Still trying to wrap my mind around this

Post Reply New Topic

The woman who evaluated our son for behavior therapy at age 2 1/2 gave our son various objects (fruits, cars and trucks, etc.) from 4 different groups, and he put them down in various piles sorted by type. He also extended patterns. She said that a typical child has to be taught this, but autistic children do it naturally.
His preschool teacher says that all the special needs kids, who are a year younger than the typical kids they mix with, can all read their own names and follow the chart to go to the right centers every day. She said not even half of the typical kids can do this.


Did anyone ever read about multiple intelligences? I can't remember the name of the guy who wrote those books about 15-20 years back. Thomas Armstrong?

My son is in therapy for gross motor and social delays. The way I see it, the other kids are in therapy for math and reading delays. Seriously, if he can learn to regulate his sensory issues, what really is the problem?!

I like your positive outlook on this

It would have been nice if my parents could have seen it this way!

laplantain,

You almost described my understanding of AS. You almost described ME! I guess most of the kids in his class are HFA/AS!

The way I see it, outside of social, and a few less significant issues tha may be an outgrowth of that, you're RIGHT! NO PROBLEM! Unfortunately, that IS bad enough. Some people AREN'T bothered AT ALL! Some will go to self harm and suicide. I'm currently right in the middle there, and I think most people here are.

OK, this absolutely convinces me that I do have AS! I can't even imagine having to be taught something that obvious!! !

I remember when I first started school, and I just raced through the first maths book in about 2 or 3 lessons, which was all this kind of thing.

Your son is lucky to have a parent with such a positive outlook. I'm sure he's going to turn out just fine. Best Wishes...Z

I am totally energized by this thought!

Shopaholic- LOL! I remember asking my mom in first grade why the teacher kept repeating herself over and over and over again. She said because it takes some kids longer to understand some things. I thought I was going to lose my mind!! !! !

All the more reason why I wish schools would restructure the way things are taught. My son needs AP academics and remedial p.e. What is this business about "special needs?" Everyone one of those little kiddies has special needs.

Course, I didn't recognize the repetition, because I couldn't focus on the classroom long enough to really hear and process anything. It befuddles me to this day as to why no one figured out that I had ADHD. I had go to a psychiatrist myself, at the age of 23, to get any diagnoses. Later in my school career, I could pay attention in class (mostly), but that first year was really really rough. I remember almost nothing of first grade, except for the color of the walls, the pencils we used, failing a spelling test because I couldn't figure out what we were doing (all verbal instruction), and a daydream that I had one day.

And as far as sorting things goes, I always played with my matchbox cars by sorting them into color based families. I did this even before I knew the names of the colors.

Placing toys into a preferred order is "logical", and it always will be to an autistic mind; not all of us can read and/or do math better than others however.

My math skills were great until I got past fractions . . . *sighs* Then after that, they might as well have tried teaching it in arabic, for all I understood.

It was the same for me. Except I was fine until they introduced differential equations in sixth form. It was the first maths concept I couldn't grasp immediately, and I panicked, and promptly forgot how to do anything maths-related because I was panicking too much about it. I had to withdraw from the A-level altogether and do an AS instead, despite having begun the course with everyone telling me I was guaranteed an A.

Didn't you know? They DO teach it in arabic! HEY, Just be happy they don't teach it in HINDI! How can those people do ANYTHING!?!? OH YEAH, RIGHT! Their illiteracy rate IS very high!

I was good with math till they put characters from the alphabet in the place of numerals.

It's blank paper to me (algebra).

Howard Gardner wrote several such books (then later Daniel Goleman wrote a few that became best-sellers) covering various types of intelligence: kinaesthetic, musical, inter- & intra- personal, among others.

sorry for going off topic, but are you from Northern Ireland? I lived there for two years... one of my two official diagnosis were made by my therapist in NI.

Yes, there is one with an hfa dx, another with MD (which I'm not sure what that means?), and the rest are PDD-NOS. They mix all day with a typical class of 15 NT kids who are a year older.

Crackedpleasures- I'm not sure who you are asking?

When my son was first in First Grade, and in a completely inappropriate school, I asked the teacher some questions. He blew me off and said that he was (in effect) too busy to worry about my son. He had kids that were reading at 4th grade level and kids that didn't know their alphabet. And the same with math. I was like, "and they say my son is the problem?!"

I was eavesdropping on this guy explaining to this mother than her son still couldn't write his letters and wasn't working hard enough. She made a big show to act shocked and say, "I'm very disappointed in you!" Yeah, right. You don't even know that your own kid-IN FIRST GRADE-doesn't know his letters.