Problems with our teenage son

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His mom and I are growing increasingly concerned about our teenage son (just turned seventeen). Basically he is having significant problems coping in his second last year of school (and with life generally).

He has always been different and has been diagnosed ADD inattention and latterly and differently high functioning autistic (although I remain unsure of his diagnosis). His mom for what it is worth is either schizophrenic or schizo-affective.

When he was little he would sometimes dress up with quite extraordinary skill and he also used to draw all the time and seemed to have an extraordinary cartooning talent. When we sent him to our city's best cartooning classes the teacher said he was the most talented cartoonist he had ever seen. However this did not last and after a while the teacher wanted to kick him out, and eventually he has discontinued the classes. The reason for this was that he showed no enthusiasm and also wouldn't apparently learn different styles of cartooning.

Unfortunately he has seemed to fail more and more in life over the years.

He had some friends when younger but lost those as he grew older. In the last two or three years he has had one invite to a party and apart from that does not seem to have any friends outside of school (although I believe he does communicate with some people over the internet).

He has acted inappropriately on occasion eg gave a girl I think he liked a CD he'd made with a pretty cover with hearts and flowers but some "racy" music. We made him apologise. But I am pretty sure I saw this girl and our son one day and there was absolutely no communication between them.

Apparently according to the teachers he does get on after a fashion with other kids and is generally with the "naughtier" group of boys in the class. But it's clear none of them are really friends with him.

We have a local group of asperger kids who meet up each Saturday in our local community. We took our son there and there was table tennis, cards and other activities. After we left we told out son he had to stay at least an hour there and to try and have some fun. Exactly an hour later he was back in the house, and he has refused to go back. He wants to be "cool" I think and some of the kids there looked a bit unusual (but some looked the same as anyone else).

I fully understand the pressure on teenagers to look cool, but it is not facing the fact that our son has quite severe problems in coping with the world, and his "coping mechanisms" (eg pretending there is no problem, endless excuses, occasionally getting angry) just make matters worse.

He is really struggling academically. I think his comprehension of either verbal or written information is perhaps twenty percent of what you would expect in a normal youngster. He will not seem to grasp something I said to him only a minute before. He only just scraped through his third last year at school with some intensive coaching in English by his sister and myself (dad). His marks in Art and Graphics were not enough to do those subjects in his current year, but the school gave him a dispensation. However he is struggling in all his subjects except remedial English.

He seems to be behind in most of his academic subjects.

This past weekend we got him to complete a Classics assignment (which he had not done despite ample notice and school being closed for snow on a couple of days). On Sunday evening I checked the completed drafts, foolishly thinking that I could just tidy up his grammar a bit and make a few suggestions. It turned out that he had plagiarised about half of the assignment. Thing is, it wasn't even good plagiarisation eg parts lifted from the internet with references left hanging in mid air! It took us until 2.30am in the morning to get this mess turned into something which is at least basically his own work and may hopefully get a pass.

I suppose part of my problem as a father is how much of this is something our son can't help and how much is it laziness? He knew he should not plagiarise but went ahead and did it anyway, because, he said, he was finding the assignment too difficult. He just does not seem to have an insight into his difficulties, just seems to think he can carry on not doing any work and somehow everything will turn out alright. This is maybe his mom and my biggest worry. He just does not seem to understand what is needed, lives in his own little world which is not really connected to the real world. We have thought of getting him a summer job stacking shelves in the supermarket, but really doubt that he would last a day there (-he would just goof off and not follow instructions).

There is a bit of good coming out of this worsening situation. Our son who is very uncommunicative to me generally has pointed out how offputting my annoyance/anger and tone of voice can be when he had done something wrong (sadly, most of the things he does). So that is something I guess I am doing wrong, and I need to keep emotions on a very even keel. His mom and I are also accepting that our son has quite a severe disability, rather than just expecting or hoping that he would "get his act together" and come right. He has also pointed out that he cannot understand when I go off on some circumlocutory tangent and so it's clear I need to make my instructions to him very simple, clear and straightforward.

We are trying to make him discuss and check his diary with his mom each day so that he can plan and get down to what needs doing.

On the positive side, he does generally follow instructions and, although he is getting grumpier as a teenager is not too bad (he has quite a pleasant personality).

