I've been homeschooling DS10 for a little over a year now while we were in the long wait list for an evaluation. Also, his behaviors in the gifted program prior to homeschooling were causing problems: rigidity, lack of attention and anxiety.We didn't receive any support during this horrible time from the school. He was diagnosed with Aspergers and general anxiety disorder. He may have expressive writing problems, common I hear for Asperger's. Score information: FSIQ 128, Verbal-126, PRI-99.8, Broad Reading 99, Broad Math 160. Annual MAP assessment this year was >99% for 4th grade and 5th grade across all areas. Essay composition was 18%. He has been talking about wanting to go back to public school for middle school. While academics have been okay at home, I'd like him to have developed more independence, responsibility and time to work on organization before entering back into school. I contacted our local public school, not the gifted program, and have had several discussions with the psychologist. She is recommending that we do a very long transition back into school perhaps over 6 months, one hour at a time, so he can adjust. He is doing a social skill group privately and will probably have that as well in school. They will evaluate for the writing problems. I have the backing of the Children's Hospital psych, for as much gifted ed as possible. My concern, I know that this school district and psychologist are not fans of ANY kind of acceleration. He is 2 years advanced at home compared to the school district. I've already heard a comment that he 'needs to be focusing on the weaker areas', which of course he does but the acceleration has done so much for his behaviors. 1)He likes it a lot better. Although in general, anything that is not Legos, Redwall or video games is a drag. It's an Aspie thing. 2) My Aspie does not like novelty and by exposing him at a regular pace to new material, Singapore Math, he has gone from full melt down in bed with the blankets pulled over, to a very occasional tummy ache or 'this is fun!'. I'm really worried that they will bounce him back to 4th grade math and there may be behavior problems or that he regresses in his ability to deal with new things. He's already going to be going back to regular 4th grade with a pull out gifted and that's not very much. Although, if we do a very slow transition back, I could homeschool the math for awhile. The psychologist has been VERY kind and helpful in regarding the Asperger's and writing pieces but I want to be prepared at the meeing for having to do some real advocacy work in regards to math. Any ideas or experience? Is it really helpful to go in with research from gifted web sites that disagrees with them? Wow, I'm sorry this got so long!! I just know that there is great experience here and wanted all the information presented. Thanks for your time-
