<p>Fang,
I don’t think anyone in our immediate circle of family and friends doubts that he’s somewhere on the Autism spectrum. We had good evidence with his previous college work that he’d do wll at school in spite of his ASD. That evidence is now weighted in the other direction.He’s bright enough but he’s lacking some essential skills for colllege. Probably because I’m an uber-organized person, the kind who Christmas shops in August and wraps the presents in paper saved for that purpose and color co-ordinates her closet.So we were probably organizing him all along without realizing it (I’d make to-do lists for the dog if he’d get off his lazy kiester and learn to read. smart dog.)
But we don’t have evidence of emotional issues either. This isn’t a goth or agony aunt. Avoidance behavior, now THAT is a common part of ASD (autism spectrum disorder).</p>
<p>I wouldnt put too much weight in the vaccines thing. The paper was withdrawn, with some people feeling it was fraudulent. See
[Study</a> Linking Childhood Vaccine And Autism Was Fraudulent : Shots - Health News : NPR](<a href=“Study Linking Childhood Vaccine And Autism Was Fraudulent : Shots - Health News : NPR”>Study Linking Childhood Vaccine And Autism Was Fraudulent : Shots - Health News : NPR)</p>
<p>Aspies are great people to be around until the are placed in uncomfortable situations which is different for different Aspies.</p>
<p>I haven’t read all the posts but it sounds like this is a very less than ideal environment for your son. Looking at alternatives is crucial. Maybe taking a year to focus on social skills training, daily living skills and goal setting and prioritization. </p>
<p>The hardest thing I see my aspie deal with is the expectation to be like everyone else. it is so frustrating. Even people who are fully aware of his situation will forget and place an unfair burden of expectation on him. The world wants black and white, robots who don’t ask questions and completely fit in. These kids are technicolor, doing their own thing, marching to the beat of their own inner drummer. </p>
<p>I hope you work it out but don’t try to make him normal. Find out what works and doesn’t work then go from there.</p>
<p>Shrinkwrap,</p>
<p>Thanks, you are very kind. I have to say, though that it is so great to have people to talk to and explore options and opinions. It’s too easy for a family group to go blindly in one direction or to put misplaced faith that “it will all work out” because that’s what we want to believe.
His school district never wanted to deal with this. They didn’t have testing or resources and he was always so well behaved “such a pleasure to have in class” and raised their class and school test scores so much.
I’ve had years to deal with the grief of having my only child vaccine damaged. It isn’t about anyone but him now, because this isn’t going to just go away. I’m not even really about does he go or stay. He wants to go and we absolutely need a diagnosis and treatment plan because this disability is going to follow him all of his life. Success at this college, failure at this college, these are temporary. Finding the BEHAVIOR problems is key, no matter what the cause, and they don’t show up at home, only at college.</p>
<p>argbargy,
those kids in the study didn’t have seizures after the vaccine. Other kids with ASD have had seizures- from allergy, or other causes. He just happened to be allergic to that vaccine.</p>
<p>Maybe your son’s possible autism, or whatever the diagnosis is, was caused by seizures, though seizures are not usually implicated as a cause of autism. But that’s water under the bridge. </p>
<p>Morgana, I didn’t mean that your son was emotionally disturbed. I meant to say he doesn’t respond in the standard way to other people’s emotions. This is common in autistic people, because they simply don’t recognize, in the usual way, that someone is having an emotion. It’s like the difference between hearing swearing in your own language (it’s emotional) and hearing swearing in another language that you have learned as an adult (you intellectually know that it’s swearing, but you don’t feel it).</p>
<p>Yeah I agree the seizure is troubling. But keep an open mind since Autism has such a varied list of behaviors that you really have to be trained in order to see what really qualifies. </p>
<p>(example: internet surveys often include repetitive play, especially with trains. Since my household had to have <em>every</em> Thomas train and video I can tell you all of my boys loved trains. And every boy on the block. It is only if you had experience and training that you could tell a difference)</p>
<p>Seizure does not cause autism. While it’s understandable to try to find something to blame, it isn’t productive.</p>
