Okay, a couple of thoughts, and apologies for only just seeing this.
First, EDBD self-contained is not, from the sound of things, his Least Restrictive Environment, and therefore a violation of his right to a free and appropriate education (also known as FAPE in special ed circles). Schools will try to sucker you in with the lower teacher student ratio, but there's a reason there's a lower ratio-- classroom management. With the Aspergian penchant for mimicry, you do NOT want him in there. They will, essentially, be creating an emotionally disturbed kid-- a self-fulfilling prophecy, if you will. It will make them feel like they've been right, but you'll end up with a kid who has far more issues and behaviors than he started with.
In general, I would agree with the idea of learning social skills as a "second curriculum" in younger grades. (The academics I can, and do, supplement.) That doesn't man that school is the only place a child can be "socialized", but that wherever you choose to do it, the social skills are sort of time-limited, to a much greater degree than reading or earth science or multiplication (and make it much easier to learn that stuff in any setting, group or individual). FWIW, I am not a big fan of grade skipping, because the issue I have with my own kids is that they learn differently, not that they're a static two years ahead of their age-mates. Eventually, they end up bored again, and pretty soon you have a 12yo sophomore. Which is okay, I guess, but adulthood hasn't been that unparalleled a thrill that I think my kid needs four or six extra years of it before he's strictly ready. However, I stress that is my opinion about my kid, and yours is a completely different child.
As far as fact that he's afraid to make a mistake...yeah. It's definitely possible to go through life/young adulthood so terrified to be lousy at anything that it severely limits...well, everything. (Which explains being my age and not knowing how to ride a bike, but I digress...) The concept he needs right now, which I freely admit is stolen from a twenty-year-old basketball t-shirt, is "you miss 100% of the shots you don't take". The other piece is that, as a seven-year-old third grader, he's under a lot of pressure to perform. Telling him he's wonderful, smart, and can do it paradoxically can make matters worse, because if he doesn't believe it in his own little heart of hearts (and he may not, because there's the proof in that 90% that OMG, HE CAN FAIL!) now he's stuck with making sure no one knows he's perpetrated this hoax and when they do it will be the end of life as he knows it: "Old Testament� real wrath-of-God type stuff! Fire and brimstone coming down from the sky! Rivers and seas boiling! Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes...The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!"
Seriously. Catastrophizing and movie quotes. It's totally how he's thinking, if he's a typical kid with Asperger's.
The other concept he probably needs, and will grasp because he is bright, is that if you refuse to do schoolwork and generally make life difficult for your teachers, they will be motivated to make life even more difficult for him (anything from losing recess to inappropriately dumping him in EDBD). Because they are grownups and therefore in power, they will nearly always win that game, and the rare occasions that they don't will probably cost him. Learning to let the bigger guy win is a tough lesson, but will see him in good stead not only throughout school but as an adult. (There are, of course, age appropriate ways of phrasing all this.)
The following is purely my opinion, and worth the pixels which were killed to post it:
What he needs is to figure out it's okay to fail. To be incredibly bad at something and do it anyway. Probably the easiest way would be to find something you both completely suck at and do it together, making a big deal at having fun with it and laughing at yourself. It's a totally foreign concept, so it may take awhile.
After you do that, he needs something to build him back up again, so he can see that he hasn't suddenly, irreversibly become a screw-up (because if he embraces that identity, let me tell you, nobody can screw up like a gifted kid). A completely "yay me" experience. And then lather, rinse, repeat.
Last edited by eldertree; 03/21/11 02:09 AM.
