Our Aspergers Teenage Boy

Dad reports:
New record! This M-Team started at noon and ended at 3pm. Yes. 3 hours! Remarkably Amy held in there and played nicely and was not disruptive.

It was an odd mix. This was a huge group consisting of the County administrative person, the technology specialist, a regular ed teacher, a special ed teacher, the case manager, a behavior specialist, an occupational therapist, the school psychologist, a vice principle with a guest appearance by another vice-principle, a member of the autism review, mother, father and toddler sibling. I think I left one person out and perhaps one other guest appearance. I almost had a representative from TN Voices for Children there. If things ever got ugly I’d pull in an equal number of people to the meeting. I can intimidate but I’ve never been intimidated. We are potentially going to be with this school for the next 2 decades. I would like everyone to stay friendly.

Anyhow, the odd mix. You could take a snapshot and tell by the tension in the photo which people had been dealing with Tommy and which ones were new. There were several that are very frustrated with Tommy and would like to see him go away even laying the groundwork by setting up testing to try to prove him “Asperger’s and ODD” instead of just “Asperger’s”. I felt sorry for them and wished I could renew their spirit. All the newbies were gung-ho , enthusiastic and ready to try new things. I enjoyed their presence.

The game with labeling a student ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder) is that once so labeled they can start suspending the child frequently with “that’s not his Asperger’s, that’s ODD.” Eventually the parent’s wear down and quit removing the “problem” from the school. Mob tactics. Instead of working to mold a life they discard it. Unfortunately for the school I am a stubborn fighter and activist and like I said before I have plans to be around for the next 2 decades.

The team decided Tommy will start attending the meetings. That will be a hoot! I should bring a video camera.

Overall I had a good feeling about the meeting. Some positives: At least 3 separate people commented that in their observations of Tommy he was not disruptive to the class and was at least somewhat participating. His PDA software based assistive technology will be issued on a 6 week trial (that’s huge!) meaning he will type instead of write when possible. The Plato computer system is being effective for him as a learning aid and a motivator. Some negatives: They are still trying to label him violent which doesn’t make sense. Still seems like a misinterpretation. He may be suspended from the bus. One other child’s handicap may be overstimulating Tommy but due to contracts Tommy could not be moved to another bus and instead the county would pay us to drive Tommy to and from school. Tommy is still using immature behavior and noises to control the classroom and demand attention.

One example of Tommy’s “violence” is that in the crowded halls he just runs into people. Tommy is 210 pounds (95.25 kg) give or take. He is a big guy and wears a stuffed backpack. I can imagine him painting a line from here to there and not knowing how to deal with the crowd just plowing his way through. I can also see him trying to use accidental bumps or ramming into someone as a way of trying to socialize (remember, negative interaction for him is as if not more rewarding than positive and he doesn’t know how to interact).

Anyhow, after 3 hours they could have told me that Tommy was elected class president and I probably would not have reacted. We failed to scheduled the next meeting but I expect another in 4-6 weeks if not sooner.

Dad reports:
Tommy and the family went to the Tennessee Valley Fair today. We had a great time and very little fuss over rides. Tommy was in control, did not get over stimulated, and enjoyed himself very much. We enjoyed him.

Dad reports:
Round 36721 with Tommy. No winners.

Dad reports:
Yesterday I had to get serious with Tommy’s teacher on the phone. She is trying to spin Tommy’s yelling as “a danger to the other students.” I have to put on hipwadders everytime I talk to her.

She is scared of Tommy and he knows it. He smells fear. I think she is in a power struggle with Tommy and instead of soft shoeing it she’s trying to bulldoze through him. Won’t work!

Dad reports:
Meltdown

Dad reports yesterday:
Tommy spent most of yesterday asleep. He was required to go with us to the Girl Scout pizza party but tried to make it clear that he would make it difficult so I laid out some harsh coinsequences ahead of time and he was on good behavior. On the trip back Tommy talked to me about his friend that refuses to take medicine and I explained to Tommy that was not an option for him because with the medicine he shows no self-restraint. He spent much of the night awake sucking on his oversized jawbreaker.

Dad reports last night:
Tommy had an incredibly special treat last night. Another Aspie came to visit. We had a bon fire and the boys spent the evening talking about being “pyros” and stoking the fires. The only disturbing part was listening to them give each other ideas about accelerants.

