Grinity, thanks again for your time and thoughts on this - I do appreciate it.
I suppose the first quote relates to how he has always been at school, high achieving and essentially finding it all a bit too easy and dull.
The second relates to what we are starting to see now. I think this is essentially to do with a shift in learning focus from infant to junior school (infants in the UK are from 3.5 yrs to 7 yrs and juniors 7 years to 11 years).
At present, we are only starting to see the stall or slide in his work, but I'm concerned that if we don't find a way of intervening and supporting him now the decline will accelerate and by secondary school (age 11-16) he will not only be failing, but have lost confidence in himself as well.
I have to admit, I haven't read a lot of Temple Grandin, although I have seen plenty of quotes and references to her in other texts and papers.
The education enviroment is far from ideal for children like my son in this country. We have the choice of so-called mainstream 'inlcusion', which basically means putting them in a state school and if they are lucky giving them some support to help them muddle through - or a 'special school', which in most cases are for low-functioning children or those with profound mental or physical problems. The fact is that most children with high functioning autism or aspergers tend to slip through the net, as they don't adequately fit either category. Of course there is always home-schooling, but then we have the problem that these kids will never improve their social and communication skills if they are isolated from their peers. There's no easy answer really.
With regards to the maths. I think I could 'train' him to be able to state the facts for more simple calculations such as those set out in your post, the problem seems to have arisen from them now covering more complex mathematics, with several stages to complete before ascertaining the correct answer.
At home I tend to sit with him and break an example down into stages, which he then calculates, but we literally have to do this together for every single sum. If I leave him to do it himself, he will produce a sheet of 100% accurate answers, but has absolutely no idea how he got those answers. Its very puzzling, particularly for me, as someone who likes to see and understand how things work and the different stages involved.
Another more recent problem has been word-based maths questions, as in his mind maths = numbers and he seems to blow a fuse if the question is presented using words rather than numbers (eg a train departs at x o'clock has to travel x number of kilometres to reach its destination. It is due to arrive at the destination station at x o'clock. How fast would the train need to be travelling in km/hr in order to reach its destination on time?)
Anyway, I'm rambling now.
Thanks again for your suggestions. We will keep on supporting him and working with him at home and using his interests as way of firing his enthusiasm. We will get there I'm sure. He has such a lot to offer this world, I'm not ready to give in and let his weaknesses cancel out his strengths. I just need to carry on trying to fathom out exactly what his needs are and then make sure they are met both by us and by the educational system.
