LAF, I'm sorry to read about your ds' situation - it is very similar to what our 2e ds went through in elementary school. Although I suspect our ds' challenges were different (he has an expressive language disorder), maybe some of our experiences can offer a bit of food for thought.
First thing was to do what you're doing - work with him on understanding social nuances and help by giving him scaffolded support to place him in situations where he has a chance to be included.
Second thing - look at the bigger picture, the environment your ds is in at school. It may be a wonderful school, but if he's been at the same school with the same children for several years, it's possible he's going to have a tough time making progress on social skills in the same environment. What happened to our ds in elementary school was that he started out with two friends in early elementary that all fell in together probably because they mutually didn't fit in with the other kids. As time went by and those two friends matured neurotypically re ability to communicate etc, they moved on to other friends and by 5th grade my ds was pretty much on his own. In addition to not having friends to hang out with, he was acutely aware of the fact that these other children had been able to make new friends and it made him very sad. At the end of fifth grade the combination of several things (all had to do with his 2e issues and lack of support from the school) made ds decide *he* was quitting the school - and thank goodness he did, otherwise his parents might never have seen the light
Anyway, we moved him, at his request, to a different school and it made such a huge difference in his life. Especially with friendships with other children and the simple day-to-day social contacts at school with peers. The reason for the difference was two-fold - first, ds had a chance to start over with no track record (and by then we'd started working on speech therapy so he had a better place to start from), and second, and perhaps most importantly, there was just a different culture at the school - it was a smaller school and the teachers cared and the students were genuinely nice caring kind kids. DS continued there through middle school and left with two forever friends - something I doubt ever would have happened at his previous school. They're all boys and their friendship is much different than the friendships my nt dd13 has, but they were still so very important in helping him rebuild his self-esteem and have something that so many of us take for granted in our lives.
I've got more to say but have to leave now to find my dd's skis - argh! Will be back later
Best wishes,
polarbear
