<p>^These kids are wicked smart? I wonder if that will be part of the new DSM criteria. </p>
<p>Sorry.</p>
<p>I’m sure that CC “spectrum” kids are exceptionally smart, but in my humble opinion, that js not true in the general population. Most share the same range of intelligence that we all do, and many are impaired on several “intelligence” measures.</p>
<p>What our family liked was that the scholarship my son, while small, was offered in engineering was for five years, not four. I don’t recall the gpa requirement, but it is a VERY good idea to keep in mind. With my son, we had no idea what to expect. He is not exceptionally smart, and just plain old ADHD.</p>
<p>My son took 11 AP classes in HS. I always said that he would forget to turn in his homework or start a research paper just the same in a regular class as an AP class.</p>
<p>May I ask an off topic question, just because so many parents of young adults on the spectrum are assembled here? Question: during high school did you child get himself up in the morning and if so, at what age?</p>
<p>I get what you are saying Shrinkrap and respect your opinion. I should have tailored my statement to the OPs son stating that he appears to be very intelligent and the difficulty of the material doesn’t appear to be the issue. I do think many kids on the spectrum are gifted in certain areas, even if LD in others. It’s been a long time since our son’s neuropsyc explained it to us, and of course that’s just one Dr’s opinion.</p>
<p>Missypie - S1 never had an issue getting up for a 6:30am bus. Plenty of other issues, but not that one. He probably started getting up on his own in middle school, but it’s a grey area as DH leaves very early for work and I was always close behind with younger sibs, so while he was on his own there were failsafes in place. I don’t recall using them often if at all. Now S3 (who isn’t on the spectrum) is a notorious over sleeper and we’ve had to get the sonic boom alarm clock that wakes the dead.</p>
<p>I am on the spectrum, and when it comes to my most disabling problems academics were the issue. Now that I have graduated I still have issues, but I can live on my own and do not need any help. When I was going to an easier school, I also didn’t need help. I could understand the material at my difficult college and really thrive with it, intellectually it was a perfect fit, but I didn’t have the executive function skills to keep up with a workload of that volume. Best case scenario would have been a college with that level of material with a smaller workload, but academics were certainly the problem. Had I gone to an easier school I think I would have been okay, albeit bored.</p>
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<p>I started getting up on my own when high school started but I wasn’t reliable. By college I was okay 99% of the time and by graduation 100% of the time. For me the problem was less an issue of responsibility and more an issue of sleep dysfunction-- another common problem I think with people on the spectrum. Prior to college I couldn’t fall asleep early enough to wake up as early as I needed to, and during college I had too much work to do to go to sleep early enough to wake up when I needed to. I grew out of not being able to sleep early and now that my workload is within my capabilities I have no problems getting up. In high school I used to force myself out of bed and fall and injure myself because I literally COULD NOT wake up.</p>
<p>Many, many teens have issues with sleep cycles and I add that only to punctuate that it is not necessary limited to kids on the spectrum. Also the question relative to “get up by themselves”…I really couldn’t send ** any ** child to a sleep away college unless I knew they were capable of setting an alarm and getting up when the alarm went off each and every day. Seriously…even my smartest kid I would not “send away.” Getting oneself up and to class is rule number one for college.</p>
<p>No, Missypie, our neuro spectrum daughter never got herself up. After she tanked her first semester, we had her work with an ADD specialist and that was the very first thing the doc addressed-taking personal responsibility for getting herself up. For years, she would sleep through her alarm. Doc explained she had conditioned herself to ignore it. She also suffers from sleep dysfunction disorder-up all night, sleeps all day. With the help of this doctor, she has been able to, for the most part, relearn waking herself and mostly is committed to going to bed at a resonable hour. Unfortunately, cell phones and computers are a constant challenge to that. Kind of live Eve and the apple.</p>
<p>We are relieved to have that (waking her self) mostly off our shoulders. Unfortunately, much of her story is exactly as the OPs son’s and she was just finally going to be returning to her big U next week, during what should have been the second semester of her junior year, and her first full time course load since tanking her first semester of freshman year, and failed to achieve thresholds that had been set and agreed to between her, her parents and her therapist/ADD specialist/life coach. We are at a loss. </p>
<p>I especially agree with Cardinal Fangs posts #8 and #39 and call1s post #85. </p>