<p>You may not feel that his behavior is “off-center” when he’s living with you simply because you are used to it and very emotionally connected to the situation.</p>
<p>As far as I know, every public school district has a special ed. department. If they can’t do testing or an evaluation when they suspect an issue, they are required to provide outside testing. Did they ever recommend testing for your son?</p>
<p>Sending him back to college for the Spring doesn’t make any sense. It will most likely end in an epic failure. There comes a point where the parent needs to take charge and make the decision in difficult situations such as yours. Tell your son that you will not be taking him back to college for the Spring semester. If he’s resistant, too bad. </p>
<p>There are more important things for him to be working on right now than going to college. He needs an evaluation. He needs a thorough physical. He needs to be taught life skills. </p>
<p>No more searching for blame. No more denial. No more excuses. Take charge and get to the root of the problem. Pospone college for now and focus on what’s really important. Get an evaluation, physical, and move on from there. </p>
<p>Often times, when one looks at the family history on both sides of the biological child, there is another relative or relatives which also exhibit AS Spectrum characteristics. Before assuming a diagnosis, get one.</p>
<p>Good luck to you and wishing you and your family well.</p>
<p>We have 3 Educational psychology referrals from the UoP counseling office, all in Stockton. If there is any kind of a learning disability I’m fairly sure that they’ll test across a broad spectrum. From there, I guess that we assess what we and the college can do to monitor and correct the situation. I really get the impression that this is new ground for the college as well as for us. They have protocols in place for AD and ADHD and for physical disability. This is new ground and I suspect that all of the colleges will develop protocols one day soon. I did find it interesting that the counseling office didn’t have to look up the educational psychologist referrals, they had them right at hand.</p>
<p>Learning disability is one thing. Behavioral disability is a whole thing. My husband’s mother’s cousin was a brilliant student who flunked out of college because he just could not function there. He then went to a small private college near home and the family gently eased him into independence, but he needed someone to check on him every day. That was part of his cost of living. He did graduate, find work, get married, and his wife took care of the mundane things in life he could not do, and he had 5 children. A lot of jokes about Cousin Jack who was without doubt very different, but he make a good living and lead a “normal” life to all appearances.</p>
<p>I also know some other very highly competent, gifted adults in some high flying positions that basically need caretakers for certain aspects of every day life. Pointed in the right direction and told what to do, they could excell, soar, be one of the best. But they simply were lacking ability to point themselves that way and take care of everyday things in life that are essential for truly independent living.</p>
<p>I don’t know what your son’s issues are, so it’s something that you need the experts in this area to come up with a diagnosis, but on a pragmatic note, it is pretty clear that your son cannot get through days all on his own doing the mundane necessities of life. Perhaps a solution could be being tethered to a phone and someone to keep him on track. WIth the electronics today a lot more is possible. But I really would not send him back on his own until some plan for dealing with his issues is not firmly in place. Don’t blame yourself for letting him go on his own. Sometimes that is what a person needs in order to take some responsibility and make that leap. You now know that your son need some help in this are, and may always need some aids.</p>
<p>^^Yes but remember many kids who fall apart in college generally don’t soldier on, they either are asked to leave or they leave because they need to, so many colleges don’t have all the resources to keep kids in college. But I have no doubt that they had referral suggestions available. There are a few mentioned programs like the Salt program at Arizona and I think Cardinal Fang found supports at the University of Denver (correct me if I’m wrong) on this forum, but I do think if you can get the first semester turned into a medical leave somehow or take a medical leave for this semester and figure out what’s going on is the “smart” money to go along with Argbargy’s analogy.</p>
<p>morgana: Autism is not simply a learning disability. It’s so much more than that and can’t be corrected with help from a college’s disability office.</p>