The problem is, we have to check EVERYTHING he does, as he either does not do it or does not do it properly. This is very time consuming.

We are trying to get some re-diagnosis of our son, as if he is again diagnosed ADD inattention, he can be put on Ritalin. On the other hand he also shows signs of autism spectrum disorder and perhaps there is some other medication that might help him. I personally have not taken drugs other than coffee for the past thirty years but know from my wife's illness that medication for some is absolutely critical.

We are also trying to get support from the School and are meeting with the School Support Person this week. I am not overly hopefuly about this (apart from our son having missed the past three appointments with this man). However our son has a reader writer for one exam and more time for one other exam. The School Support Person said our son is one of the hardest to help as he seems to be refusing help. This comes down to his lack of insight.

This has been a long post but hopefully something in it will be enough to elicit some comments, from parents or anyone with ASD. I look forward to any comments anyone may have.

Cheers

Schizophrenia can be really severe and devastating illness. Although that only if it's chronic. Some people can have one episode of pychosis and then never again. With ASD routine and structure is very important. Organisation is also something that I am trying to get better at because as a parent predictability is very important in a childs enviroment and for a sense of security.

Thats all I know. Hoped it helped.

lillyanne - thanks for your response. Yes, you don't need to tell me that schizophrenia is a devastating illness, with my wife developing that (although she has also been diagnosed a somewhat lesser, mood driven version of schizophrenia, schizo-affective) with the pregnancy with our first child nearly twenty years ago. My biggest fear is that our son could be developing schizophrenia, although there are no real signs of that so far (statistically the chance is about one in ten).

But whatever our son has is bad enough. In fact his mother seems to cope with life better than him eg has some friends despite her paranoid delusions, is able to hold down a part time job (albeit low level jobs etc). She is far more motivated than him. More particularly she has a general insight into his problems, which he does not seem to have.

Still, he is a teenager and will mature (I hope), and also my wife is on medication and he is not.

I think your point about structure is absolutely key, and we have been trying to implement that (but there has to be someone there overseeing everything otherwise most of what needs and was agreed to be done will not get done, or at best get done badly).

I have no experience with teenagers yet, but it sounds to me like your son is suffering from a very typical symptom of AS: executive function deficit:http://www.ncld.org/ld-basics/ld-aamp-executive-functioning/basic-ef-facts/what-is-executive-function

Here's a site on Executive function and high school: http://www.education.com/reference/arti ... -asperger/

I know I did not learn to manage my own Executive function problems until college and then adulthood. For me, it takes a LOT of electronics that beep at me. I have my smartphone synced with Google Calendar, and I make a real effort to put every single task into the calendar along with an alarm. This means organizing my time for those tasks (and organizing the tasks into doable steps) into dates and times on the calendar, with a corresponding alarm a minimum of 15 minutes ahead of time, with a snooze function.

I'm thinking of seeing if we can ask for a similar system for DS once he hits high school - what I'd really like him to have is the ability to use the camera function of the phone and tag the photos to calendar alarms so he can photograph the assignments and put them into his calendar (any app-building geniuses out there who want to work this out? To be really, really cool it would have some kind of OCR reader, too...)

Hoegaandit,

I wish I could have the opportunity to council my parents' on how to raise me more affectively, now that I'm 33 it's a bit late…but maybe my advice can be of help to you and other parents reading this.

Obviously I can only speak from my own perspective, whether my thoughts accurately apply, only you, your wife, and son will really know..

First off, failure is subjective. If he lost interest in the cartooning school, then it's really not a failure, and using the word "failure" really instantiates a negative association to the situation. I don't know whether it was the cartooning itself, or the social situation of the actual class that made him loose interest, but you need to have extra patience with an ADD or Asperger's person with how quickly he may appear to loose interest. He may still have a great interest in cartooning or other creative and artistic realms, but it could be that a classroom setting isn't the right way for him to learn. I can say for myself, at 33 years old I'm only barely able to tolerate a classroom setting, and still I'd prefer not to go to a class when I can just teach myself at home. If your son is anything like me, he's extremely alpha and doesn't want just anyone 'telling' him how to do something (i.e. cartooning methods), he, in his own mind, may be much smarter than the teacher! And he might be entirely right! Buy him a Mac, teach him how to use "http://isohunt.com" so he can download whatever software he wants and let him educate himself, he'll probably excel much faster than he would in any class…with anything for which he has genuine passion anyway.

