What am I going to do?

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I am an aspie father with a 5 year-old aspie daughter. Unfortunately, the specialists thought my daughter's interests would be best served in attending mainstream school, as there are no schools that cater for her.

She does get special needs help, but not enough. They try to help her by getting her to work alongside with NT kids.

Now my daughter does not like being with other kids and twice she has hurt children so badly that they had to go to hospital!

She is smarter than the other kids (her teachers say she is possibly gifted in maths), but prefers playing and learning on a computer rather than learning in a classroom setting full of kids.

Now what bugs me is that the school has been sending me information leaflets on subjects like ADHD and stuff on 'savants'-which my daughter is neither! Even my daughter's teacher recommended me to read 'The curious incident of the dog in the night-time' as she says it is about an asperger's child! Well, I read that book and it is not about an aspie at all!

What use is school if teachers and special-needs assistants hold a stereotypical view of aspies? I am really sick that people have this 'Rainman' image stuck in their heads when it comes to aspies!

if you had finished school you are qualified to home school her, if you had not, then you can both learn and finish schooling together and it will help with a special bonding between you two. take the time thats needed, if she is fighting school then the small time you spend every night will be faster then the time she works with in school when it comes to learning.
if you do not have the time, make it, or see if there are other family's that home school in your area and see if you can make a deal.

ohhh I think people are trying to be nice, in their own limited way. It's important to let people come to their own conclusions, in their own way, if your daughter is something other than a cliche, they'll work it out eventually, it's normal for people to go for cliches when confronted with something they don't know.

Now my daughter does not like being with other kids and twice she has hurt children so badly that they had to go to hospital!

Sorry, but this made me laugh!

I put my undiagnosed but probably aspie son in a Montesorri school for a day and he punched the teacher. I asked him why he did that and he told me that he told her his name and she didn't acknowledge him. I pulled him out and didn't send him to school again until kindergarten. At the first teachers conference all four wonderful teachers seperately reported to me that they'd figured out how to handle D and that all they needed to do was tell him what they wanted to do and then leave the room. Within a few minutes he would then do it. Though one time he held up the entire school for 45 minutes with a spontaneous unresponsive sit-in on the lunch room floor.

This was obviously an unusual school. All of those teachers were so proud that they'd figured out how to handle him.
If the school hadn't been there, homeschool it would have been.

My other son who was diagnosed with mild autism did well in this school also.

Yes, M-is-red, it may seem funny, but fortunately for those kids, their injuries were not that serious. Next time, it could be. I mentioned to her teachers that she needs to be monitored at all times.

Yesterday, my daughter got in trouble for hitting the teacher. My daughter won't tell me why she did it. Whenever I ask her anything about what she did at school, she always says she can't remember.

As for homeschooling, I would probably consider it seriously as an alternative to secondary education because that is when the real problems start, and I do not want her to go through what I suffered. Now I do not know how feasible homeschooling will be because it would mean having to quit my job and then losing my home because I won't be able to pay the mortgage.

I already teach her maths at home, and she learns much more about other things from her computer.

Are there any good private schools around? Montesorri was already mentioned. I have a son (4) who I htink is aspie and I was planning to send him to the Waldorf school. I think they might actually have more of those in the UK than they do here. It has a lot of routine, calm environment, and the sam eteacher goes with the chidl from one grade to the next. If your child starts off in kindergarten, the same class with be with that teacher when they are in eighth grade. When I was a kid the annual changign of teahcers was very stresful. Also, Waldorf puts a lot of focus on encouraging individuality rather than cramming everyone into the same mold.

I don't know about the UK but here in the USA a teacher is not qualified to diagnosed or even suggest ADD?ADHD or any other medical condition. As an educator the farthest I have gone is suggest an evaluation after I have met with the parents and provided incidents/ facts to back up my concerns. It makes me nervous when it seems like the teachers are diagnosing your daughter.
Laure

I know what your daughter is going through. I used to be like that at her age (but a boy, not a girl). I didn't put anybody in the hospital, but I was fairly violent. I was in a private school, and now have a phobia of nuns. I was put on Adderal and it helped. I'm off of it now, because it can cause some bizarre side effects later in life. Fortunately, most nuns haven't seen Rainman and assumed I have ADHD and/or Autism. The only advice I have is to homeschool if you can. Don't give your life up for it, I've survived up into high school without help. 16, and doing fine. I was homeschooled for 3rd. grade and enjoyed it. But enjoyed the few friends I had in school better.
Hope this helps.

Oops...that last post was mine... thought I was logged in.

Hey, can you please tell me what kind of side effects you had on adderall? I have a 16 yr old that's been on 60mg for several yrs. They recently changed him to a different med, but it doesn't work as well as the adderall. Thinking about putting him back on it but concerned about side effects.

check out www.WebMD.com

They have a great data base on meds. It lists all the side effects.

My other son (the non-AS one, no NTs in my house! we all has *something* ) just came off of Adderall. The major side effect is lose of appetate. He had to quite because he became depressed.

Check the dosage too. 60 is very, very high. My 14 year old son was on 15. I think 30 is the normal.

BeeBee

WHOOPS!

The computer was logged in under my son's account.

Sorry about that.

BeeBee

Your not going to find my side effect on WebMD, appetite loss was a good thing for me because I'm a little overweight. My Mom denied it was the Adderal, but It stopped shortly after I stopped taking Adderal. It is hard to describe, but I think it was the Adderal butting heads with puberty that caused it. Ummmm.... I took at least 60mg when I was on Adderal. Anyways, Mattie, if your son is 16, he shouldn't need Adderal anymore. I was off of it by the time I was 14. My friends that were on it, were all off of it by the time they were 15.

I'm not sure one outgrows Adderall. My ex hubby (age 47) still takes it....

BeeBee

I was interested in the non-typical side effects that are not listed. He already has appetite loss, insomnia, and stomaches. He has some other strange behaviors and symptoms, but I'm not sure if it's the adderall, or not being on the adderall. That's why we changed his med to Metadate. He's on 60 mg of metadate now, but it's not working well. That's the max dose for that drug, so he might go back on adderall because it was working, in spite of the side effects.
He drives everyone crazy when not on the meds with his non-stop nonsense blabbing. It's really annoying.
I'm thinking now it may not be just being "hyper", but the obsessive behavior of AS. One Dr. recommended putting him back on zoloft because that helps with anxiety and obsessive behaviors. Does anyone have any experience with using zoloft for this purpose?
Do others have the same problem with this excessive talking or goofy behavior? If so, do you take any meds for it?

I've never heard of Metadate (been 2 years since I've been to a shrink). I got insomnia when I took Prozac, which is a lot like Zoloft. So putting him on Zoloft might make his insomnia worst. Stomach aches are common for people with AS, so dont' worry too much about those. My side effect was not behavior related, it was physical, that's as detailed as I'll get. I tend to ramble on myself, I've learned to catch myself. If he wants to stop "blabbing", you should tell him when he is. I used to not know when I was rambling on about something until people told me. Zoloft (as I've already mentioned) is similar to Prozac. When I took Prozac, I noticed that my personality was disappearing. Same with Adderal. For this reason, I'm completely against medicating adolescents or adults. Maybe your son doesn't want to stop acting the way he is. Or maybe he doesn't know that he is being annoying. I have goofy behavior, I don't see what's wrong with being goofy. As for talking, I don't think medication is the answer.