cahms said that hes not suffering from any psychiatric problems and that they havent ruled out social communication issues but it could be just his personality.Im more confused than before if its just his personality why do certain noises drive him crazy? Why does he struggle so much with change?Why is he able to achieve high marks academically but cant tie his own shoes or wash his own hair?Why does he sit for ages just staring into space just in his own world unresponsive to anything going on around him?Why does he have the most major tantrums over seemingly the smallest things where he hits bites and scratches himself and anyone watching can tell he has no control over it?Hes 11 now and im so scared that his whole childhood is going to be blighted by this as it has already.I hear so many stories of people getting a dx in their late teens or later who feel that they have been robbed of their childhoods wrongly labelled as weird,anti social,agressive,badly behaved all the labels apart from the right one which may have offered them some support or at least some answers.My son says "I know im different but I dont know why and I dont know how to make it better" .Camhs said that the peaditrician who assesed him before had told them she had assesed him for as.This was the one who said hes a little bit depressed we were in her office for 45 minutes and she didnt even speak to him.At one point he went up to his baby brother and tickled and kissed him and she said "oh he wouldnt do that if he was aspergers they dont interact and show emotion that way"Camhs asked if she had even done a checklist she had at the end of appointment asked me to hurry up and fill it in because she had another appointment and didnt even look at it when i was finished.National autistic society have said to ask gp to refer us to someone specialsed in aspergers because some children can put on a show of complete normality for short periods of time so i guess that is what ill do I also plan to start keeping a diary.Nobody has shown an interest in school reports even though they reveal a huge amount of his problems at school I have brought them to every appointment only one who has read them is gp who seems to be only one taking me seriously.
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We are waiting for our daughter to be tested. she has not been officially dx. either, she has been dx. with ODD. and she is on zoloft right now, they do not want to mess her meds. until she has been tested, they are looking at Aspergergs, she too struggles with relationships and she does bring some of it on herself, but there are some kids that do provoke her, we have just tried to teach her to aviod those kids as much as possible, the school has been wonderful and really work great with us, they look for the red flags and step in if they need too, she is really struggling right now because she has no focus, and the teachers are being great as far as being patient with her until she has been tested, I am sorry your son is going through this at school they should be more supportive, is going to be tested, I really would push it and then once you have a dx, the school has to meet his emotional needs as well as his acadimic ones, we have been fighting this issue for with my daughter for 7 years and this is the first time we have been asked wether she has ever bee ntested, and someone actually doing something about it, so I am anxious to get it done, good luck and hang in there, just be as supportive as you can, is there another school he can attend if things do not get better? we live in a small town so we have only the one school, I thankful they are supportive.

I was bullied unmercifully and no one wanted me in their group until like my last year of school and with my spec. ed classes we were a family and helped each other :)

Here are some of my experiences:

I wouldn't normally give this as its going to be in my book getting published, but I'll put it here...

I did attend public school. I was in both special education and mainstream classes. I could not eat in the regular lunchroom and to tell you the truth, school was a severe nightmare for me. People would drop books just to make me start screaming and holding my ears and moving things on me so I would start flipping out and stim with my voice, etc. During the assemblies, I buried my head into my lap and couldn't handle that. As I got older, I stayed w/ the psychologist during those times and he had a schedule to calm me down with the change and everything. I would take off my shoes and socks to stop the bad feeling, pour water on my desk, and lay my head in it, line things up, get into trouble for sloppy handwriting and being slow, make noises and be told to be quiet, get lost in the reading, and I should have been diagnosed in the first grade. However, the teachers and schools I went to were too afraid to say anything until I got into HS. The abuse from others was more than anyone could handle...the police had to get involved in a few cases as I got older and started to verbalize some of the things that were happening. I started to bang the walls and lockers in the band room where I went to vent and my band director would calm me down and sing or play an instrument for me. I would kick the garbage cans and have meltdown (especially from a spec. education teacher who should not have been one). The psychologist would come and get me out of the situation. A few of my teachers were terrible. P.E. was a nightmare too. I wouldn't understand directions and would always be the one that everyone said, "No, I don't want to be next to her". It was horrible, but then I met a girl and she had special needs too so we always had to stick up for each other and even pretend just to get through the day. The teacher was terrible, too. In HS, the psychologist exempted me from P.E. and some other classes. Sorry to sound so negative, but it is just that is the way it was.

In Elementary school, kids would do every thing they knew they could for every sensory overload they could. I was dragged across a field and thrown dirt clumps at during recess when I was trying to stare at the bark on a tree. The girls had trapped me on the bus and in the bathroom so they could take my lunch card. I would then get in trouble for misplacing it. I was told to mimic things they were doing/saying that I did not know were inappropriate. EX: My teacher had a miscarriage, and a mean girl told me to go up to her to make her feel better and say, Sorry you lost your baby, B****. I did not know it was inappropriate or hurtful, as I was mimicking. Luckily, the teacher knew I would never talk that way. There was other abuse as well in the mimicking area, but I do not want to go into details, as it is very personal and traumatic. They also would tell me that they were going to kill my family and me if I said anything, which I then did not for a very long time. (Years) They used to say how my cat, who really saved my life for all those years of school, was going to be dead when I got home and how her head was going to be in the freezer. They would make loud noises, change my environment; you name it, they did it. In HS girls pointed out me to people who were walking by and said Look at that girl of there shes retarded., and would make it so I would mimic or echolalia, sometimes things that were inappropriate so I would get into trouble. My parents never knew, because I kept quiet, and to be completely honest, I was relieved to be home, and away from the millions of people, noises, smells, etc. In the P.E. room in JHS, I was sprayed with four diff. perfumes, which made me gag and throw up in the sink. The girls used to always do things and the boys as well. I would try to join a group and they would say, We dont let retards in our group. They would hide my work and tape it under the desk, etc. I had picked up a chair when the teacher had left the room to get something, because I wanted to throw it at them, but I did not get the chance to. Because of the frustration, I would grit my teeth so hard that I almost broke them and needed braces, etc. School was a nightmare and people would not listen to me You will not always know your child is being abused, but if they are on the autism spectrum, most likely they are in some way or another. It needs to be stopped. I went to a 1st grade classroom where a boy had Aspergers so I explained to these kids both individually and as a class (not using the word autism, nor pointing the boy out) but used lessons in Dont make funyou dont know the reason behind the behavior, etc.

I think all teachers need to do this, starting at a young age.