Mom of 14 yr old son with aspergers

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Hello,
I am a mother of 7 children. We were told that our 14 year old son has Add, and PDD NOS. with behaviors of high functioning Aspergers. He has always been a little different from my other children. Very smart BUT NO social skills, flat affect, and no understanding of emotions. He comes of as very dull and full of lots of information tht a child of his age usually wouldn't want to learn about. But his Art work is Beautiful. We have been through 2 schools already this year and we are working on our 3rd. He is afraid to go to school. The first school had 700 kids in the high school . The second had 160. And this one has 50. I hope it works. We live in a small town and I haven't been able to find any social skills programs. And he has never been in special ed. He can do the school work, but I couldn't get him to go to school. We tryed home schooling but it didn't work. I called our local special ed and they were not help full. They said that they do not have anything to help him. Does anyone have any ideas? Yes I am happy that he is smart. But I want him to have friends and maybe a job someday. It breaks my heart to see him so alone because he does not have the skills to make friends. Please help.
Thank You. ann

Welcome to wrong planet!
I have 3 boys, the middle one is 9 and has HFA (high functioning autism).
I'm guessing you're from the U.S., so I can't help you with schooling, but I'm sure there are others who can. A small school sounds good.
I think a lot of kids your son's age use wrong planet so they don't feel so alone with their problems - maybe your son would like to visit?

***scratches head*** ........how can the special ed dept say that they have nothing that can help him ? they have an obligation to see that this child is educated (FAPE)........i'd definitely try the small school. my son is thriving at a small school. had a really difficult time at a large school.

Yeah, mental health care in America is horrible.

You should refer your son to wrong planet, and use this place as a resource. You'll learn a lot looking through here. Most importantly, don't be too negative about autism. I've seen people who sort of use autism as an excuse, and I've seen people who are so busy being angry at the world for the way they are, they waste their lives.

Hi and welcome to WP.

It sounds like you're in the wrong country.

Why do you keep switching schools - what exactly is the problem there?

Also - NT's often think that the smaller the school, the better for the child.

Wrong... at least in my experience - I was a 14 y.o. aspie once.

My school was a much larger school and because of this I had a lot of different people to pick from. Aspies tend to seek out friends of a similar nature, so the more kids you have at a school, the greater the chance of having aspies for friends. I ended up with a group who have stayed with me more or less for the last 28 years.

If the problems are related to bullying, you need to get your son to find a safe haven. What worked for me was to become a library monitor. Out of mind-out of sight - I didn't get bullied after that. My friends also became library monitors.

We didn't leave the library until we had become a close-knit and strong group. By that time, most of the bullies had either the school or matured enough that they didn't bother us.

my son spent two years doing two hrs tuition per week as ed department said they couldnt find anywhere to meet his needs, so the uk isnt much better. on a brighter note hes now in a boarding school with very small classes catering only for children on the autistic spectrum, hoping things arent to late for him acedemically.