Life with Aspergers

Unless you were lucky enough to enrol your kids in a school which streams kids all the way from kindergarten to college and you remain in the same geographic area throughout these years, you will probably be faced with the prospect of selecting a new school at some point in your child's education. It's not an easy choice to make under any circumstances but with a child on the autism spectrum, things are a little more complicated. In this post, I hope to take you through some of the factors that you need to consider; Qualities of the School The size of the school is always a difficult choice because on the one hand, you tend to think that your child is less likely to get lost in a smaller school. That the teaching staff will pay more attention to your child and that class sizes will be smaller, allowing more"one-on-one" teaching. There's also the fact that smaller schools aren't so overwhelming for your child.  Unfortunately though,  small...

"Autism... what does it mean to me: A workbook about self-awareness and life lessons for Kids with Autism or Asperger's". Revised and expanded 2nd Edition, by Catherine Faherty. Autism,  what does it mean to me is a hefty quarto-sized volume of nearly 500 pages but luckily, the print is rather large. It is designed as a workbook for children with autism and it seems to contain questions about pretty much everything that you or your developmental paediatrician could want to ask about your child. It's a stunning piece of work covering a vast array of topics ranging from innermost feelings, sensitivity and creativity through to friends, family, school and general emotional well-being.  Each chapter is clearly marked and starts with an introduction to the topic before it segues into a plethora of questions. After the questions, there is specific advice for parents on the various responses and on the topic in general.  New to the second edition are sections directed at old...

My latest post over at special-ism is about the dangers of being the class clown.  There's nothing wrong with being "class clown" if you play it safe but sometimes it's not so easy to be safe.  Click here to read the article. http://special-ism.com/is-your-child-a-class-clown-to-gain-acceptance/ I was a class clown myself for many years and I still have my homework diaries full of fun commentary (and numerous reprimands from my teachers to prove it.  They were always telling me that "you don't have to be anyone else, just be yourself".  I never understood what they were saying - or why they were harping on about it at school but now it makes a bit more sense. I even have a great written comment from one teacher which says " Gavin spends too much time making futile attempts to amuse his classmates. I would suggest spending more time be spent in the pursuit of knowledge " (Yes, it has a grammatical error in it because the teacher had rea...