<p>Do therapists take away wheelchairs and expect the legless to walk?</p>
<p>I think that’s my point. I have sympathy for people that can’t walk, or have mental disorders, or other problems. But we have this thing called “life” in front of us and we have it live in it.</p>
<p>There are lots of jobs for people who don’t have executive function skill. But I have a hard time seeing how a person who is in a fraternity, has lots of friends, got admitted into an Ivy league school can be failing school due to lack of “executive functions” and how it can be “impossible” for them to learn them.</p>
<p>Not every person or job out there requires “executive functions”. But most employers who hire Ivy league graduates will expect the employee to have them. Our shop mechanics don’t have much aptitude in “executive functions” and that’s ok, and some are very successful. But the engineers that we hire have them, or if they don’t, they have found a way to be successful despite their limitation.</p>
<p>Same goes for the OP’s son. If he doesn’t have those skills and can’t learn them, now is the time to figure out how to engage his peers to help him. </p>
<p>For example, if he is bad at scheduling exams, he should just ask around a bit during each class for constant reminders. (Don’t tell me that the guy in a fraternity “forgets” when the next party is…I’m sure he can figure that one out). Or whatever, I don’t know. But he has to figure out a way. And preferrably using his peer network rather than hired professionals.</p>
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<p>And living in lilfe does not have to involve being left adrift without help. Nobody snatches away my glasses and exhorts me to work harder at seeing, or points out that many other people don’t need glasses, and I shouldn’t either. No one takes away my asthmatic friend’s inhaler. When I hear someone say that people with Aspergers should “just” work harder, I want to punch them in the nose. You have sympathy for people who can’t walk; why have you no sympathy for Aspies just because you can’t see inside their brain to notice that part of it is non-functional?</p>
<p>Cardinal, </p>
<p>I can’t find a single post on here that says that Aspies should just work harder. I’m not sure what you are talking about.</p>
<p>What I said is that we all have to live life one way or another. If an executive function coach is required, so be it. However, the first preference would be to engage the peer community into working together and helping everyone through. I say that because learning that skill will help him/her at work.</p>
<p>However, the OPs situation doesn’t sound like an executive function disability. Her post sounds like the student is choosing to skip exams, etc.</p>
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<p>“But HE has to figure out a way…” This is pretty much the same as saying he (the individual with Aspergers) must “work harder.” (and illustrates how misunderstood this disorder is, given how much “harder” the Aspie is already working - every minute of his life in an attempt to make sense of a world with a brain that unfortunately does not process information the same way as everyone else, even shop mechanics ;)) </p>
<p>The OP’s son has Asperger’s Syndrome; executive function deficits and Asperger’s sort of go hand in hand.</p>
<p>No, “he has to figure out a way” means any of the following:</p>
<ul>
<li>Engaging the peer network to help him overcome the executive function deficit</li>
<li>Hiring a person to help him with those things he can’t do</li>
<li>Learning other methods of overcoming that part of the disability.</li>
</ul>
<p>The best opportunity is to use the peer network, because that is something he can do at work easily. But if that doesn’t work, then he needs to figure out an alternative way.</p>
<p>I’m colorblind. I cannot tell red and green apart in many situations. When I did an electrical engineering class, I couldn’t read the colored stripes on a resistor that indicate what color it was. I had to “find a way” to correctly identify the resistor despite my disability, because my electrical project wouldn’t work properly otherwise. In my case, “finding a way” meant explaining the problem to my lab partner and asking him to read the colors.</p>
<p>Anyways, yes the OP’s son has Aspergers but her description of how her son is doing poorly doesn’t sound like executive function.</p>
<p>If you read the OPs previous posts (like this one here from three years ago<a href=“Application procrastination - Parent Cafe - College Confidential Forums”>Application procrastination - Parent Cafe - College Confidential Forums) </p>
<p>I’m not convinced that her son’s issues are related to Aspergers. It may very well be that he didn’t really want to go to college but his Mom made him. The parent says that the student as a senior procrastinated and didn’t enjoy filling out applications, he had too much fun as a freshman, and now is at risk of flunking out. The Aspergers wasn’t mentioned until recently.</p>
<p>So many students without Aspergers, ADD, etc, have problems in college. I wouldn’t assume that Asperger’s is the cause of the OP’s son’s college woes.</p>
<p>What the OP wrote 3 years ago: "We have been trying to get him to fill out his college applications since AUGUST and he’s done a page here, a little there, and now, with a week to go, he has completed maybe half of the 10 applications he was planning to send out. When we’re not watching him, he’s on the Internet (Facebook, Youtube, cartoons). "</p>
<p>Hmmm. Sounds like the behavior of my smart older S, who said he wanted to go to college, and got applications in only because I stood over him and made him do so. He cheerfully went off to college --having got a virtually full ride to a college that he loved – and he just as cheerfully flunked out because while for the first time in his life, he had lots of friends and a wonderful social life, he didn’t go to class, didn’t do homework or take exams.</p>
<p>It was only after well-meaning relatives stopped letting him live rent free with them that S became self supporting. At 26, while he’s never returned to college, he has been self supporting and working for the same company for 4 years. He also has developed a more mature outlook on life. If he decides to return to college, I suspect he’ll do what some adults I know did who behaved similarly to him in their youth: Breeze through with high grades while taking college very seriously. </p>
