Hi, I'm a bit of a neophyte here so I hope I figured this out okay.
We had something really strange occur. My son is untested, but probably hg or eg. He entered K three weeks before his sixth birthday, already reading at a middle of first grade level despite an approximate 1 year language delay. We chose the school carefully and transferred him to another district to find a half day K with toys thinking that, as an only child, what he really needed was an opportunity to socialize. There are no gifted programs for K within a 2 hour drive, but this was a solid school with lots of parent involvement so I thought it would be okay.
Over the first 2 1/2 months my son made some friends, began talking my ear off, and really seemed to be enjoying himself. He had a stomach bug with diarrhea late in Sept that happened to coincide with his first or second gym class. When I got his first progress report the gym teacher had made it clear without ever using the word that she thought my son was autistic. When I asked his classroom teacher about the specific behaviors of autism, though, she said she hadn't seen any of them. I am reassured and life goes on.
Then he was sick from Thanksgiving to Christmas mostly with colds. He missed almost all of school during this period because every time I dropped him off they would call me and have me come back and get him. I was surprised that they weren't at all concerned that he was out of school for that long.
So in January I went to school and stayed with him for a couple of days. I was surprised to see that during gym class my son did have autistic-like behaviors. I was really surprised because he had never acted that way before. I was dumbfounded. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. How did he learn to mimic autism so well? I still don't know.
I also learned that the Cat Mat Sat book the teacher had sent home was representative of the work my son was being given in class. A typical day included 4 worksheets the children had an hour to finish and my son finished in 5 min. This is not to say that my son did not have things he needed to work on, just that school was apparently not the place he was going to get to work on them. He also had manipulated his teacher so badly, without her even realizing it, that he got anything he wanted at school. This was not a good situation.
His teacher really wanted him to do socialization training with the school counselor. This is the child that begged me to send him to school so he could be with the other kids. He also loved going to play with his friends and always did well with others. This was starting to sound really odd to me by then. I objected mildly that my son was being singled out more and more. I was overruled.
Then the teacher came up to me one day and told me that I should make sure she picked my son's first grade teacher so she could make sure he was with someone that could deal with his special needs. Now this would have sounded better if it had not come from the teacher that I had been trying, unsuccessfully, to help understand that a child reading short stories probably should have something more to do then identifying the letter worksheets. I responded that we weren't planning to keep him in the district since we had been told at registration that the district allowed a limited number of K transfers but then the children had to go somewhere else after that. She then said that there were ways of keeping him at the school. I'm afraid I immediately thought about the district's financial problems and the extra money they receive for autistic kids. (But no, that couldn't be it.) In any case I started to wonder since they had made it perfectly clear by them that there would be no accommodation for his reading ability or his math ability. (He could count to 100, identify numbers up to and beyond 100 and was adding really well by then and the worksheets for math were about identifying the teens.)
Finally, somewhat in desperation, I commented to the teacher that my child was gifted. (I had not used the "g" word before intentionally with the hope that she wouldn't just shut me down as one of "those" parents.) Her response surprised me very much, she said that Aspergers children are gifted. She said it in such a way that implied that the corollary was also true: all gifted kids have Aspergers. She was sure I had just confirmed her suspicions.
After I picked my jaw up off the floor I realized another option was going to have to be explored. Unfortunately, I also realized that our time with the public schools in the area had probably just come to a close. This really was the most parent friendly, accommodating school in the area. There are also a couple of gifted programs that begin in third grade, but I would be fooling myself if I thought placement in any of those schools for K, 1, or 2 would be an appropriate placement for my child.
We weren't sure what to do. So we found the only private school in the area not affiliated with a religion and we went for a visit. It is a Montessori school and my husband fell in love with the whole program. That day we found a message from the principal of my son's school on our voice mail saying that our son had been sent to him for kicking and hitting. I arranged for my son to go to the private school the next day and he fit right in. I also noticed that his new teacher was aware of his attempts to manipulate her and gently, but firmly, asserted her authority as the adult. I thought it would be a wonderful place for him.
It has been 3 1/2 months now since he started at the private school. He has a best friend and a couple of other really good friends. His teacher allows him to read short stories to her for reading time and he loves their math program. He is happy and doing well.
Within about a month of starting the private school all of the autistic like behaviors disappeared completely, even at school. So, it seems really odd, but can a school cause autism somehow?
When I looked up a measure for autism I found that many of the symptoms do overlap with gifted characteristics. I'm feeling like I missed something here. Does Aspergers = Gifted and Gifted = Aspergers? If not aren't the measures biased toward identifying gifted children as autistic because of the overlap in symptoms?
Are the schools just identifying anyone who is different as autistic? Do schools identify children as autistic just to get access to the money?
Has anything like this happened to anyone else?
I'm very confused. I'd appreciate your thoughts and ideas.