Also, just because he may loose interest in something doesn't necessarily mean he's abandoned it. Again, speaking from my perspective, I've touched on a vast myriad of different topics, everything from gardening to welding to programming, to metaphysical work like Reike and chakra/chi balancing. I don't know if it's just me, or Asperger's people in general, but to have a vast and broad education makes for an extremely well rounded person. For most people the phrase "Do one thing, and do it well" is fine, but for many of us, "Do as many things as you possibly can, and do them all well" is essential. If my parents had nurtured my 'scatteredness' rather than dwelling on my 'failure' to stick to one thing, I'd probably be much further along by now.

We Asperger's people are notoriously rebellious, or more specifically, we hate authority, passionately. I admit that it's not always a good trait, but we have a heightened sense of freedom coursing through our veins, and when someone comes along trying to squelch that, it can absolutely enrage us. I admit, every time I see a cop, I have to force myself to calm down. I have no intention of doing anything bad or unethical to others', quite the contrary, I have a huge reputation as being an excellent Samaritan, but when someone tries to tell me what to do or what not to do, they see the beast in me. Not sure what advice to give parents' of a 17 year old who may be similar in this sense, but at least knowing this is an issue may be helpful.

Unfortunately the curriculums for most schools are made for 'normal' kids. I'm lucky that by 4th grade my parents recognized this and began homeschooling me instead, that worked out much better for me. I don't expect you to start homeschooling your son, but do remember that the School's Word is NOT the gospel. You wouldn't blame your car for not being able to run on Diesel gasoline, because it's not MEANT to run Diesel gasoline, same with school, for us Aspie's, most schools just aren't compatible with our learning style, so to call us failures or "bad," as teachers so often do, is absolutely WRONG and will only serve to harm your child more (his ego and pride and consequently his future). Different is not necessarily worse. It's often much better, I think I've read that Einstein was a pretty weird fella, but he sure did well.

Does your son acknowledge and accept that he is different? That was a huge step for me, it was only within the past 3 years that I finally accepted that I'm different, having done so has set me free in some sense - I no longer feel guilty for being weird, or for all my "failures" (as my parents constantly asserted).

As far as laziness, around the part you mention him plagiarizing… This may sound odd, but in my own experience anyway, forcing myself to do something I wasn't interested in was far beyond laziness. Maybe it could be considered a form of laziness, but it was incredibly difficult to overcome. Have you ever had a dream, a nightmare that you desperately want to get out of? You know you're dreaming, but you can't seem to get yourself to wake up no matter how hard you try? That's kinda what it feels like trying to focus on a subject you're absolutely not interested in, to give it your full attention, it's usually just shy of impossible. Again, it's a matter of not being compatible with a regular school system, the best learning he or any Aspie can do is that which comes from genuine interest and passion, which will most likely will be fleeting, and that's OK.

We're late bloomers. I'm an extremely late bloomer, but I've come to accept that about myself, better than beating myself up about who I really am I figure. There's no reason to feel bad about it. Plus, from the vast knowledge I've gained from the myriad of topics to which I've naturally been drawn, I can have incredible conversations and excellent contributions with people of almost any profession, it's made me incredibly diverse, and is positively invaluable for my own career(s)...

Teach your son how to teach himself! That's an extremely valuable tool!! When he gets an interest in something, give him the tools to go learn for himself! For any computer related stuff, check out "http://lynda.com," excellent video tutorials on any software out there. If you don't want to pay for them, use isohunt to get em'. For anything not computer related, unless he already knows, teach him how to affectively research those things on the internet and teach himself.

In your last paragraph where you say "This comes down to his lack of insight," would venture to say it may be a lack of caring at all. That may not be what you want to hear, but it's likely true. Remembering back to my experience in school, I just wasn't interested in doing these long drawn out projects that'll just be reviewed briefly by some random teacher (who I don't know well or inherently respect), assessed (judged) and then tossed in the trash bin afterward. I never cared to have my work judged (unless by a dear friend who's opinion I actually valued) and then tossed. Real life situations are different - if I create something for a client, THEN I care, tremendously, but that's real-life, not theoretical class-room projects.

Apologies, my post may have been even longer than yours!