<p>I have ADHD, too, and graduated from an Ivy, and hold a doctorate. When bright people with ADHD want to do something, they hyperfocus and succeed at a higher level than do people without ADHD. However, that motivation has to come from the ADHD person. You can’t force them to do that.</p>
<p>The OP also has (had?) another forum name. The boy had trouble in his freshman year at UPenn, also, and the OP stated he had an Internet addiction. And it wasn’t just the college apps that were an issue senior year; was also much of his schoolwork that year. The quote was something along the lines that he wouldn’t complete classwork unless they “held a gun to his head.” </p>
<p>The OP and her dh are paying full-freight for their son to attend college. I hope they can come to an understanding with their son, and that they figure out a way to make the boy see that there are avenues for help available at UPenn, and that he must use them.</p>
<p>I wonder…he had bad grades last year, and now again this year. Is he in danger of being kicked out?</p>
<p>OP- Is there a good college closer to home where he can attend? A friend’s son has AS, went to Duke, and came home midway through freshman year because he could not cope. He had some issues with a lab partner and stopped going to that class and it got worse from there. His parents brought him home and he commuted to Case Western which is local. He was much better off with the support of his family.</p>
<p>I don’t know whether the OP’s son does have executive function deficits, but (1) people with Aspergers usually do, and (2) if he did have executive function deficits, he would have exactly the symptoms he does have: whiling away his time on the Internet instead of doing his schoolwork, having needed his mother to nag and schedule so he could be successful in high school.</p>
<p>^^there are dozens of reasons why kids don’t succeed at college Ivy or otherwise. The bottom line is a parent can’t move into the dorm room and “do college” for the student. There are many avenues a parent can take from pulling the child and letting them figure out for themselves what path to take, to engaging professionals to help the child find the path, to bringing them home to commute to college and monitoring the path to a degree…each family has to work out the solution for themselves. Labeling the reason can be comforting to a parent and can point toward a possible solution but labeling is not the solution. In the OPs situation perhaps it’s the Aspergers but the bottom line is that the OP’s son is not succeeding in his particular situation which is the problem, the solution will be something different than what is currently happening. Tons of good advice exists on various threads about what families did and the outcomes for their particular situation.</p>
<p>Cardinal Fang, no, no one yanks a wheelchair out from under the legless (ugh. I should hope not!) but a good physical therapist breaks down tasks into do-able sections, has you practice and then launches one out into the world. They don’t make excuses for you – ever. </p>
<p>Microsoft has a division of folks who are in the Asperger’s range – they find that the group has some distinct strengths that loan themselves to profitable software development. Interestingly, Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard to pursue software development and there are those who think he may have Aspergers. </p>
<p>So, it is not about yelling “work harder” – it’s about identifying the tripping points, finding ways to skip instead of trip . . . and to NOT pour thousands of dollars down the drain while finding out these things. </p>
<p>I agree that one can’t move into the dorm room and do college with the student . . . but it makes a student pay attention if there is an awareness that mom might try! </p>
<p>It is a bit heartbreaking to read how many young males are being described here on CC as sinking. It’s unlikely that there is one cause – but there sure seems to be a steady stream of them.</p>
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<p>Exactly so. I was reacting to those who advocate the tough-love, pull all the money away from the kid and throw him out of the house approach. As a practical matter, I don’t think tough love would have good results in this case, because the failing Aspie is unlikely to be able to fix himself without outside help. The kid clearly shouldn’t stay at the expensive Ivy running up tuition bills and failing either; that also is an approach destined for disaster.</p>
<p>Some on this thread have hinted that having an executive function coach is coddling the Aspie, since, they say, he can’t have a coach when he is out in the real world working for a living. But in fact, he could have a coach when he goes into the real world. The coach might cost money, but it’s better to have a coach and a job than no coach and no job. A job and no coach would be the best, but that might not be achievable. Plenty of very successful people have coaches, though they are normally called “mothers,” “wives” and “secretaries.”</p>
<p>As far as knowing how son is doing, we made him give us his password for Blackboard, on which most of his instructors post grades for homework assignments - including 0’s for missed assignments - and test grades. I recommend Blackboard - I’m sure S’s school isn’t the only one that has it.</p>
<p>On the life coach suggestion, DH has filled that role. H is on the phone with S many times a day - calls to get him up, eat, get to class, status of homework. DH has his schedule memorized and helps S with organization and remembering things. S both appreciates/relies on DH and at the same time resents the heck out of it. Also, S has turned into a masterful liar, telling DH that he has completed assignments, attended class and even shown up for mid-terms when he has not. And then afterward he feels badly about what he did and cries. DH has a lot more patience with S than I do. I think it’s just a matter of time before the school asks S to leave, either for a year or for good.
