As far as the behavior goes, what I think happened is every morning the kids get a paper with 10 questions or problems on it called "morning work", grammar, math whatever. Two weeks ago, he got one wrong. He was so mortified, he said, "mom, i am so embarrassed, don't even look at it" In spite of all my assurances that it was a great paper, and the teacher saying the same thing, now I think he is so afraid of getting something wrong, that he simply is refusing to do it. The response from the classroom aide is to stand over him and repeatedly redirecting him, something which I think is stupid.
I am frustrated because he doesn't handle change well and I simply refuse to allow them to move him again. When I ask them why he acting this way (he doesn't at home), they say he has a need to control things. Okay, why? Is he anxious? Should I seek a medication eval,something I so don't want to do.
Kids with AS are typically very anxious and refusing to do things they are unsure of (or don't like for any reason) is typical. He needs to learn to do things he doesn't want to do; it's an essential skill for eventually holding down a job. He also needs to learn to cope with change, because it happens all the time.
Our DS falls into perfectionism far too easily; it can become totally disabling. AS kids are also often unsure of what consequences a mistake might have, and they can overreact to mistakes because they don't have the social understanding of likely and unlikely consequences.
A gradeskipped AS kid could potentially feel that even more-- what if they pull him from the 3rd grade class because he made a mistake? he can't tell if this is likely-- and then of course it could become self-fulfilling because he's freaking out and they pull him out.
You can start working on tolerating change and uncertainty at home. Make small changes that stretch his ability to cope, one at a time, and encourage him to hang in there. (Drive a different route to a familiar place, or change what brand of bread you buy-- depending on the kid these can be easy or hard.) This strategy is detailed in the book Parenting Your Asperger Child by Sohn and Grayson-- I think they call it "deliberate sabotage" and it's very effective in the long run.
A bright kid can learn the skills of flexibility, compliance, understanding the social hierarchy at school, all these things-- but it still takes surprisingly much work for them, and for a kid with AS, it all needs to be spelled out for them and practiced by rote until it's mastered, one skill at a time.
DeeDee
