People Doubting you have Aspergers

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Oh me oh my. Wrong!! !! My son is academically gifted, but still gets an IEP. He's 12, and spends one period a day in a class taught by a teacher who is trained to work with AS/HFA kids. They work on social situations, organizational skills, and that kind of thing, and sometimes he just goes there when he's overwhelmed and needs a "safe" place. But since it's "individualized", your kid might need something different. This is what my kid needed. No such program existed, so the school district had to create one for him. There were a few years where things were rough because there was no one who had a clue about AS, but at least they made a valiant effort, and managed to scrape together a solution. We've been lucky to live in a school district that actually follows the law. Apparently that's unusual, but it is the law. They don't want to follow the law because special ed kids cost the district a lot more money, per student, than regular kids. They don't want to, but they have to. Don't let them tell you otherwise.



http://lfie.net/education/anyone-have-a ... lan-2.html

This is a link to something I just found by googling. It looks like there might be some useful stuff there for you.

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http://www.wrightslaw.com/ This is a link to a website about the U.S. federal law called IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) There is all kinds of info here.

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http://messageboards.ivillage.com/iv-ppiep This is a link to a message board where you can ask questions about any aspect of special education. It's mostly BTDT moms. You have to sign up to post, but it's free (at least there is a free option).

Exactly. Most schools just assume that parents are uninformed, and try to get away with as much as possible.

I saw a similar thing happening with one of the kids at the school I was student teaching at. He had a speech problem, and both his teacher and the mother were pushing to get him an IEP, but someone at the school was saying that they couldn't because there wasn't enough evidence to suggest it was affecting his school work. It's complete bull. School is not just about academics, it involves the student's social and emotional capabilities too. It makes me so mad what schools try to get away with for the sake of money.

Last edited by leschevalsroses on 21 Dec 2009, 12:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

My parents were oblivious to the law and were unaware they also had rights for my education so when my preschool suggested a school for me and a classroom they have there, my parents went along with it. They didn't know as parents they could say no to it and have me be put in regular ed and mainstream special ed. They just assumed my school knew what they were doing.

Also over the years, they had to keep fighting fighting fighting for me and in 6th grade my mom leaned how many laws my school was breaking. She worked in the special ed room as an aid at another school and she be talking about me and what the staff be doing and the other teachers would say they weren't following the law and what they were doing was illegal. My mother learned she also had rights for me and she learned schools can't suspend special ed students without the parents permission and unless they agree to it. My school suspended me for something I did and didn't tell my parents about it. They were mad.
My school even wanted to put me in a class with violent kids and my mom had to learn what rights she and my dad has and what I have and how to stop it.

my mother, but I knew she would. I am the 'pathologized child' in my family (which is like the black sheep, for those who don't know...more like the 'bad' one because sometimes the black sheep just acts out but is still well-loved). My parents screwed up alot and I have had the most therapy so of course they want to make me the 'crazy' one. I was misdiagnosed bipolar years ago (have yet to experience mania or being manic) so they always want that to stick. My brother is a textbook aspie but his girlfriend has him thinking he is ADD, which is ridiculous. ADD generally don't read all the encyclopedias at three years old. He is the opposite of ADD, she just doesn't understand aspies don't care about what we don't care about, that's the attention deficit. It really kind of irks me, because I think it would help him to know what's going on, that he fits so well in this category. But back to my mom...I told her and she said 'I can see it with your brother but it just doesn't sound like you'. It was very wounding, in part because I knew that's exactly how she would react. I pretty much despise her sometimes. She just wants me to be crazy because she allowed me to be around rotten people and get victimized as a child, and the 'crazier' they make me seem, it somehow makes her feel safer that no one will believe me if I talk about what happened. I am really on the 'crazy' theme today, for some reason. But anyway my family have a vested interest in me not having a legitimate problem like AS.

I told my g-ma when I was first starting to think that I had AS and she shot me down saying that she knew a guy who's kid has AS and he is even less sociable than me, therefore it couldn't be that I have AS. I felt some real doubtfulness there, though to be honest she probably doesn't know that much about it and much of my evidence from my early childhood comes from stories from her.
My brothers just laughed and called me ret*d, my explanation for the rather huge distinction between autism and retardation did little to disuade them. I think they just like to annoy me.

I was a robot.

I think the thing is that most people dont know what Aspergers Syndrome is in the first place so when they find out you have a disability, disorder, difference(Whatever you wanna call it) they are surprised because Aspergers is mild. When they imagine a disorder they imagine people that low functioning or mentally challenged. They dont really get that Aspergers is mild and many of us are high functioning but theres still those challenges that we have that dont make us completely NT.

For me, I've gotten people say stuff like "I dont think theres anything wrong with you". But they dont really understand the challenges I face and how unnatural socializing comes to me. I dont just choose to live my life unsocialable. Since I've learned how to cover things much better within the last few years, people are less likely to think Im not normal.

In hindsight, I think being lower-functioning would have helped tremendously. If 1) somebody would have noticed and pointed it out to me, and 2) I would have then taken it seriously and gotten help.

It's funny to be in that border area. Bad enough to have serious negative effects but not bad enough for people to notice or think it's anything beyond being eccentric.

when i told my real dad that i had a form of autism, or that i was diagnosed with it and this is why i was a little wacked out when i saw him almost 10 years ago he just said "oh". and he changed the subject to something else but i forgot what, my mother took me out for ice cream in sedona and boght me a watch when the doctor told her. my sisters really didnt care and wanted me to all of the sudden paint something to put in her bedroom because she saw a show on autistic savants but i wasnt one of them. i still painted her a picture but she never hung it up, it must be an eyesore,

The only person who has really rejected my diagnosis would be my ex husband, who told my kids I cannot be autistic because I am clearly not ret*d. My kids came running up to me one day after seeing their dad, demanding to know if I was really ret*d because their dad says autistic people are. I laughed and set them straight. He still thinks I am not autistic. I do not care.

Then there is my mom. She knows there is something wrong with me and when I read her the diagnostic criteria, she told me that it described me perfectly. Her problem though is she thinks my autism can be fixed with pills. I keep telling her there is no cure for autism, but she does not listen. She tells me to go find a better psychiatrist. I try not take it personally, she had a brain tumor removed and thinks everything is pill treatable brain chemistry. I know this about her.

Beyond that, my family, friends and husbands friends have been accepting of my diagnosis. It is still odd for me. Up until this year I was just weird, now there is a name for my weird and as soon as people hear it, I make sense.

I was only diagnosed recently and still have some doubts myself, so when someone says they doubt I have it, it touches on my own doubts and makes me really unsure and anxious. The autism specialist nurse and my doctor think I have it, several friends think I have it, but then two people who know me fairly well said they think I haven't. One said that I don't have bad social skills, thoush she has only seen me in a a situation (a group at the local mental health centre) where I havne't felt stressed. The other said she knows others with AS and I am different to them.

Not even my friends believe me about this one. After a long talk, they were still joking about it and just not taking me seriously.

This is exactly why I wouldn't tell anybody if I were to be diagnosed. I already caused a shitstorm of cognitive dissonance on another site when I posted that I might have it in an Asperger's thread and the people that usually bully me were the ones telling me that I don't have it, despite telling me previously that I'm "socially ret*d."

Dont listen to the bullies. That should be the first rule.
Thereafter its difficult to explain what AS is to somebody who just have in mind it could be a serious mental handicap or special ability issue, because thats just generally present in peoples heads, around here anyway.

My mom and sometimes my friends say it. I usually get mad because it's pretty much undeniable. I give them lots of examples, but they refuse to believe me most of the time.