DS7 was telling me about his first day of school yesterday, and it all sounded pretty okay. He told me that several of the severely disabled 2nd graders spend part of their day in his classroom. Then he said, "I really think I'm autistic.my writing is really bad compared to everyone else's, I'm good at music, math, reading..." All this said in tears, and ugh, I started to tear up too.
Turns out they had read a book in class about autism, as part of the discussion about differences in kids (because of the kids they're mainstreaming). When I got this information out of him, it led to a decent conversation about the testing he did last spring, at least. And I emailed the EC coordinator to let her know we have a critical self esteem issue developing. I'm hoping this story works in our favor during the referral for services meeting this Thursday.
If either of my kids are on the spectrum it's my DD5; it is what it is, but so painful to see him label himself inaccurately, with all his strengths thrown in there as "symptoms". I hope I'm making sense, and not coming across as "autism is bad,"
Typing on the phone is not the easiest!
Monica