And S would HATE to be home, because at school he dormed with other engineering and science students and had some friends. When we first saw a therapist, she suggested having S live at home and go to a local school, and I told her that he would hate it, because that would mean more of his parents having to watch him all the time to make sure he did his work. I certainly don’t want that - I want him to be able to work on his own. And if he can’t do that, then he does not belong in school.</p>
<p>Hallomar:</p>
<p>You son appears to be bad at remembering events in life, which others have described as typical of Aspergers. You’ve also said he is in a fraternity. Is he as bad at remembering social functions with the fraternity as he is his schoolwork? If so, it sounds like it might be a mental handicap. If not, I have a hard time seeing how the same mental disorder that causes him to lie and foget also allows him to remember parties and other social functions with friends.</p>
<p>hallomar: this is exactly what happened with my son. Has AS, ADD, anxiety, and depression. He worked really “hard” at his academics, partly b/c he’s good at that. He followed the ‘rules’ about doing his homework assignments and readings. But he didn’t have any social life. He was too far from home (8 hours driving) and we didn’t know how much he was really suffering. (Of course, he’d never tell us on the phone.) He’d tell us he made friends, and only later discovered that he didn’t. </p>
<p>Instead, he slept nearly 18 hours a day and went on the internet for distraction or watched movies. In short, he rarely left his room. But he did go to his classes and even went to the support center (in part b/c he was used to going to the RR in HS). Sadly, he didn’t know he had to go to small group sessions taught by a TA and as a result missed taking all the quizzes that semester. When his prof wrote him an email when he came home for the December holidays, he learned his absence resulted in a zero for each quiz. Talk about problems with executive functioning!</p>
<p>Eventually, he is now attending a mediocre LAC near home and having a terrific year. Finally! The stress of school is off (well, it’s still challenging, but he’s successful/not failing). He’s home when he needs to be. (like when he needs to take a break) and get clean clothes (b/c he never could figure out how to use a washer and hygiene was never "his thing’.</p>
<p>We were so proud he got into a top school back then. We thought he had ‘turned a corner’ when he went off to his college, but it was really too hard on so many levels. He’s had challenges all his life; the fact that he will be able to graduate is enough for us. As for those families that like to compare: well if they know your son, explain it’s not so easy and they’ll understand. If they’re not all that close friends, just don’t elaborate at all. Everyone likes to watch a car crash because they’re worried it could be them.</p>
<p>If he is a typical Aspie, he does forget dates and social functions with friends. But there’s no schedule to remember about a party that is downstairs right now, or your friends on the hall that you can sit around with right now.</p>
<p>Hallomar, what you are describing is absolutely textbook behavior for an Aspie kid: needing a parent to organize him, being unable to keep up with schoolwork despite being bright, even the lying. Know that you are not alone, and (despite what some parents of neurotypicals might say) what your son is doing is not your fault. I have an Aspie son who was at college, but had to come home because he was doing exactly what your son was doing. And there are other Aspie moms on this board with the same sad tale.</p>
<p>On edit: It’s funny that bigtrees says, “Doesn’t sound like this kid has Aspergers” at the same time two mothers of Asperger sons say, “Wow, your son is behaving exactly like my son.”</p>