Ultimately, I know it's not easy to raise an ADD and/or Asperger's kid, but I believe you'll do much better to learn how he works and ALWAYS be encouraging. Try to avoid the idea of "failure," it's simply an incompatibility. Nurture his interests, and be patient when he looses interest in something and quickly moves on to something else, there's nothing wrong with it, he definitely retained what he learned and may eventually come back to learn more on any given topic.

One last thing, something that's helped me a lot are affirmations. This will only work if he is both willing and determined (which means he must acknowledge areas he wishes to improve). An example of mine is this - I would often become jealous at others' success, whether it be relationship, business, or whatever. This was an emotion I seemed unable to control, but I knew I didn't want to feel that way. So, I used this affirmation "I take joy in the good fortune and success of others." I would verbally say this five or six times before bed and when I wake up. Other affirmations I was more passionate about and would also write them out several times on paper, with both my right and left hand (stimulating both sides of the brain which 'drives it in' better), and had it play on my stereo at night during my sleep. It has ALWAYS worked, the subconscious is a very powerful thing! I can tell you more about that if you wish, but one important thing to know is that your subconscious does NOT understand negatives, so when you form an affirmation, it has to be positive-only!! ! As an example "I will not procrastinate" is interpreted by the subconscious mind as "I will procrastinate," so don't make that mistake! It gets very tricky, but in this case you might say something like "I get great satisfaction from starting and completing my tasks swiftly."

Hope this has been of some help, and feel free to ask about anything else.

Good luck.

momsparky - you seem very organised!

I think one of our son's key problems is what you have noted - lack of executive function. He has no ability to plan things whatsoever. I have skimmed over the articles and printed out the two articles for myself and my wife to read when we have some time. Thank you very much for those.

I have always noticed that when we wanted to do something with him, I had to do it all, or else nothing would get done. When he was young we made a movie with his friends, and he did spend a lot of time making special effects etc, but all the organisation was done by his parents. When he wanted to make a movie in High School, he got nowhere, because he was (not) doing the requisite organisation himself. He has ABSOLUTELY no sense of time or planning (eg will start watching a 1 1/2 hour movie only 1/2 hour before bedtime, has no idea when his assignments are due and absolutely no idea of the work necessary to complete those).

It's very hard to gauge his intelligence level; despite the total lack of organisation and motivation he does sometimes say smart things, and was stated by one of the doctors to be above average intelligence. (Wonder whether the lack of executive function isn't a component of intelligence? - but that's a side note). His recent assignment was (when we had removed the plagiarised passages) not well done. It is almost impossible to get him to read to build up his English skills (and we totally gave up on maths a couple of years back). At this point it is extremely difficult to see him coping with tertiary study, which is of course much harder and more abstract than his current schoolwork. Both he and his mother tend to think rather concretely rather than abstractly.

He is really starting to be a huge worry for me and his mom. When he was younger we did not know what he would do, but thought he would excel in a art or graphics related field. In fact he is lucky that the school is still letting him take those subjects, despite his talent. As time goes on the options seem progressively more discouraging. His very old nana (who was a psychiatrist) said it all does not matter as long as he is happy. Perhaps.

At least I want to try and teach him enough skills so that he can be organised and hold down a job and cope with money and hopefully find a mothering, sensible wife in due course!

@buckaroobanzai

Thank you very much for your detailed post. It is very helpful for me to get the perspective of someone who is in some ways similar to our son.

It's easy to fall into a pattern of getting annoyed or angry at a child who seemingly does not listen or take in what you have just said (perhaps repeatedly). I think there can be good reason for that sometimes eg we got our son the breed of dog he wanted, but he is not at all good at looking after the dog. He never remembers to feed it and change its water. He will never take it for a walk unless we tell him. He loves the dog, but on his terms, and they are not terms which will lead to the dog being adequately cared for.

That stated, it is going to be much more helpful (and indeed essential for our son) that we teach him methods of coping with the real world, otherwise he is sadly going to have a difficult and unrewarding life.

