Online Parent Support Chat

Asperger's Syndrome

I have a 13 year old boy who has been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. Recently he has been having a lot of anger issues at school and keeps tearing up whatever he has in his hands. Today it was his lunch box because his routine was interrupted. Most of the time it is his school work or folder or book. I don't know what to do anymore. Any suggestions?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I feel your pain. I have the same issue that has been going on for about the past two months. I'm not sure what happened the school year started out fine. I'm assuming your son won't tell you why he is so frustrated, so I'll tell you what I did. I went to school with him for a day to what happens during his day. There was a good deal of valuable information picked up there. Everything from the IEP not being followed to a kid who was teasing, to bad seating in one classroom.

I'm including a link to a blog I found by an adult with Aspergers. I thought it was extremely enlightening:

http://tinyurl.com/35bbk3


It might be that it isn't just one single thing that is setting your son off, but several. I know I had to do alot of investigating and we're still not where we need to be in terms of having a happy and safe school day.
Good luck!

camick said...

Thank you for your comment. The link was enlightening and made a lot of sense.

But it seems that the teachers just don't understand. Does anyone have any ideas on what it will take to get them to understand?

Below is a recent email from his Content Mastery teacher:
I wanted to let you know about Randy’s behavior in his English class today. It took him a while to calm down, but he completed the work and is doing fine now. Mrs. Oberthier asked him to rewrite his answers from a page because he had written them so tiny that they were not legible. When he wrote them again, he wrote them in GIANT letters scribbled across the page. She asked him to rewrite them, and he wrote them tiny again. She sent him to CM to have him correctly write his answers. He had started to rip the top of his page.

He was frustrated, and didn’t want to write them again. He threw a pencil across the room. I had him walk to the hallway with me to try to have him talk to me. He also shoved against my shoulder with his hand. I don’t think there was ANY malicious intent, but I explained that he can’t use his hands that way. I calmly explained to him that he mustn’t throw things when he is frustrated, because someone could get hurt. He says he did exactly what she told him to do. (wrote bigger, then smaller)

Mr. Turner talked with him some and told him he could go with Ms. Gwen, the behavior specialist. After he had a chance to calm down, he completed the assignment. She talked with him about appropriate behavior and writing size that is appropriate for grading. He seemed to understand, and took his finished work back to Mrs. Oberthier. I am sending a copy of this e-mail to Mrs. Green, his speech therapist, so they can do a social story about it in his next session.