Our Aspergers Teenage Boy

The Boy Scouts are having a merit badge college today. Tommy applied for and got the veterinary merit badge! This merit badge is perfect since he wants to pursue the vet tech program at Lincoln Memorial University in the Fall. The pieces really seem to be falling together well for him. Today he will see a college campus as a student without mom and dad around. He will experience the vast campus and large classroom settings. This will be a great experience!

At age 6, it was declared "Tommy will never read."
At age 10, doctors, friends, and family encouraged putting Tommy away in a home stating "you can’t save Tommy and the other children."
Tommy spent 2nd to 6th grade at KAEC with no textbooks and "learning behaviors."
In the 8th grade, the school system highly encouraged us to hold Tommy back a year for socialization and maturity (we refused).
In the 12th grade, Tommy takes the ACT and gets a 28. He was expected to take 6 years in high school to accept a special education degree. Instead he completes in 4 years and will walk the stage in May 2008 with a regular education high school diploma.
On April 12, 2008, Tommy received a letter of acceptance from Lincoln Memorial University!

Tommy is thrilled!

Tommy succeeds by his own efforts. He is also supported by a fantastic network of loving family, friends, teachers, doctors and professionals. Never give up; never surrender!

UPDATE! Due to the icy conditions, Lake Shore has canceled meetings tonight! They have moved the Asperger Support Group meeting to next Tuesday, January 29th. Starting in February, the meeting will return to the 4th Tuesday of each month.

The Knoxville Asperger Support Group has a new location and date!

We meet the fourth Tuesday of every month Next meeting:
Tuesday, January 22nd 29th from 6 – 7:30 p.m.
Lakeshore’s Peach Cottage
Corner of Northshore & Lyons View

Living with or caring for someone with Asperger’s Syndrome can be challenging. The primary objective of the group will be to provide support for each other through discussion and the sharing of experiences at the monthly meetings. Please join us for an exchange of information, ideas and resources.

Join the Yahoo Group

Meeting Announcement

The upcoming meeting dates for the Knoxville Asperger Support Group are:

• Novemeber 19, 2007
• December 17, 2007

The support group has a Yahoo Group which can be found on http://groups.yahoo.com/ by searching for Knoxville_Aspie_Support. It meets the third Monday of every month unless there is a conflict or holiday at the West Branch of the Knoxville Public Library (map) at 100 Golfclub Rd from 6pm to 7:30pm.

The Knoxville Asperger Support Group is a no charge, open discussion on the subject of Asperger Syndrome. Typically attendees are caregivers of children teens, and adults although folks with Asperger’s often attend to provide input, ask questions, or seek out others with Asperger’s. All are welcome!

Potential Special Topic

Dr. Dan Murphy of the School Board has proposed turning KAEC into a middle school to serve the Sequoyah Hills areas. He is making the rounds to several PTOs (will be at Rocky Hill Elementary on Dec 10 at 6:30pm) to garnish support for his proposal. When asked directly as to what would become of the KAEC students, Dr. Murphy gave an ambiguous answer. In my mind that means they either have no plan or will bus the children to Karns. As a parent of a child with Asperger’s, you stand a chance that your child will spend some time at KAEC. This is a topic that needs to be discussed immediately.

This morning I hear the raspy static of loud white noise. No. It is more than noise. I hear Spanish. But it sounds like a radio station that is not tuned correctly. Raspy static mixed with Spanish. And it is talk radio not music.

I ask my son, "what is that?" He replies, "My alarm. Nothing else sounds good."

Parents of Aspies have learned that it is healthy to shake up their routine. Rearranging their furniture can totally through them off. But life is full of stuff that does not follow our rules. Life has surprises and unexpected turns. We have become complacent in allowing Tommy to fall into a regimented routine of non-activity and primarily days on end of World of Warcraft. Today I forced him off the machines and, along with a friend, dropped him at our local Frisbee disc golf course. He was visibly shaken at the suggestion that he do something involving walking around in the hot sun. No sooner had I arrived home and started to settle into work, the phone rang, "we are out of water and dehydrating. Please come pick up us." When I refused telling them to finish 9 more holes then call me I got a another call, "we found a friend to bring us home" which got a sharp, "no" returned from me. Yes, it is so much easier just to let them have their routines and hide like hermits in their darkened rooms!

Tommy called with nervous laughter in his voice, "We were hit!" For the second time in 6 years, the short bus was in an accident. In those same 6 years, none of our other children, riding regular buses, have had accidents. I could hear the special needs children in the background struggling to hold it together. Let’s be honest, some were absolutely out of control. I could feel Tommy struggling to maintain himself. He wanted to succumb to the madness. He wanted to be sucked down into the land of immaturity but he fought to maintain control despite his morning routine being way out of whack and his surroundings in chaos.

An officer stepped on the bus to check on the children. Tommy laughs and blurts out, "I didn’t do it!" The officer responds, "You’re always guilty!" Tommy calls again. His anxiety is obviously high but he seems to be maintaining himself. "We’re on the news!" WATE put a few seconds of the bus on the news but nothing on the website. It was just a minor scrap on the back corner by an 18 wheeler. For the locals, the truck driver made the mistake of trying to navigate the curve in South Gallaher View Road near Gleason at the same time the bus was in the curve. (Anyone remember the 18 wheeler that got stuck on the tracks trying to get down the drop off before the new crossing was put in?)

