by Laura Landrum

Created on: June 19, 2008   Last Updated: June 20, 2008

My 6 year old son, Daniel, is the sweetest little boy who also has Asperger's Syndrome. We got a definite diagnosis the Friday before he began Kindergarten, but we had been seeing it since he was two weeks old. He is highly functioning which means that he is able to go to a regular school and some days he's just like every other kid except that he doesn't like the seam of a collar or most water temperatures and will lose his calm with increasing noise. Other days we can't keep him still, he runs screaming from the noise of the vacuum and he blurts out incoherent sounds randomly in an attempt to calm himself. All of this came to a head just before his diagnosis and he was kicked out of his preschool of three years and was about to begin Kindergarten. He had been doing very well since he was three and he seemed to be outgrowing his odd behaviors, but when he turned five and developed a whole new set of extreme and unexpected behaviors, we realized we had a long road ahead of us.

The Asperger's causes a lot of behavioral problems at home and at school because socially and emotionally he is about a two or three year old and sometimes it's hard to figure out what triggers his outbursts, but we believe it is also partly responsible for his incredible giftedness and unbelievable intelligence. We have him in his appropriate grade based on age because, emotionally, he can not handle anything higher, but this has been somewhat of disadvantage to him academically. Daniel gets bored and then misbehaves and isn't advancing as much as he probably could in a higher grade, but we have been blessed this past year with the most wonderful Kindergarten teacher.

The methods she has taught us and out of the box solutions she has given us have been priceless, so I feel the need to pass some of them on to anyone who has a gifted child or a child with Asperger's Syndrome. Daniel had a bucket in the classroom of work that he could do on his own while the rest of the class reviewed their alphabet sounds or other basic curriculum. She always made sure he had mastered what the class would be working on before letting him go, but he was able to stay quiet and interested. It was always a choice whether he worked on his own things or joined the class. This works well for Daniel because some group activities require social rules he doesn't understand and so he prefers to work independently. Sometimes she gave him more advanced versions of the same type of activity everyone else was working on.

When

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>