Hello to all. I am new to this group and would like to pose a few questions. My son is 6 yrs. old/PDD/ADHD. Currently, he is having some trouble in school, mostly refusing to comply with requests and occassionally not completing assigned tasks. He is mainstreamed and the hard thing to understand here is he will have a few good days and then a few bad days. Its kind of goes like that. Very uneven. The teacher does not understand it, nor do I. We are fixing to have his IEP and they are talking about placing him in special ed a few hours a day for more individualized attention. I'm not too sure about that. He is highly intelligent, and that move scares me. I know he needs extra supports, but I just don't know what to ask for with his days being uneven like they are. Some days he may need more, some less. Does anyone have any insight or advice? Also, can these kids be "gifted"? Any insight on that subject would also be appreciated. Thanks-------Joy

For an AS person who is mainstreamed, uneven days I think are very common. What a lot of parents don't realize is the Herculean effort it takes to do your "act" for eight solid hours at school. Imagine for a moment how you would do if dropped in the middle of Shanghai and had to mentally translate Chinese, measure how far you were standing from other people, count blinks so you could make non-threatening eye contact, consciously form a facial expression and keep up with it, tune out noise and distractions and keep your guard up against all the dangers common to a strange and hostile place. That's what school is like for someone with AS.

So, you might be able to do it for one day, or a week, but if you aren't resting adequately, or if you get overloaded by a "last straw" or just fed up at some point--wouldn't you? you're going to have an uneven day. This is a frequent problem with AS parents who want to know why their child can behave at school but melts down at home--because you aren't required to "perform" at home, and it is hopefully a safe and protected place.

About being gifted. I thoroughly believe that AS is not a defect, but a result of the way a brian develops if it grows too quickly in order to enhance some of the frontal lobe (this is a new theory, but it makes a lot of sense to me). most AS people have some really useful talents--edidetic memory ("total recall"), acute sense of direction, perfect pitch with music, hyperability to read early or speak early. I am very pleased with my "package of options" and consistantly (since I was a small child) test out in the 180-190 IQ range, which I guess would count as gifted with a public school system.

I think that AS children do best when you play to those strengths--they have (without their own choice) sacrificed a great deal to have them, USE THEM.

Joy,
The ok one day not the next is very common with AS children. They are trying so hard to adapt to their surrondings. Those surrondings may be very confusing 99% of the time to them.
Gifted? I would say that people with AS are gifted in some subjects. They have strengths that out weigh their social weaknesses. My son has a high IQ in History, Science, and Health. His is weak in handwriting, reading comprehension of fictional stories. He grasps the History because it is the truth. He can't understand the whole story when it is made up and didn't actually occur. I didn't feel he needed placed in special ed classes for that but wanted his needs addressed with a little extra supports, and his strengths I wanted him to get credit on and not be forced to sit there and have to listen to something he already knew inside and out. The schools wouldn't address either sooooooo I homeschool.Now I know he is using his strengths to his full ability and the weak areas we work on at his pace.

Mary

I hear you loud and clear Joy as I have twins that have days, and then there are days, and Mary, I too opted to homeschool. They are sometimes soooo stressed out when I feel like things are going along fine, and other days I think I am just losing it, and they are doing well. So adapting to whatever surely does play a big part of their lives...
Margaret - I have a question, since you mentioned IQ...what is within the normal range? And I'm not speaking of only AS here, but I have 3 AS children, and 3 LD children and 3 with attachment issues, and am wondering if there is a breakdown where I could understand where the kids with psychologicals are fitting...
thanks for any help....marilyn
Mom to many, including ident twins 11, and our neice who is 9

On the Stanford-Binet scale, normal range is 90-109, with 110-139 "bright" and above 140 "gifted". This is actually a percentage scale, with an IQ of 100 meaning that the person tested was at 100% of the capacity expected for his or her age. Therefore 110 is 10% above age group, and so on. There are other tests, but this one is the most often quoted.

Margaret,

Do you feel (in your opinion) that an IQ test is a truly accurate way of gauging inteligence? I just want to know how seriously such things should be taken. I have taken one before and did very well but I honestly don't FEEL all that inteligent.

If you're doing anything with the schools or the legal system, this is the scale that they use to classify you--and these days, the legal ramifications are pretty serious depending on IQ. On the other hand, it doesn't at all measure what you do with your ability--accomplishments and how you "feel smart" don't seem to correlate very well with the number a lot of the time.

In my family, the number seems measure how well we took the test--a kind of final exam for "passing" in the non-AS world. We don't always think of it this way, but a lot of the IQ scoring is subjective and up to the person administering the test--so the score is often how able you are to act for them. I think the things that AS focused in my brain are things that play to the strengths of the test, while someone who had intense musical ability or whatever isn't going to do it.

Even though I trust my doctorate more than my IQ number to reassure me that my strange hardwiring is worth it, I still tend to defent Standford-Binet against the folks who insist that "emotional intelligence" is more important.