A problem however for me is the disconnect between the requirements of the outside world and what our son seems prepared to do. He seems to me to be brilliant at cartooning, but to make a living from that you have to learn different styles so that you can eg prepare work for different advertisers. That is what his cartooning teacher tried to teach him, but he did not seem to run with it. The classes were small and they were all students interested in cartooning, but he never got on with any of them. If he wanted to continue with cartooning by self study outside of a classroom setting that would have been fine, but after finishing up the cartooning classes he simply stopped drawing, and from drawing all the time has now hardly drawn anything for a number of years. So all he has to show for that are the drawings we have kept and a series we got him to do for a local nature site (which he could not wait to stop). He did have a passion for cartooning, but I think it has largely gone. He then did have a passion for making little movies, but that stopped when he did not have the ability to organise it without parental help.

I think our son is different from you and your son in that he is not "alpha" at all and rarely shows aggression. He has in fact been (until quite recently) a very easy going child. He would more likely get upset, even teary, if yelled at. I think there is some teenage aggression underneath though.

Again, unlike you, he has limited rather than broad interests. It is as if he cannot cope with the diversity of the world and instead has a tendency to hyperfocus on one small part of it, perhaps so he can feel a measure of control. This is the sort of thing which make me feel increasingly that he is going to have enormous difficulties coping with the workaday world.

The school he goes to is pretty liberal (eg no school uniform, as is otherwise common in my city) and in my view a little lax. I think my complaint against the school would mainly be that they are not giving enough support to someone who may look the same, but whose brain is not functioning the same as the other kids. The Support Person is (trying to) see him for 20 minutes a week to help him organise. Well a little is better than nothing but not much. I don't believe the teachers call him "bad" or anything like that. In fact most of the criticism of his behavior would come from his mother and me.

Of course that is something we need to look at. He does not seem to be able to cope with the world on his own so I guess needs help to show him how to succeed (possibly on a more limited basis) and encouragement. It is not always so easy - he got lots of encouragement with his cartooning (his grandad would praise him quite extravagantly) but has not continued on with that. There are unfortunately not a whole lot of other things he has done which would objectively merit praise. Still I absolutely take on board the necessity of encouragement.

"Does your son acknowledge and accept that he is different? That was a huge step for me, it was only within the past 3 years that I finally accepted that I'm different, having done so has set me free in some sense - I no longer feel guilty for being weird, or for all my "failures" (as my parents constantly asserted)".

It may sound wierd, but I am not really sure about this. Of course insight into one's situation is key, and I feel he does not really have that. In some ways I think he does not understand. Until more recent times we were reluctant to raise this sort of issue and life just continued, albeit without him having real friends and with increasing difficulties with academic work. I think we are starting to face up to the difficulties more, and I hope he gets some insight (although he was absolutely adamant he did not want to go to the aspergers' group on Saturdays). It would be nice if he had at least one nice friend with whom he could confide. And would be nice if he could learn to accept his differences, that he can still succeed, but that he will need to work very hard for that to happen.

I note your comments about it being incredibly difficult to get involved in anything which did not involve your passions, albeit that such passion might be fleeting. That does sound like our son. I guess the difficulty from a "neurotypical's" perspective (like myself) is that oftentimes I might not want to do work for a client, but I have to do it, like it or not. Perhaps there might be some careers that allow an approach of the sort you name, although it is hard for me to see how the objective realities of the workaday world can be reconciled with someone who only wants to do whatever their fleeting passion at that time. At least this may give me some understanding that it may be much harder for our son to do certain types of required work than it is for say his sister.

I note your thoughts that it may be that our son does not care, rather than have insight. It is possible that he is getting a little depressed and that might lead to him not caring, but I do genuinely think he has improper insight. It is food for thought though whether it might be simple lack of caring instead.

Thanks for the Affirmations idea. I do have a book by eg W Clement Stone along those lines and might try and get our son to read that - who knows, he might take some of the good ideas like Affirmations on board!

Thanks very much for your references to lynda.com and isohunt - will check those out.

Thanks again for your comments.

If you are of the opinion that everything he does is wrong, and he is receptive enough to detect your opinion of him in your tone, then I am willing to bet that some of the problem is that he is probably depressed and needs something to help raise his confidence.

He probably is actually very aware of all of the difficulties he has.

While I think some of them should be addressed, like social issues and certain life skills issues, I don't know that I would stress academics too much right now. Instead I would focus on finding something he is actually good at and engaging him in that so he can build confidence about himself.

