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Hi, I'm the mom of 3 teenagers, 16 yo girl, 14 yo boy and 13 yo girl. My son was diagnosed in grade 1 with a language based learning disability, and was not formally diagnosed with an LD until grade 6. He was diagnosed with dyslexia and dysgraphia. He has an IEP and the schools have been very helpful. My concern now is that he seems to of become a loner. His friends, (he had the same 4 friends since kindergarten) have outgrown him or at the very least grown away from him. They do not want to hang out with him anymore. This has been gradual since mid grade 7. He is now in grade 9 and has no friends. When I ask him to invite someone over he declines, he doens't want to join anything and tells me he is not comfortable doing this. He never eats lunch at school and prefers to be home with me all the time, or if I have to go out he stays home alone. He prefers his video games and tv to his peers. Kids his own age on the whole don't seem to know how to take him, where as adults love him, and tell me what a great sense of humor he has. In grade 8 he was given an award for the most improved at his graduation. He looked up at the presenter and wanted to know if he was sure he got the name right. He had never been chosen for anything no matter how often he tried out. He has no behavioral issues, on the contrary, I am always told how polite and happy go lucky he is.

When he was in grade 1 his teacher had concerns that he may be having seizures as his eyes would glaze over and he would be in "another world". He would have to be touched to bring his attention back to the teacher. I had witnessed this as well with him. I chalked it up to him daydreaming. (He was tested by the way and it was negative). He would also run along the wall looking at it very closely, we figured he liked the peripheral view he had as he was running by. He was always a little quirky in his habits. Hates, hates hates any change, even new bedding or new clothes. When he is interested in something he is all in, dinosaurs at aged 5 - I bought him every one I could find, books, movies you name it. He held on to this for a few years. Knew the name and habits of each dinosaur. It was amazing for us to watch him.

When he started grade 1 there was concern that he was not reading and was not able to attend to tasks at hand. He would literally stare off - I remember going to watch him in class and being so afraid all of the sudden. I spent hours with him trying to teach him to read, basic math, colors ect ect, he would memorize the booklets in grade 1 and fooled the teacher into thinking he was reading. She was convinced of it, until I asked her to have him read for her from his booklet, then I wanted her to write the word he had just read in his book on the board and tell her what the word was, and he couldn't. It was apparent that he memorized each booklet, there were well over 20.

I am just starting to educate myself on AS and am wondering if he has this to some degree. He is interested in different things that he wants to share with me, he is affectionate. He does seem to be lost socially however and inappropriate at times. It's like I have to explain to him why not to say certain things, why not to put his feet on someone's pillow, or repeat conversations that he was not meant to hear, he just doesn't understand about hurt feelings. He was also very sensitive to sound as a young child and would block his ears a lot.

There are just so many similarities. Any help at all or direction you could give would be greatly appreciated. I am so confused with all of this and I only want to help my son, and am desperate for him to be happy. He seems to be happy, but I'm not sure if that is for my benefit...

Did I mention he is a whiz at video games and he can recite word for word the dialogue to any of his favourite shows, complete with the correct impersonated tone for the different characters??? He amazes me. He has a great ear for impersonation...

Ang

Welcome to WP!

Tim

Have you brought these observations to his pediatrician's attention? Everything you mentioned describes the things I experienced
as a kid and my parents first arranged a physical examination with my pediatrician. After nothing proved to be "physically"
wrong with me...no epilepsy, etc...then, I began counseling with a child psychiatrist. He was a great child psychiatrist and was
someone I could talk to and ventilate my feelings...especially since other kids can be cruel at school.

Even just having ONE friend can be helpful than none at all.

He sounds like a great kid. Good luck!

Welcome to WrongPlanet!

Dear Ang,
What your going through sounds a lot like what I went through with my son who (who is now 22), I didnt discover AS until 2 yrs ago, which explains alot to me, I wish I had known or Drs. had known this before. My Dr did not know where or who to direct me to - but he said Google AS Support your home town and State, and I found a great Dr. who specializes in AS.

That might get you more help, as far as what you can do, or what I wish I knew then, he is happy, my son was, and perferred to be around the family then anywhere else, we tried to push him into sports (soccer, baseball, football, track) he would do it willingly, but I knew he hated it,(always picked on by other team mates for lack of skill.) His was always happier playing with his sister just a year younger and brother 2 yrs younger. As of right now, at 22 he is still living at home, and will be going to community college.

He always had obsessions as a baby it was cars, then named every airplane that would fly over our house (we lived near a military airbase) then paintball, then found the electric guitar, which he is now playing Bach and Bethoven. Classical music sounds pretty cool on an electric guitar. Just take baby steps - and enjoy his unique and wonderful gifts.

Pam

Hi Amarino,

Welcome

Your son has a physiology that means he's a whiz at computer games, he is more prone to allergies, he is pretty honest and loyal, and various other things. Amongst these things are positives and negatives. The positives will happily keep coming under your encouragemment and praise. The negatives you can deal with with various methods, such as:

The Brain Gym
Kinesiology
EFT
NAET or Allergy Antidotes
Nutrition - very important
I have also seen the Dore program online which looks good

All the above are googlable

BTW, not all that is perceived as a negative can be eliminated. This is about accentuating the positive and coping with the negative, for your son's benefit and future wellbeing. EG staring into space etc are things that may bother you, but your son may be happy doing it.

Wow, what a mom!

Welcome and I hope you find loads of good info, friends, and help here.

I did not get a diagnoses with my son until he was 24. I did not know what it was when they told me that my son had Aspergers and high functioning autism. A rehabilitation theripist is the one that told me that something was wrong with the right hemisphere of his brain, and this was after a nurologest told me that there was nothing wrong with my son except that he was concerned about himself.

I found out that everytime I took my son somewhere, I always asked my son's doctor since birth for records explaining my sons continueing complaints of aches and pains that he could not find anything but after many appointments would send me on to someone else with a letter.

I never opened the letter, I had trust that this doctor felt that there must be something wrong, but on one time I opened the letter and sat and cried when I read that he was telling this doctor that he felt that nothing was wrong, except that my son's father was in a wheelchair and was disabled and felt that because of the extra attention he seen his father getting that he was convinced that my son wanted to be disabled also and that because of my persistance he had agreed to send him for another opinion.

I could not believe that in all the years that I had been taking my son to doctors and councilers that they were reading this and were agreeing with him. Why would they look at my son seriously when my family doctor said that this had been going on since Nathaniel was little.

I not only thought why, but of all the money that I had spent and never was any of these doctors saying well if this has been going on for years and this mother is saying hey my son is complaining and I am being told that he is having difficulties lets take a good long look and put this to rest.

When I got my son's diagnosis, I went and started reading about Asperger's and High Functioning Autism and cried because after all of these years here was my son on the pages of a book, I and he was not alone, all of the people that had told me that I needed to do this and make my son do that, I was not crazy and now I had information and I could educate myself and my son.

I would call and find a psychologist, that is trained in testing Apserger's and have your son tested. Then I would start reading and educating yourself on how your son sees and feels things.

My son, because of his Aspergers sees things in pictures and I thought okay I will test this and guess what he does. So now when I want my son to do something a certain way I tell him to picture it and it is less stressful for him and me.

Such as picture all of your dirty clothes in the laundry basket. It works!