<p>Ema, that’s a piece of the puzzle that is rarely mentioned. Being able to wake up for a job or a class is so very important to living independently. Various message boards are full of folks on the spectrum and parents of kids on the spectrum talking about sleep.</p>
<p>Missy, part of the reason why I can wake up now is because I’ve accepted it’s not just a fact of “growing up” and getting my behind out of bed already-- which for some kids it CERTAINLY is, but for me after a point it was more serious. I can try and force myself to get up all I want but I will end up hurting myself if I don’t give my body the proper amount of time to wake up. My body just can’t wake up as fast as others do. Now I hear BF’s alarm go off an hour and a half before I wake up, I have my first alarm go off a half hour before I need to get up, and I have a third “emergency” alarm ten minutes later just in case-- I usually don’t need that one but sometimes I do. Sometimes it takes me that whole two hours to wake up enough to be physically able to get out of bed without falling back down or twisting my ankles when I step out of bed. Usually it’s more like 45 minutes to an hour, but if I don’t wake up in stages I will either hurt myself or not get up at all. I haven’t overslept once in the last year, but waking up is quite a process.</p>
<p>This is on top of going to bed at 9:30 every night. If I stay up any later I can’t drive the next day without falling asleep.</p>
<p>There are devices, and an iphone app that I actually have tried, which you program a 30 minute range of when you want to wake up and it waits until you are in the lightest stage of sleep within that range to try and wake you up. The theory is that if you wake up when you are naturally in a lighter stage of sleep, you will wake up feeling more refreshed than if you slept longer but woke up at the wrong time. I do find this helps a lot, it makes a major difference for me.</p>
<p>I’ve been on cc for quite a few years now, and have read a lot of “is my kid ready to go away to college?” threads and a lot of “my kid crashed and burned at college” threads. momofthreeboys, I am realizing that your rule number one IS Rule Number One for College. </p>
<p>In the future, I think I am going to respond to every “is my kid ready?” question with “don’t send him unless he gets himself up in the morning.” Period. End of discussion. I wish the HS GCs would start all their parents night/how to apply to college speeches with “If your child can’t get himself up for class in the morning, please go next door for the sesson on Taking a Gap Year.”</p>
<p>Ema, I know that’s not a pleasant situation, but I am so happy to read about it…you have described my son’s habits perfectly. Your ability to graduate from a great school, work and function indepently inspire me and give me hope for my son!</p>
As in every other thing we taught the kids, it wasn’t a matter of one day it’s our job and responsiblity and the next theirs. In elementary school, they’d have an alarm clock but we’d back it up in case they fell back asleep. In middle school, we’d let them get themselves up but guided them in seeing that breakfast was eaten, teeth brushed, books remembered and left in time to make it to the bus stop. By high school, it was all up to them.</p>
<p>For those taking medication and having problems being physically able to get up without injuring yourself, please be sure to share this with your prescribing doctor, especially if it started after starting medication.</p>
<p>^^ it’s got to be difficult because getting oneself up and to school or work and to eat food to sustain your body are just basic, basic skills necessary to live independently whether you are 18 or 85. About the only alternative is to have some form of a caregiver who makes sure that the person gets where they need to go on time and makes sure they sustain their physical well being via food which for a young person probably means not going away to sleep over college if they aren’t capable or at least not until the person is married to a wife who willingly will become the caregiver. For the senior it means hiring an aide or moving to assisted living but it also means not living independently. Eating and sleeping and waking are really big deals on an independence scale that seem oh so minor but are huge change of life steps.</p>
<p>On one Aspergers message board, a guy was bemoaning the fact that employers are now so tolerant of “homosexuality and disabilities”, but are totally intolerant of folks who can’t wake up in the morning. Sounds funny, but it’s obviously a real issue for some.</p>
<p>My son has AS and is a Senior at the University of Alabama.He is in a support program called UA-ACTS. He has also had a hard time with getting up in the morning, they try to get him in classes that start late but in real life he will have learn to get up. He has started using three alarm clocks :}. He also tries to get to bed the same time each night, I worry this will be a issue in real life we will see when he get’s a job.My son did not do well his first semester so we moved him to small college with supports and it made a big difference! He graduated with his AS in History then he moved on to Alabama. I could never had been able to send him off without support.</p>
<p>Hi All,
And as the OP I do want to say “Thanks for your support and imput”.