Chronos - on this point I guess it is sad that it's hard to point to things our son is doing well. We gave him heaps of praise for his cartooning. And we watched his first movie when he was in primary school and praised that. And I've complimented him in saying that he's fitter than me and a better runner. And I've complimented some computer animations he's made from time to time. And ...

I mean the test in an objective world is to find the person doing something right or good and then praise that, right?

But it is really hard to find things he is currently doing well. He's currently failing four of his five subjects at school although we hope to get him through at least most by the end of the year. He has re-sat one internal about two or three times and each time assures me it is all fine, then when the result has come in has failed it. Though he is the one most at home despite repeated requests he never looks after the dog eg changes his food or water. (He does take the dog for a walk but only if you remind him in writing or just beforehand, but doesn't do it properly eg will walk him around the short block when we repeatedly have told him to walk him around the long block). He lies about doing things (although some of this may be him simply not remembering). He continually makes rather ludicrous excuses for not doing things. I could go on ...

Maybe despite the element of damning with faint praise I can look to praise him if he at least manages to do something he should in the normal course of events have done anyway (eg if this Wednesday he actually remembers to see the School Support Person (having missed the last three appointments!)).

You might think from the above that I have gotten it in for our son, but actually he has a pleasant personality and is easy to get along with. It's just he objectively won't do what needs doing and won't seek help if in trouble from either his parents or the teachers (and despite us repeatedly telling him to do so). Instead he lives in his make believe world. When he gets into trouble he is upset for half an hour, then forgets it and continues on in exactly the same way.

Despite this I note your point that he may be aware of his difficulties (but is coping with them by pretending they are not there). I do need to find some way of praising him and will see what I can find to praise. We do need to build his confidence but it needs to be on some objective basis.

You may be right about the academics. It would require a real turnaround (eg with medication) for him to be able to cope with eg tertiary education; however I have seen medication have a huge effect (for good and bad) in my wife's illness, and my wife is the keenest for him to be put on some appropriate medication. We are trying to teach him basic life-skills (eg he sometimes comes in and does the grocery shopping) and are thinking about social skills; there was a course for asperger teenagers here, but it seems only to be run infrequently. I thought if we could find a social group who were doing some activity that might make it easier for him. However he is a generally happy child and does not seem too unhappy being alone when out of school.

I know how difficult everything must be for you, as we are likely only a few years behind you! >.> Via advice from Boo's therapist we finally made AM and PM checklists for him so that he would remember to do very basic tasks. His AM check list is: Wake up, eat, brush teeth, wash face, comb hair, put on deodorant. It seems so very basic, but for him, he will literally forget to eat or wash his face, and I understand that it's not laziness (as much as I wish perhaps it was), he simply can't remember or follow through with the task unless he is reminded. With this check list it's so much easier to ask him "have you checked your list?" than "have you eaten, brushed your teeth, washed your face, etc", because it feels like nagging to us both, so because we don't have to do that, it's easier to realise and give praise for all the wonderful things he's doing, especially when we don't have to remind him of specific tasks and he's rewarded when he has less reminders.

As far as school is concerned, we have had Boo in private school for the past four years and he's really excelling because we are so on top of what he's doing and do a lot of tutoring with him ourselves. He has an extraordinary wonderful long term memory, but terrible short term, so we have to go over things with him a lot, maybe the same math problem five days in a row, but eventually he will get it/remember it.

What I've learned about Boo is that he is terrible with the spoken word, so we write many things down for him, especially if we want him to execute a task. Literally if we ask him to do something that ISN'T on his list, he will say, "That isn't on the list, why are you asking me to do that?" So I will need to give him something as a bonus for doing extra chores/tasts. I know that it sounds juvenile, but writing everything down is really helpful....

Speaking from personal experience, your son does sound like he is depressed if he has given up drawing so easily. I don't know him personally, but I do have severe depression and manic depression so I have been there.

I know how difficult everything must be for you, as we are likely only a few years behind you! >.> Via advice from Boo's therapist we finally made AM and PM checklists for him so that he would remember to do very basic tasks. His AM check list is: Wake up, eat, brush teeth, wash face, comb hair, put on deodorant. It seems so very basic, but for him, he will literally forget to eat or wash his face, and I understand that it's not laziness (as much as I wish perhaps it was), he simply can't remember or follow through with the task unless he is reminded. With this check list it's so much easier to ask him "have you checked your list?" than "have you eaten, brushed your teeth, washed your face, etc", because it feels like nagging to us both, so because we don't have to do that, it's easier to realise and give praise for all the wonderful things he's doing, especially when we don't have to remind him of specific tasks and he's rewarded when he has less reminders.

