Learning in school

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My son is 7 years old and has been diagnosed with Asperger's. I have a meeting about him at his school tomorrow. My question is does anyone have any suggestions about how he needs to be taught? He is the only child in his school so far to have Asperger's so everyone is pretty new to it. He has done very well so far but i feel like a child with an above average IQ could do better if the staff knows what techniques to use.

Personally? I learn by reading on my own and trying out what I learn. If there are plenty of examples to get my hands on, and a clear presentation of why the action needs to be taken (not just the actual steps itself) then I learn quickly. I do not learn by oral instruction or interaction with a teacher.

The above applies mostly to math. History and social studies and crap like that is just a matter of memorization. Literature/writing (e.g. interpreting a poem and reading Shakespeare) is just pure BS, imo.

Yes, I learned a lot on my own too. But we learn all sorts of different ways, and your boy may not be such an autodidact.

The one thing that definitely can't hurt is free access to a good library. I must've spent most of my childhood reading, and a lot of my grades had nothing to do with studying, but were just decent grades because I'd learned what I needed to know by reading some book, sometime before I encountered it in class.

Make sure he can concentrate in the classroom. If it's too chaotic, he might not be able to get any learning done. And tell them what he looks like when he's stressed out, so that they can find ways to get him un-stressed at least a little; it's impossible to learn when every last one of your nerves is frayed.

I was definitely very intelligent when I was in primary school, above average IQ and my calculations in maths was excellent back then... The only thing that troubled me was my English and grammar followed by my handwriting, yet my speech was a little delayed.

Since being transfered to another school, the work seemed to fairly easy that they didn't know what to do with my work, so they manage to integrate me to a mainstream class and strangely enough, the only subject that I ended up struggling at was maths..... I don't even know why? Maybe I was taught enough of maths?

From secondary school, I was in a special needs school and again, I was the highest level of all the classes, thats how much intelligence I had that eventually I was moved to college where i'am today

But then I also had some downsides in my life having to be bullied in school for being so different and I felt so insecure of myself and I still do once and a while that I thought, what's the point? And nearly wasted my chances a few times but managed to get lucky and also having anger problems due to people not understanding that i'm like any other normal kid and I wanted to be seen as normal and the fact that the work I keep getting given is far too easy for me... no matter what subject that i've taken.

Somethings I learnt alot myself which is art, ive started doing drawing before I even started school so obviously I suppose that its my strong point.... I'm evening using it as an avatar that ive been using since i first joined this site.
I was going to change it to another one, but ive seen that theres been a glitch so I might aswell forget it.

Thats all I gotta say....


superboyian.

Well what I'd avoid is stressing him out or discouraging him. As a child, I struggled in school and things only got worse whenever my teachers and parents got on to me. It made me afraid to ask questions. I tried doing it on my own, in some ways I did ok but in other ways, I just couldn't do it alone or learn in the same way as the rest of the students.

What helped me was this cheerful teacher who would spend time with me after school. I didn't feel as stressed especially being that there were no other kids or distractions around. She'd make it fun for me by using visual and audio stimuli and try to work with me in ways that weren't so rigid.

About your son, not sure what your full story is. I don't really see the IQ as very accurate or a good way to measure intellegence. Some of us just learn differently. So try different approaches in methods if a subject doesn't make sense to him.

I know for me, I had trouble filtering out distractions such as kids talking while trying to focus on the teacher. I solved most of this by sitting up front where I could hear the teacher better amid the chattering.

As for the rest, I never went to a special school or used optional resources because I wasn't diagnosed then. I usually stayed after school to get more help on some subjects I just couldn't ace. Most of my strengths were more along the lines of creative aspects such as art, history, music, reading, and plays. This was hard however since most of my weakest points were never very practical. I struggled in learning through many of the pragmatic approaches. I'm surprised I even got through school being what I was up against.

It depends, not everyone with AS learns the same. Is he a visual thinker? (A lot of ASD people are) I am a very visual thinker, so I never got ANYTHING out of reading from history books, because dates and wars and generals all look pretty much the same, so it all blended together unless I had something visual to latch on to. Like, for example, Napoleon is short and he was imprisoned on an island.. those are both distinctive images, so I remember them. So maybe giving everything an image would help, if he thinks visually.

All I can say is to just be very careful.

My school was really bad and at 15, I can't go back into school anymore. I just can't. Not 100% sure why but I feel VERY anxious and angry and frustrated and scared. It's going to take a lot for me to trust teachers ever again.

They let me down so much

I had a very hard time learning at school. I was always being teased and bullied, and it was very hard for me to concentrate on my school work. I was learning more about the history of Rock n Roll, than I was about the stuff that I was being taught in school. I felt that I was constantly under a microscope, and that my bullies were trying to judge my intelligence, just by the grades and marks that I got on my tests and on my report card. I wish that i was home schooled. My life would have been a much happier one, during my adolocent years.

Reading your previous posts your son don't seem asperger, but he doe seem gifted. There is a checklist here:

http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/What_is_Gifted/characgt.htm

There is also good references here:

http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/

Some characteristic of giftedness doe look like asperger. Some aspergers being gifted also add to the confusion.

It might be a good idea that he learn by his own.

I did horrible in school. It either had to do with getting distracted or just not understanding what the teacher was telling us to do. It didn't help that the teacher would just say "that's wrong, fix it" without giving me a single clue about how I could fix it. Ahh to have undiagnosed Asperger's in the mid 90's and live in a small clueless town.

Background noise could make it difficult with learning for someone with AS. He is bright so he may do ok. Watch out for bullying, that could affect his school work.

Reading on his own, internet access later on. I never really got a lot of things in school, and they seemed to completely move on while I still did not know counting past 110 (had to ask my parents to teach me this) my multiplication facts, cursive, etc. But knowledge I learned from books seemed to get me along pretty decently despite this.

I don´t know what you mean by "doing better with a child with an above average IQ", if you mean academically or not. Grades aren't everything. As long as the kid is learning on his own and at least passing it does not matter.