an active youth group. DC was in scouts, orchestra and our church youth group as his main activities. Finding tent mates was difficult in scouts, but he persevered and attained Eagle status. Finding hotel mates for orchestra was difficult, but luckily there were other boys that he was able to connect and they became hotel mates for all overnight orchestra trips. One week in scouts camp in 6th grade was by himself and it was a disaster. We worked up to going on trips without us (I chaperoned freshman year only and DH went to scout camps in ES and MS). One week in scouts camp in 6th grade was by himself and it was a disaster. He did a two week canoeing trip in the boundary waters with his scout troop and a 10 day trip to Eastern Europe with a church group. Both of those were successful. He never had an IEP or a 504, although this was choice that we made since we felt the private social skills group was better for him. His grade was always good. 5th grade was another bad year socially, so we transferred him to another ES in FCPS for 6th grade to give him a fresh start. His particular grade was imbalanced toward mean behavior in the boys and the girls. It was a notoriously bad grade as they made their way through ES, none of the special ed aides every requested that year. It was an unfortunate mix. (My other DC's grade was the opposite, its mix was incredibly nice, inclusive and encouraging and a pleasure to be around- yet it contained at least 25% siblings from other grade and all the same teachers- the aides clamored to be in the that grade. It was a fantastic mix) Anyway, 6th grade in a different school turned out to be a good choice, DC was the same kids, but he had some breathing room and was allowed to progress (and wasn't kept at the bottom of the social ladder by force). MS was tough, but they run it like a prison and he survived. HS was excellent. Enough movement in and out of students and maturing of others meant that the meanness seen in ES was mostly gone. DC is a smart cookie and took mainly Honors/AP course in HS. However, because of his language issues, he took general ed English and that was fine. He made it out of Spanish with a gentleman's B- and was done with foreign language. He is a math and science kid and is going to an engineering school in the mid-west. I think the east coast mentality has not helped him. I am hopeful that he will find his tribe in college. He still can be annoying and alienates some people, but it is less every year and hopefully will be considered "eccentric" soon. I would say, time, the weekly social skills group and ongoing continuous participation in group activities has helped him progress. I would describe him as halfway between Leonard and Sheldon from Big Bang.
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Anonymous
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ASD is a HUGE spectrum. Of course your child's experience will vary according to where he falls on that spectrum. DS has Asperger's tendencies like his father and cousin: we never bothered to have him diagnosed, since his ADHD is the major obstacle for him. I fully expect him to go to college, since he wants to be a research scientist like his father, who has an MD/PhD. The challenge right now is surviving school. He has high test scores, but bad grades. |
lhart
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| My five year old son who has Aspergers tendencies was recently tested by a Clinical Psychologist who found him in the 95% percentile for math and problem solving. He was above average for most areas. We have had him in a social skills group throughout the school year of pre-k and this summer he is very busy in social skills groups. The developmental pediatrician said he had sensory issues- he used to be afraid of the toilet flushing and hair dryers or any loud noises. He might cover his ears and scream when he was little. He is fine with those things now. I blew dry his hair every day and he is 100% fine with it now. He did a Junior Engineering class this summer for 3 hours a day that he loved. Only one kid from his pre-k class came to his birthday party. However, I have many friends -and even if their kids don't play with him regularly I was able to invite all of them so we had 15 kids at his party. He can be very sweet one on one but when he gets in a group he can get loud, on occasion aggressive, he may or may not take turns properly, he will want kids to come and look at the pipes or ac units at our house instead of his toys. My husband has very few friends although works all the time- and my friends are his friends. He is nice enough to them. |
lhart
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Eye contact has been a struggle but he is average to almost above average at times with it now according to his teachers. He will sometimes make weird noises with his mouth- chirping- like engines working etc. and say it is a washing machine, etc.
He sleeps fantastic at 11 hours a night. My husband gives such poor eye contact and really connects on an emotional level with almost no one other than me- our kids when not at work-which is rare. He grown children from a previous marriage and has almost no relationship with them. I would say I have lots of friends and am good with eye contact. Why I now have a house with two Aspies's in my cards is beyond me- although I had a sibling who was an Aspie. |
Anonymous
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16:58 I made it sound like the ASD is all from DH. Not true. I suspect my mother had Asperger's as do both of my brothers. One of them is the father of the chess prodigies.
My other brother was a math prodigy who skipped high school and went to Johns Hopkins (graduated in 3 yrs). He has a daughter who has an ADHD/anxiety diagnosis and is terrible in math. While both sides have ASD, my side has the "geeks". DH is more James Bond, not (seemingly) socially awkward at all. Asperger's is my world
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