All turned out well. I still want Tommy to ride the regular bus next year but since we were unable to arrange a test run this year, he will have to start out on the short bus. I find it pathetic that our special needs buses have children with a variety of issues thrown together in a cramped space for noisy, lengthy rides and the only person to monitor and intervene is an untrained driver which means the driver, who should be 100% focused on the road, is having to divide time between driving and disciplining, comforting, and engaging the children who may have sensitivity issues (say to the noise) and be acting out, or the child might have a violent disposition and be sneaking abuse in on another child, and so forth. I find it inexcusable that every special needs bus does not have a trained aid for the full length of the ride to and from school. I’ll step off my soapbox now.

Update: My initial account of the incident.

Yesterday, after finding excuses for the better part of year, Tommy mustered the nerve to take his test to get his learner’s permit for driving. He passed with 100%! The test administrator said in the 5 years she had worked at the DMV, she could recount only one other teenager who passed without missing a single question. Tommy’s head swelled so big I did not think he’d fit back in the car!

Tommy is thrilled with his accomplishment. As a parent who has lived through having your child child told he’d never read, to being told to lock him away for the sake of the other children, and similar negative outlooks on his fate, this step toward adulthood and independence is wonderful! Coupled with the fact that he will walk the graduation stage with a regular education diploma in May 2008 and that he not longer stands out as different, I have high hopes for Tommy’s future.

I must preface this post by saying I love the teachers and their aides that work with Tommy. He would not be where he is today without their sacrifices.

Last week one of Tommy’s teachers was out. Substitutes and unplanned schedule changes can really throw an Aspie for a loop. Tommy was with a familiar teacher but we had a report of unusual behavior from Tommy. It just did not sound right. An email came in to request a time that Tommy could serve detention for his behavior. I did not respond because something did not feel right. When the second request I replied with the following message:

>Hi Guys,
> When can Tom serve his detention for the low he earned last Thursday?

Hello!

I am sorry for the lack of response to your question. I am not sure what to say here because of Tommy’s adamancy that he wasn’t as bad as reported. In times past, I would tell him he was absolutely lying but neither the lying behavior nor the total irreverence that was described in last weeks actions match the behavior that we are observing and that you, yourself, are reporting to us of late.

That coupled with the fact that {teacher} and Tommy were alone and the story cannot be collaborated, that the reports from {teacher}’s daughter and {teacher} herself regarding History do not match the stories of Tommy and {friend}, that the story regarding the {incident long passed between Tommy and teacher} changed from detention to suspension because a headache developed overnight (which is silly), and early in the year I was told from an adult, and disregarded as hearsay, information that {teacher} had a heightened intolerance of Tommy all make me want to argue that Tommy should not have a detention. In this I am not trying to belittle or be disrespectful of {teacher}. I appreciate what she does for Tommy. I appreciate the difficulty of her job. I like {teacher}! I simply do not have any degree of confidence in the accuracy of {teacher}’s reports. I have never said these words before because I have nothing to collaborate them just like we have nothing to collaborate last week’s story (unless I am mistaken).

Tommy has spent a life of being accused of things he did not do because of things that he has done. I have found myself more than once harshly punishing him against his adamancy that he was innocent only later to discover that he was truly innocent. Tommy is good at heart and has matured in ways that I only wish some regular ed children could. Our society frequently beats a man when they are down and a person can only take so much beating before they are relinquished to change into that which their accusers claim in the first place. That said, and with the amount time that has passed since last week, it would be my recommendation that we give Tommy the benefit of the doubt and let this one go. However, you are the teacher and the rules are the rules. If you still wish him to have a detention, let me know and I will let you know a good day.

Thank you and please understand that I mean nothing assaulting, mean or belittling in my words! There is no emotion written into these paragraphs.
Doug

I really debated not sending that letter and re-read it many times before sending it on. I really did not want to hurt anyone’s feelings (which it did) and I had hoped to be as pragmatic as possible. The school responded by not giving Tommy detention. Instead they have him a full day of in-school suspension. Yes Knox County, that’s a mighty fine penis you have!

We have had such vicious fights with Knox County Schools that our names are known in the administrative offices and I am sure nice things are not said. We have had m-teams and ieps go from brief meetings that barely legally qualified to 3 hour sessions with 14 cranky people trying to deprive our child of his rights. We have come close to getting legal on several occasions.

Knox County Schools has grown and changed for the positive. Despite budget and resource challenges, Knox County Schools has created and provided decent Asperger programs. Our child has grown too. And our meetings have become less frequent and needed fewer people.

Yesterday we had an m-team to discuss Tommy’s problems in history only to find that there really is not a problem. I actually felt guilty for having pulled these people away from their jobs for our silly meeting. Are we missing the fight that much? No, Tommy seems to be holding onto some things being falsely accused of disturbing his history class’ mock trial while everyone else has moved on. With Tommy reporting to us that he was still being blamed, coupled with the lost/theft of his ring, the confusion over transition planning, our lack of involvement with the school this year, and other frustrations led us to believe it was time to have a meeting. We were wrong. Tommy is really doing well! He has grown into quite an impressive young adult.