Hi - I am new to this site, so please bear with me! I have three children, two of whom are gifted, but typically developing in every other aspect and then there is my 8 year-old, who tested into the gifted program at our school (surprising to us that he was invited to test) and then was given an IQ test (WISC-IV) due to a springtime diagnosis of mild Aspergers and Inattentive ADD. In their behavioral observation, they note that our son is "methodical in his approach to problem-solving tasks, sometimes losing credit for items because of exceeding time limits". In the WISC-IV composite information, his PSI is two standard deviations below every other index (verbal, perceptual reasoning, working memory).
Other background for him - he is a sweet kid, but one who has never made a real friend. He has no "special connections" with anyone, but has lots of "acquaintances". He is 8 and is just learning to swim and refuses to try to ride a bike. He is very anxious about failing, gets frustrated extremely easily, and seems very "angry" a lot of the time.
When asked to do simple tasks such as brush his teeth, he will throw himself on the floor and whine and moan. When asked again, he will slowly crawl his way toward where he needs to be. When given a firm tone and consequences for not doing what was asked, he will then get angry, yell at us, and storm away (and go do what we asked!). We have no idea what is setting him off or why he can't seem to do simple things such as get dressed in the morning. If we don't have someone there monitoring him, it can take him an hour to get out of bed and get dressed. If someone is watching him and constantly reminding him, he will finish in a couple minutes. However, even in that couple minutes, he will need several reminders to stay on task.
He is entering third grade and will be starting the gifted program (a differentiated classroom with all other gifted students). We are worried that he is not going to do well. Homework (as you might imagine from struggles of getting dressed) takes FOREVER to complete. In second grade, his homework would take him hours to do because he couldn't stay focused on it. Also, our district does a ton of timed math tests and he fails them almost every time. The teacher says he knows all the answers and can answer verbally, but cannot finish the timed tests . . .
We are looking for help from anyone as to what we can do to help him succeed. We have tried more natural approaches (gluten-free, neuro-link (amino acid supplement), herbal tinctures for calm nerves, etc.) and none has "worked". I say this after doing them for about five months now with no discernible differences in behavior/concentration.
Do you folks out there think that we need to give him prescription medication? We just want him to do well and be happy. And of course, for the rest of us to be able to be happy in our home not worrying about what will set him off or whether he will have a good day or a bad day at school/home. It really is that up in the air - he can go days without having an incident at school and then he will get sent to the principal's office for his behavior (throwing things in class, writing on another student's paper, etc.). Or he can have multiple days in a row with incidents. His teachers have never been able to pinpoint any "triggers" for him just as we have no idea at home other than he gets upset when we ask him to do *anything*.
In his IEP meeting, they suggested that he be able to type up longer assignments instead of writing as writing is very difficult for him (gross motor skills and fine motor skills are not his forte - he didn't run or jump until after three years old).
If anyone has any ideas for us as to whether or not he sounds like a "typical" mild Aspergers child or Inattentive ADD child or whether it seems like something else, and what to do for him, we are all ears!
Thanks in advance for your help!
