by Sammy Stein

Created on: September 18, 2008

Finding the child inside Asperger's Syndrome takes a while and will try your patience but it is well worth the effort.

For us, it took around 11 years and a lot of support but we have now found our child - and he is beautiful.

When our son first started school he was following his two elder brothers into a church school. The other two had done well and were good pupils giving little or no trouble to staff and gaining a wide circle of friends. Our third son, however, proved 'challenging' from the start. He hated change, he disliked noise, he would lash out at friends (and staff sometimes) and generally, we knew something was amiss. Eventually he was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome.

We thought a diagnosis would allow us to get help but this proved not to be the case in this school. The diagnosis meant he could get a statement of special needs so he could receive prescribed help for his difficulties but the head teacher refused to support this. He excluded our son for behaviour several time and yet, when he was given a one to one helper, she was sent packing with a letter saying that the school felt her presecence was unwarranted and threatening to our son's teacher! Our son was banned from trips, concerts and we suddenly became 'bad' parents.

We were asked to constantly remind our son about the need for good behaviour - our other sons were used as examples of how ' we could do it if we really tried' and we were subject to many letters and phone calls to collect our child. This lasted three years and eventually we moved our child to a state school in desparation and we also wanted him to be safe as his self esteem had reached dangerously low levels.

We did not expect anything different but the state school showed a far more Christian attitude than the church school. Our son was given help immediately, a support worker was employed and the head teacher showed a love and desire to include our son, which touched us very deeply. She also proved very supportive for the family, calling the house to make sure I was all right when our son had behaved badly and offering strategies to help him cope rather than punishing him all the time. She loved the child, and saw through the syndrome.

Her example showed others how to do the same. She made sure he had supportive friends, carefully chosen, and she also made sure staff who taught him understood the trigger points. Importantly, shelistened tous and took on board strategies we used at home sohis routine was kept more or less

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