As far as school is concerned, we have had Boo in private school for the past four years and he's really excelling because we are so on top of what he's doing and do a lot of tutoring with him ourselves. He has an extraordinary wonderful long term memory, but terrible short term, so we have to go over things with him a lot, maybe the same math problem five days in a row, but eventually he will get it/remember it.

What I've learned about Boo is that he is terrible with the spoken word, so we write many things down for him, especially if we want him to execute a task. Literally if we ask him to do something that ISN'T on his list, he will say, "That isn't on the list, why are you asking me to do that?" So I will need to give him something as a bonus for doing extra chores/tasts. I know that it sounds juvenile, but writing everything down is really helpful....

Speaking from personal experience, your son does sound like he is depressed if he has given up drawing so easily. I don't know him personally, but I do have severe depression and manic depression so I have been there.

Thanks Piratecaptainloo

Great basic idea about writing things down. It's hard to understand why our boy can't remember information we've told him only a few minutes before, but that is the way it is. His brain simply doesn't process information as we do. If he reads a page of a novel and I ask him what it said, he'll be lucky to remember a tenth of it. So writing things down is a great idea. We are insisting he have a diary for all necessary work and discuss that with us daily.

Have you heard the estimate that kids with ADD and/or AS tend to be about 30% delayed in maturity? If you thought of your son as a 12 year old, would that put his behavior in a different light? It may be the case that he's not ready for tertiary study at 18, but might be able to handle it at 22 or 24. I think you need to come up with a plan for what to do during those "gap years". Perhaps some work experiences like stocking grocery shelves would be beneficial to him. In our area there is a therapy provider that gives spectrum kids supervised work experiences like that.

I also wanted to recommend a book, Smart but Scattered, that gives detailed step by step instructions on how to teach your child organization skills, including what support to give and how to fade the support.

Seems like it, doesn't it? Yet, without my system I am completely helpless - and until the technology caught up with my needs, instead of "very organized" the words used to describe me were more like "hopeless case."

Not saying this system will work for everyone; the point is that every person on the spectrum has specific needs, and until you figure those out, they're going to struggle.

Before the current system I tried sticky notes, filofaxes, electronic organizers, beeping watches, large calendars with stickers, a single binder with all my notebooks in it, a folder system...none of it worked. Everybody was always saying "if you just took a minute and got organized, you'd be fine" but I COULD NOT.

@zette -yes, there is no doubt that his development is delayed. With his birth month and how things are worked here he could either have been around the youngest in his class (as his sister was) or the oldest (as he is) without being officially delayed a year; but he is still clearly extremely immature for someone who has just turned 17, and would be immature for his class. I guess I would have put him as maybe a fourteen year old in maturity and have been hoping that he would mature in time. I have ordered Smart but Scattered from Amazon- thanks very much for the recommendation.

@momsparky - great to read that you had found a system that worked for you! Guess that is what we need to find for our son.

We are putting in some more intensive intervention to try and salvage what has been turning into a disastrous year for our son.

We are writing down some instructions and putting them in prominent places eg to each time put back the dvd he has last watched into its case - basic stuff like that that he never does despite a million verbal requests.

His mother has quit her part time evening job to ensure that she can oversee his work in the late afternoon/evening (otherwise nothing will get done).

We have had a meeting with the school counsellor, a nice guy who has suggested that our son go to the counselling rooms each free period (otherwise he will just goof off). The counsellor is also contacting each teacher to emphasise the necessity for very clear simple instructions to our son and also to correspond clearly with us.

Yes, we are having to spoon feed him to a significant degree but otherwise he will crash. We are into the last few months of the school year and he has only 7 units of the 80 (or possibly minimum 60) he needs to "pass" this year. (He can carry over units but that does just mean he is falling further and further behind). It will still need to be him making an effort, but is all ensuring he does undertake the necessary effort.

We are meeting the counsellor in three weeks to see if there is an improvement. I am hoping there will be, otherwise more drastic options eg dropping a course or courses may become necessary.