We’ve heard from UoP, they aren’t the slightest surprised that there may be a disability there. Both his adviser and the Dean recommend against taking a medical leave, although they are completely supportive in testing for disability. They’ve modified his class course. I’ve found a neuro psychologist in Stockton and we’ll do some examinations ASAP.
Yes, he does get himself up in the morning. He did complain of fatigue, though, as he was often up until 2 or 4 am and then had to make his 8 am class.He missed this class 3 times in the semester. I have the same sleep dysfunction in the winter.</p>
<p>It hurt, seriously, those of you who were scornful when I said my family had some weird traits. What does precognition look like? Well, for me it looked like waking up from a dream (when my son was small) with an intense desire to purchase renter’s insurance with maximum coverage, even though this was something I’d never wanted before. I also had a strong desire to bring my young son to the fire station weekly, and we made friends with all of the crews. This was new behavior. I also canceled a planned vacation and placed the money in savings. Thirty days later, when I returned from taking my son trick-or-treating, it was to find our rental house on fire. The standard procedure would have been to let it burn, but my friends on the fire crew recognized my house and risked their lives to put out the fire. Insurance covered everything, and the vacation money covered our hotel bills exactly 45 days until the insurance could reimburse us. The insurance people couldn’t find us a hotel…I’d had a strange feeling two weeks before and found this guy’s lost dog. He managed a hotel and found us a room for the entire period.
So, that’s what precognition looks like. Not airy fantasy at all.</p>
<p>Just so you know what to expect, the testing my son had, both times, was something like eight or ten hours in total. And then it took a few weeks to get the report written up. So you won’t have the diagnosis and recommendations right away.</p>
<p>As to the precognition stuff, better to leave the subject alone I think.</p>
<p>The decision to take a medical leave should be decided by the you and your son, not the advisor or Dean. The testing and analysis takes time as does creating an educational plan. As mentioned previously, the accommodations at the college level are not as comprehensive as they are at the elementary-high school level. There is no hand holding, constant reminders, nagging, or prodding by the college to the student regarding handing in assignments and attending classes. They are not going to tell him to maintain personal hygiene, check on him to see if he’s going to bed at a reasonable time, call him to get up in the morning, remind him to eat healthy, etc. To send your son back to college before testing, diagnosis, and dealing head on with his lack of sufficient life skills is setting him up for epic failure. It will also be much better for your son for him to try to recover from 15 credits of bad GPA as opposed to 30 credits of bad GPA.</p>
<p>Agree with CardinalFang–not going to touch the precognition stuff with a 10 foot pole because the lock will be shut on this thread in the blink of an eye once the comments come rolling in.</p>
<p>PS–We are not trying to be hurtful. We are trying to get you to clearly see the reality of the situation. Often times, those closest to the situation wear a heavy veil of denial as it’s very difficult to accept the realities of a diagnosis.</p>
<p>Hi Fang,
Yes, the educational psychologist (EP) we spoke to said 8-9 hours of testing. She seemed to believe, though, that an Aspergers’s syndrome person never makes it to college. She was amazed at DS’s 800 verbal score and other scores and said that an Aspie or anyone on the autism spectrum couldn’t make those scores. She flat said that an Aspie can’t make it to college. I know a young man, Asperger’s, who is doing well at Cal Poly.The information I’ve read on Asperger’s has lots of case histories of adults, college educated, who don’t get a diagnosis until later in life. I suspect that as in everything else in life it’s a spread, a range of symptoms
.
We’re dubious about going with that EP, we’re more interested in the neuro psychologist she works with. The counseling office at UoP has testing for AD and AHAD (hope I got those initials correct), so we’ll start there just to rule it out…DS’s High School always said those weren’t his issues. The disability office is crazy busy, but we’re hoping to have several conversations with them soon.</p>
and I add that only to punctuate that it is not necessary limited to kids on the spectrum. Also the question relative to “get up by themselves”…I really couldn’t send ** any ** child to a sleep away college unless I knew they were capable of setting an alarm and getting up when the alarm went off each and every day. Seriously…even my smartest kid I would not “send away.” Getting oneself up and to class is rule number one for college.</p>