Most of his school struggles have to do with behaviors in the classroom. Academically, he is not performing terribly well in reading. It is not likely he will meet the standard set by the end of the year. One struggle he has is slowing himself down to make sure he is reading each word. His biggest struggle, however, is being able to retell the story when he is done reading it. I am trying to get to the root of this problem and am wondering if the retelling in particular could be related his processing speed.
Hi Mamabird,
It could be processing speed; but it could be many other things. People with autism generally all have some language delays (they're not supposed to have a severe delay if they have the Asperger's diagnosis, but all the Asperger's diagnosis usually means is "autism with unimpaired IQ.") A language delay can absolutely impact both reading and retelling stories.
Compound with this the preference of many people with AS for reading factual material instead of fiction (which means they can't even see the interest in the story in the first place). Or the social skills deficits that often mean they can't remember which character had which thoughts, because it didn't mean much.
A 2010 evaluation is a long time ago for a kid who's 6. I'd go back to the diagnostician (hopefully a neuropsych) and ask them to do a follow-up workup. My DS had one every year in early elementary and pretty much is down to every 2-3 years now. They don't test everything every time, but they test areas that are troublesome-- the reading and expressive language problems you are noticing should definitely be re-tested.
Ideally, you'd then take those re-test results and use them to formulate a therapy plan. My DS has had years of ABA therapy. In the early years there was work on comprehending and following instructions, putting story elements in order, tolerating a wider range of reading material, shoe-tying, losing nicely at games, and remediating his very odd pencil grip and reluctance to write.
I'm not saying you necessarily have to put something like that into place outside of school as we did, but I do think you should make sure that someone, in school or out, is working on the things that are hard for your DS in a way that will help him stay caught up with peers in these key skills.
DeeDee