The wonderful thing is they acted like friends. The got along. The enjoyed each other’s company. And their idiosyncrasies did not bother them.

We went an entire evening with no yelling, anger or upset! The best part was seeing Tommy so happy.

Dad reports:
Of late everyone has grown increasingly short of patience with Tommy and we’ve used increasingly greater bluntness with him all of which could be contributing to his increased rudeness.

For the next two weeks, there will be a great effort put forth to exude only happiness. No shouting. No cursing. No attacks. No anger. Total forgiveness. Complete happiness. The family as a whole will deal and cope with stress as if there were no such thing as stress.

This will be a challenge but should have an extraordinary impact on the whole family. It would be easier if I could
June Cleaver (amz) our crew by spiking our drinks with Valium.

Dad reports this morning:
Tommy woke this morning with his usually resistence. I try to get his feet on the floor and have him sitting up in bed to at least try to get the blood flowing. If I don’t stand over him he lays down immediately upon my leaving. He comes close to missing the bus everyday and if it wasn’t for Poptarts and Honey Buns Tommy would skip breakfast everyday.

Dad reports yesterday:
We had an M-Team to discuss Tommy’s lack of progress. Basically Tommy has turned from a sweet child (I know, hard to match that up but usually adults say “what a nice boy!” looking beyond his issues..not anymore) to a mean bully. He has been stealing cookies from the LRE kids at lunch (he says, “I just do it to see if they notice then I give them back.”). He tried to unlatch the wheelchair on his bus (he says, “I was trying to tighten it.”). He slings snot at other students (he says, “I just pretend to. I don’t really do it.”) He has done no work (he says, “I did my work in school. I don’t have homework.” and yesterday his agenda said, “homework….” but he had no books.) He throws things at students and teachers (he says, “I don’t.” then prompts for specifics to see how much I know). The gym teacher and he race to the class because if he gets there first he plays with the electrical outlets, opens partitions, and goes to off limit places to play with equipment he is not supposed to touch. He pushes lessor functioning kids around but does nothing to the girl he likes (he says, “I don’t push anyone around.”) He is rude.

It is hard to want to fight for an education for an education for someone behaving this way. Tommy could have been so different by now had he not been discarded early on. From his attendance at KAEC (Knoxville Adaptive Education Center), a place where troubled students go to learn to be institutionalized (my opinion), has a record stating “this child does not belong here” but the system didn’t know where to put Tommy or what to do with him. So instead of teaching him, he was with the behavior students learning to behave and went years without a textbook. You can’t expect someone that was never taught to be a student to instantly become one.

Please don’t give up on Tommy!

Dad reports yesterday:
Yesterday was awful. (Everytime I use that word I remember the I Love Lucy episode where she was receiving speaking lessons and the instructor says, “There are two words I never want you to use and one is swell and the other is awful.” and Lucy replies, “Ok. Thanks for the swell advice. It sure would be awful to use the wrong words.” — can’t remember the quote but I think it was in “The Awful Truth” (1937). Hmm a comment here suggests it was ’swell’ and ‘lousy’.) Tommy started the day by putting the cologne on heavy then once at school complained that he did not get enough sleep the night before and promptly put his head on the desk and refused to do anything. I had to go to the school and get him.

At the school he took extra efforts to make his point by exaggerating his depth of sleep and ignoring my prompts to sit up. I physically lifted his head and let go and he “stayed asleep” while very controllingly lowered his head to his desk. Once finally up and out of his desk he made loud snorting noises through his nose and wiped his nose from his elbow to his wrist leaving a slime trail that looked like a slug had crawled down his arm. Then he moved to his other arm and did the same thing. This was while the teacher and I talked. It was purely a move to distract and disgust and it failed. He started to try again and I whipped my handkerchief out and shoved it to his nose before he reached his arm. He didn’t seem to know how to react to that.

We gathered his belongings and his assignments and returned home where he had an unpleasant day of doing his work. Several times he said, “I wish I was at school. It’s more fun at school.” I had made it clear that any yelling, sassing, or arguing would result in a lengthy say in the rain so he maintained himself well throughout the day.

There was no playtime. A child in our house that comes home from school early does not get playtime they were too ill to be at school.