<p>Please, seriously consider taking charge and tell your son that you will not be bringing him back to college for the Spring semester. Sending back to college with the hopes that they will fix his autism and turn his “F’s” into “A’s” is not realistic.</p>
<p>Last time: Did your school district recommend an evaluation/testing when he attended and is this when you pulled him out of the school and decided to home school?</p>
<p>My son is not getting his Aspergers support directly from his college. He is in college, but also in a residential wraparound program that helps students with autism spectrum disorders and other similar disorders who are enrolled in college.</p>
<p>Just for clarification here: How many years was your son home-schooled? Was he self-schooled/were you the primary teacher? Which grade(s) was he home-schooled for? Is your son 18? or 19?</p>
<p>Did your local school (/district/what have you) or any other organization ever formally award your son a high school diploma? Whether that’s from an online HS, county program, etc.? Did your son ever pass the CAHSEE?</p>
<p>If your son was never formally awarded a HS diploma (by any recognizable entity), has not passed the CAHSEE (which I doubt he did if he was homeschooled as it’s not required except for public school students), and is not yet 19, he is likely still eligible under IDEA, Part B. This is the federal legislation that governs services for children/youth with disabilities. Though some jurisdictions may be fussy about it, IDEA covers children to age 21 (or until they earn a HS diploma, even if that is before age 21). California’s regulations require a child to be identified and/or receiving services BEFORE THEIR 19TH BIRTHDAY to be eligible to continue to age 21.</p>
<p>Usually IDEA is no longer an option for people once they have gone to college because nearly everyone who goes to college holds a HS diploma. However because your son was homeschooled, and not in (it sounds like) a formal online HS program or the like, he actually may still be eligible.</p>
<p>Your local school district, under IDEA, would have to provide educational testing for you if he meets other statutory regulations. Saying they “can’t,” if he is otherwise eligible, is not legal.</p>
<p>Thanks for the explanation Cardinal. I gleaned bits and pieces over the years and made the false assumption this was happening “through the college.”</p>
<p>Autism spectrum disorders are not learning disabilities. Learning disabilities are things like dyslexia. I’d be suspicious of a professional whose expertise was in ADHD and learning disabilities, for your son. You want someone who has experience with Aspergers and executive function disorders, ideally someone qualified to distinguish autism syndromes from bipolar.</p>
<p>My son’s Asperger’s diagnosis came as a result of my pedatrician’s referral to a psychologist because I thought my son had ADD-inattentive. That psychologist referred me to a specialist in an ADHD clinic affiliated with our children’s hospital after a few sessions with my son. I still don’t know what exactly triggered that referral but I know now that an ADD diagnosis would have explained only part of the story.</p>
<p>DS was in regular school through the end of4th grade. I pulled him (always with a public charter school, never independent except as defined as “independent study”) because despite his elementary school’s awesome state ranking his education was terrible. He didn’t know the capitol of California was Sacramento and wasn’t even reading chapter books. He was so hungry to learn that after I pulled him home he completed two grade levels in one year. He did formally graduate from HS.
Through the years as the programs changed and his needs changed he was with 5 different school programs in two separate school districts. No one ever suggested testing…he was a model student.</p>
<p>I can relate to “Cousin Jack”, my family produces a lot of weird traits. Mad scientist inventors, brilliant PHD’s who can’t feed themselves, and an amazing crop of people who have actual psychic abilities such as telekineisis or precognition. There are some normal ones, but it seems like anytime the IQ pops over 160 it’s straight into weird land.</p>
<p>My first room-mate in college graduated #1 in his class from The Bronx School of Science and had a 1590 SAT back in the 70’s. He flunked out a year later. All “Incompletes” because he never showed up for class. He was very intelligent but just couldn’t adapt in anyway to a non-regulated environment. It was the first time in his life that he was not constantly supervised regarding every aspect of his daily life. And he quickly discovered he could watch all the TV and read all of the sci-fi books he wanted. He consumed both in unbelievable quantities. </p>
<p>Ques.: Is there a correlation to this and today’s presumed medical issues?</p>