Yes, this was ADHD and ODD. I still think he may have Asperger's - but its hard to tell. His "spark" and the peaceful happy look in his eye returns the minute he his home learning for a day or two with his dad. I work with him in the evenings. School seems to leave him totally depleted, not as happy, just hard to put in to words, but he is just different and at Christmas he was a totally different child after 10 days at home. The hyper comes and goes, and coffee definitely seems to affect it - calms him down. If other parnest havent' used just plain caffeine - whether from Mountain Dew (diet) or Dr. Pepper I hear now has the most (again diet - or you get a sugar spike) they may want to try it. Though I was also told that Aspartane affects *some* people's brain chemistry - so they you are stuck with Splenda Diet coke as an option I think!
I'm totally anti-drugs still and looking for alternatives. All the "side effects" under eye blinking thread alone have merely turned me off more!!
Thanks SO much for mentioning the book and summarising those tables. That may well help if he does need extra help, to stay in school or to return to school if we decide to home school for now. Plus, I just want to fully understand him of course. I also have many friends with Aspergers kids - who are very intelligent or have great gifts in art or something else - and often the parents are so concerned with just dealing with school and Aspergers and keeping the child in the special ed program - they don't even recognize, realise or care to deal with the giftedness aspect. It's of great concern to me and should be to us as a Nation / Globe I feel - that the US system anyway is separating out the 504 programs and Special Ed programs - with no accommodation for 2E. It ends up becoming in the parents' interest to go with Special Ed - and not even explore giftedness for fear of losing Special Ed. services or not gaining them to begin with. Imagine how much is being lost in potential. That's just plain wrong! So I will deifnitely share your resources with others I know. Thank you, thank you, thank you!