Advice for mom of a 7yo HF ASD?

I’m looking for some advice from teen or young adult Aspies or high functioning autistic people or their parents about how to navigate schooling for my 7yo son.

Strengths: passionate about environment and wants to be an environmental engineer/inventor. Highly verbal and advanced for age vocabulary and reading comprehension. Loves books and will read for hours in end. Passionate about science especially physics, evolution and microbiology. Enjoys tea parties and is an avowed vegetarian.

Challenges: can be spacy and innattentive, can be irritable and when highly irritable will hit, kick or bite (has sent teachers to ER), often fails to follow directions, needs constant reminders to complete task, math skills are below grade, hates writing (excellent fine motor skills and good penmanship, dislikes spelling out words), easily gets dysregulated in unstructured environments (eg recess), will say things like ‘this is boring’ or ‘you are an oaf’ to teachers if irritated.

Currently in a “no-excuses” charter school (think military school… uniforms, silent hallways) which we chose for the high degree of structure. Has been suspended a dozen times for physical aggression so far this year.

My husband want to medicate with some kind of sedative. I’m fiercely against medicating and am advocating for using behavioral interventions such as Ross Greene’s collaborative problem solving approach.

School is assigning him a para professional after winter break. His team of therapists, teachers, school psychologist and school principal meet Thursday to plan how to roll out para support.

That is our situation. Feedback welcome.

I am a current college sophomore who has ASD (either HFA or Asperger’s, but I believe I fit HFA more).
I’m thinking he could possibly benefit from medication, but not a sedative. ADD medicine might help in keeping him focused more. I took ADD meds all through upper elementary and high school (went off for one year in high school, resulted in a huge drop in grades) and currently take them in college when I have exams and other important days. It can be hard to find the right one, but they really do help with the spacing out, beginning inattentive, and completing tasks. I started out on strattera, which is a non-stimulant, and switched to stimulant medications (think Ritalin like) in middle school, switching between several different kinds before settling on the one I currently have. For someone like him, a non-stimulant like strattera would probably be best.

As for the biting and violence, does he have any issues with repetitive behavior like bouncing his pencil on the desk? He may need something to do with his hands. Personally, when I was younger, I had issues with pulling out my hair. I grew out of that but I now have issues with scratching my arms. My mom in high school would have me wear stretchy bracelets and snap them against my wrist. I found out this past summer about stim toys and jewelry, which are meant to help those with problems such as these. You may want to check out this company: http://www.stimtastic.co/ They have different types of toys and jewelry. Maybe possibly find a combination of those toys that may work for him? They have some that can be bitten/chewed on and don’t show teeth marks (I have one of those necklaces); those could work as a substitute for him maybe so if he gets angry, he can bite that and not the person.

First trying to make sense of the school situation. When you say charter school, do you mean public school? If yes then have they done a functional behavior analysis to understand what is leading up to his specific violent behaviors? Often kids who bite and display other aggressive behaviors have communication issues, and biting is a form of communication. You see this most often with preverbal preschool children who cannot express their frustration in words and resort to physical behaviors. Could this be what is going on with your son? Does he have the verbal tools to indicate his needs at school? Also when do these behaviors occur? Is there something specific that leads up to his violent behaviors (lack of structure, too much structure, frustration with peers, frustration with teachers). Does he act this way only at school. Is there some kind of stressor that brings this behavior on? All behavior has a purpose. Things don’t happen in a vacuum. Rather than suspending him, it sounds like the school needs to do more of an analysis so they can figure out why he is acting the way he is. Then they can work on helping him deal with the stressors that are leading to his behavior.

It sounds like there may be a great need for pragmatic speech therapy. Pragmatics are social speech. I already mentioned possible communication issues above that might be leading to his physical violence, but your statement about his inappropriate comments indicate this is a good possibility. With an ASD, social speech is one of the main issues. Children do not automatically learn how to communicate socially and often need to be taught what to say, how to say it, and when to say it. If your son has an ASD he should be getting speech - specifically for pragmatics.

You also mention some behaviors that are similar to ADHD - needing constant reminders to complete tasks. Has he been tested for ADHD?

I have been in the world of autism for many years and over time have become friends with other parents - well OK moms - and have seen a variety of outcomes. Some very positive. My own son is now 17 and very successful. While other children have had very negative outcomes. A friend of mine has a son who, at age 19, is very aggressive, is sexually acting out, and they are looking at a therapeutic group home. We just don’t know what the future holds. One thing that I did early on was to insist on special education 100% of the time. While other parents were insisting their children be mainstreamed into gen ed classrooms, I insisted that my child NOT be mainstreamed. His first 2 years of school were in a moderate to severe ASD classroom with minimal students, and max teachers. I insisted on a para daily, speech, OT for socialization, ABA and the list goes on. This went against everything that every other parent was doing. My goal was to give him as much help as early as possible, then I removed the supports as needed over the years. I wanted the para at the age when other kids wouldn’t notice her. I didn’t want him to be different from his peer later, when it would matter. He mainstreamed in 2nd grade to a general ed classroom. He lost the para as soon as possible once she was no longer needed. etc. I piled it on early and took it away the minute it was no longer needed. Our end result was a kid who no longer needs any supports, is confident, and is happy. I credit the amount of early support I insisted on. I cannot tell you how many parents told me I was doing it wrong by not insisting that he be put in general ed classroom immediately. Your mileage may vary, however.

Thanks for the replies.

Your son is probably gifted-- thus, you must put him in a school which will adjust their curriculum to foster his strengths and work through his weaknesses. Forcing him into structure at such a young age is a bad idea, as it will only alienate him since he hasn’t developed the cognition to reason with himself why he should follow their rules. He will learn how to cooperate as he cognitively integrates into social norms and cues.

Really, I can’t stress that enough. The hurdle to overcome is his dissatisfaction with his environment, which is causing him to lash out. Autistic students’ actions do not happen in a vacuum-- even though one isn’t supposed to kick or bite others, there is something triggering that. I will bet you it is because he hates the environment you are putting him through.

The best advice would be to get him out of there ASAP, and place him in another school that he really likes. The improvement in social skills will follow. If he continues to feel stifled by his environment, nothing will happen, ever.

The schools you should be looking for are IEP schools I believe they’re called. The thing about gifted education now is that, usually, if you want an adapted curriculum you will probably have to pay a lot for it, as federally funded institutions usually just help those who are ‘academically’ GAT: students who do well in all areas of academics, and need an accelerated environment.Your son is different in his math skills, and would not fit this criteria. The government generally does not care about those who are years ahead in one or two subjects, but horrible in others, which is what usually happens in the gifted population. You will probably have to pay for your son’s education if you do not want to homeschool him.

I am autistic too, and if you read my latest replies, putting me in an environment in which I was unable to personally integrate was a very bad idea. I wish my parents would have just homeschooled me. You should also look into Montesorri schools.