Matthew-Asperger's & Adhd

Matthew
"New Developments"
2004

Where to start......... that's the hard part.

Ok, let's start with a short explanation of 5th grade. First year in Middle School. Not pretty, let me tell you this much. First time he had to deal with changing classes (though only 3, it was too much) and dealing with different teachers.

We ran across teachers who believed, and told others, that he belonged in the Autism Class since he was autistic, he didn't belong in a general educational class. Sad to say, that seemed to be the way quite a few of the staff there felt.....so you know it was a losing battle.

So of course, the Autism Class is right where he ended up. Their idea? No, mine. By this point there had been so much damage that he was nothing but a raging bag of raw nerves. I couldn't see that anything was going to be able to be done at this point to help him other than the Autism Class where there was structure.

And that there was.....in spades. Matt picked up on it immediately. Within 5 minutes of walking into the class, his shoulders dropped from the position they had assumed up around his ears, to where they belonged. He asked the principle when he could start in this class. When she told him on Monday, we watched the stress come back immediately. So the principle called an emergency ARD and he was assigned to the class. That's where Matt spent the rest of 5th grade, happy.

"A Change of Diagnosis"

During the summer, before 6th grade began, Matt went to see Dr. Wood....during which his diagnosis was changed from PDD-NOS to Asperger's.

He recommended that Matthew receive numerous modifications and an aide for all classes outside the Autism Class

"6th Grade"

Oh dear, not a lot I can REALLY say about this one.....if I could pick one word to describe it, it would be "Hell".

To start things off, his beloved teacher of the Autism Class quit after the end of Matt's 5th year......the new teacher....didn't work out quite so well.

From the time the school year started, Matt became stressed and depressed. He was losing weight quickly and that's something he didn't need! He was already so skinny that he just couldn't afford to lose any! Well after 3 weeks of several doctor visits and 3 weeks of continued weight loss and depression, the doctor put him on prozac. It seems to help some, he's not so depressed and his weight loss ends. But Oh My GOD does he ever talk!! Never stops, even talks in his sleep now!

A lack of structure, lack of modifications being followed, not to mention no aide for the first few weeks and an overabundance of staff over reacting was disastrous. Matt was in a constant rage. At one point he kicked the classroom aide several times and tried to throw a pencil at the teacher. When I got to the office, he's in there with the assistant principle and school psychologist and the aide. During the discussion, him tearing things up was brought up. For some odd reason, they needed me to point out "yet again" NOT to put things in front of him when he was having a melt down or angry if they didn't want him to tear it up, that's what he did when he was upset. Before much longer, the AP pointed out that Matt needed a 3 day suspension, ok, fine, that would get us out of that place for a few days....works for us. So what does he do?? Puts a suspension form in front of my "melt down" inflicted son and tells him to sign it! When Matt rips it up, the AP looks upset! Umm, guess he didn't hear me tell them not to do that 5 minutes earlier.

He lasted 5 weeks before the last confrontation there.....boy was that one amazing. Once again, instead of dealing with him on a one on one basis, he was having a melt down and they surrounded him, 5 adults all going at him at once. I'm not clear to this day on exactly what happened, but one report was that Matt threatened to throw a big, heavy thing on the AP's desk at him, when he was told to put it down, he threw it down, breaking it. Not sure what happened next, though the one constant report was that the AP kept trying to touch him.....which is a "no no" in the middle of a melt down......but it ended up in the Police being called. Then from what I hear, HE tried to reach out and touch him and Matt slapped at hand.

I come in the house to hear my cell phone's voice mail beep going off and find a message from the AP saying Matt's threatening him and the police are being called in and I need to get up there. So me and my husband get there as fast as we could......only to pull up to the school to find the policeman holding my 70 pound, 12 year old, autistic son's hands behind his back and forcing him into the police car. I can't even begin to explain what the scared to death look on Matt's face did to me. We pull up behind them and he starts telling us to move the truck....so my husband does. In the meantime, I'm panicking, generally good and ticked off and ask them "Who the hell's idea was this?!" and was promptly informed it was the AP's idea by the gang of staff that had accumulated outside, watching.

To make a long story short, Matt was brought back in, was made to sign a ticket with tons of coaxing, prodding and work by his dad and myself, then the AP changed his mind and it was tore up. I took Matt outside where it was quiet and he didn't have 5 adults (other than us) going at him all at once and it only took a few minutes before he calmed down.

The cop came out to talk to us, told us it didn't matter that he was autistic and had a IEP, BIP or anything else.....when he's told to sit down by a cop and he doesn't, he's in trouble, then when he tries to slap a cop who tries to reach over and touch him, he's looking at juvenile. Oh, and the cop actually told me I should consider "disciplining" my son. I think I scared my husband at this point because I got really mad and informed the cop, basically, "thank you for your original idea, but we DO discipline him" Of course I didn't say those EXACT words..... well, not EXACTLY......hee hee, but almost.

Well, Matt didn't want to go back there, we wouldn't have let him even if he did.....so I made a phone call, let the proper people know what all happened and told them he wasn't going back, find somewhere else for him to go to school. And that's exactly what they did.

He missed about 4 weeks of school while preparations were being made, (the transfer of schools, choosing of the right teachers and classes and support). But thanks to wonderful staff and all the hard work, he did great.........For a while.