Student voted out of classroom!!!

[1908Revelations]

Originally Posted by epchick

MC does this type of disability show up early in a child's development? Like could the parents of this little boy have noticed it when he was younger? The mother claims he was fine in pre-school, and he had disciplinary problems at this school and at the last. Yet the principal was the one who wanted the kid tested.

Maybe teachers refered him for services and the parents denied them, but the principal may have seen that a need was ever present.

I have had a parent decline services for their student.

[epchick]

Originally Posted by 1908Revelations

Maybe teachers refered him for services and the parents denied them, but the principal may have seen that a need was ever present.

I have had a parent decline services for their student.

Maybe you're right. For some reason though, I get a feeling that teachers/principal WANTED to find something wrong with the kid.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by 33girl

ok, I read this over again, and what I get is he isn't "officially" diagnosed yet - he's in the process? MC, how long does that take?

Depending on who they're going to, not necessarily long at all, once you get to the person making the diagnosis. Our son was diagnosed with ADHD in the Spring. We asked the psychologist doing the evaluation to screen for Aspergers since we strongly suspected it. She too suspected it but wanted someone more qualified in sifting through the ADHD/Aspergers/other stuff combination to evaluate for it. It took until Fall to get an appointment, but then the diagnosis was very quick (as in a matter of days).

I too got the sense that the disciplinary problems prompted the Aspergers question. I hope it was not just trying to put a label on him but rather the principal concerned that what she was seeing were in fact symptoms of Aspergers.

Originally Posted by 33girl

Yes it does - the first article makes it sound like a teacher and 16 5 year olds are allowed to in effect expel a student! That just makes no sense but it does make the article more sensationalistic.

I'll agree as to how the article portrayed it. But speaking from the parent's perspective, it really doesn't make a difference if it was for a day or the rest of the year. If the kid really does have autism/Aspergers, then the trouble a normal kid would have understanding that it was just for a day will likely be amplified a great deal. These kids think literally and in absolutes -- either they like me or they hate me, either I'm in school or I've been kicked out of school. There is no in-between, no shade of meaning. Our son is still working on this.

Originally Posted by epchick

MC does this type of disability show up early in a child's development? Like could the parents of this little boy have noticed it when he was younger? The mother claims he was fine in pre-school, and he had disciplinary problems at this school and at the last. Yet the principal was the one who wanted the kid tested.

Usually signs start to present themselves by about 3; in fact, I think the diagnosis requires that symptoms be present by then.

That said, it's not unusual in my experience for the diagnosis to come in elementary school. This is so for a couple of reasons -- sometimes the symptoms can be written off as something else before the pressures of school come, sometimes (often) parents really don't want to face the prospect of an autism spectrum diagnosis and resist until they really can't anymore. We knew something was "off" around 3, but he was 9 when he was diagnosed. We weren't ignoring things during those years; it just took that long for us to see what really seemed to be going on.