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Dec. 15th, 2004 06:28 pmWell, today we met with the school counselor, psychologist, nurse, principal, and teachers of my two sons in two basically back-to-back meetings. In the first, we realized that the reason the meeting had been called had basically gone away, and my younger son had improved in nearly everything that concerned them in the month or so since we set it up. Yay, much happy news.
The second meeting was born out of that one, though, and out of my older son's tendency to have an explosive outburst in class every week and a half or so -- sort of a "while we're all here, let's get this started" opportunity. So we talked and discussed and generally got the ball rolling to find a way to help him and to figure out why this is happening, as it's generally agreed that it's not a manipulative or vengeful sort of behavior, but rather a sort of meltdown. After much questioning and answering and discussion of possibilities and behaviors, the words "autistic spectrum" were tentatively applied and it was agreed that much broad-based testing would commence. The good news out of that one was that it was generally agreed that it was unlikely he had ADHD, as had been previously queried by his former school, and that the staff there are uniformly dedicated to helping him rather than punishing him.
I'm pretty much lost right now. I'm no sure what we can do to help him, but I'm not all that worried about him over the long-term. He copes pretty well and does well in school, has friends and does pretty well socially. I'm relatively sure he doesn't have Asperger's or anything like that, but I'll be honest and say that it's just my gut instinct at this point. I think he'll be fine later on... but for now we need to help him in the short term, and I've no clue how to even begin, or if I'm even on the right path. Any suggestions for references, resources, anecdotes or just sympathy are greatly appreciated.
The second meeting was born out of that one, though, and out of my older son's tendency to have an explosive outburst in class every week and a half or so -- sort of a "while we're all here, let's get this started" opportunity. So we talked and discussed and generally got the ball rolling to find a way to help him and to figure out why this is happening, as it's generally agreed that it's not a manipulative or vengeful sort of behavior, but rather a sort of meltdown. After much questioning and answering and discussion of possibilities and behaviors, the words "autistic spectrum" were tentatively applied and it was agreed that much broad-based testing would commence. The good news out of that one was that it was generally agreed that it was unlikely he had ADHD, as had been previously queried by his former school, and that the staff there are uniformly dedicated to helping him rather than punishing him.
I'm pretty much lost right now. I'm no sure what we can do to help him, but I'm not all that worried about him over the long-term. He copes pretty well and does well in school, has friends and does pretty well socially. I'm relatively sure he doesn't have Asperger's or anything like that, but I'll be honest and say that it's just my gut instinct at this point. I think he'll be fine later on... but for now we need to help him in the short term, and I've no clue how to even begin, or if I'm even on the right path. Any suggestions for references, resources, anecdotes or just sympathy are greatly appreciated.
