I think its time to tell him.........
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I think its time to tell him.........
| Thu, 10-04-2007 - 7:04pm |
Hi everyone!
For those of you who don't know me, I'm Michelle.
| Thu, 10-04-2007 - 7:04pm |
Hi everyone!
For those of you who don't know me, I'm Michelle.
Hi Michelle,
I don't have a good suggestion for books or videos here. I just want to say "Hi' and tell you how it happened here, why not. Malcolm spent a year and a half at ASD school where the kids were such a mix but all somewhere on the spectrum. Some of his best best friends are from that school. He didn't and doesn't see the world as divided up anyways.
But what happened here is this past year while homeschooling, I happened to see that Linda Ellerbee's magazine show for kids was doing an evening on autism so I suggested that we watch as our education for the evening. I was sorry that the first story was about child with severe autism because they showed lots of wild behavior -- not that that was wrong per se, but I wanted him to see the later stories about the jazz musician kid from Long Island etc. and he got too sad to watch the rest. BUT he started thinking about autism as what he has "a little of" and other kids he knows have alot more of. So he will tell you he has a little autism. Esp. when he loses his temper, pretty accurate actually. He was not yet 10.
All those years he was seeing doctors and having tests, we explained the testing as finding out more about you, where will be the right school for you based on your strengths and challenges, etc. But knowing the name of what that temper-losing comes from has definitely helped him. Now we have to make sure he understands it's not an excuse, he still has to learn!!! (Just kidding, he does understand that and he is learning...)
Good to "see" you back here, Michelle!!
yours,
Sara
"
Mich
I myself have started to bring things up for Chris (11) slowely.
Hi Sara! Hi Lainie! And nice to meet you michelle!
Thanks for telling me your stories on how you told your kids....that helps alot!
Have you seen the book "All Cats Have Asperger's Syndrome" by Kathy Hoopman? Although your ds is HFA rather than AS, they're both austism spectrum disorders, and the book's message (we all have strengths and challenges; we ought to love and appreciate all people) would apply to all disorders. Every page has a photo of a cat in some pose/activity with a brief caption outlining either a challenge or positive trait of AS and cats (poor sense of danger, heightened sense of smell, very smart, etc). My kids LOVE the book as do I.
Another book written at approx your ds grade level is "The Blue Bottle Mystery," also by Kathy Hoopman. It spotlights AS again rather than HFA, but might be appealing. The main character has AS. The book opens with a scene where the boy is in school class accidentally getting in trouble because he's literally interpreting what his teacher is saying. The teacher is getting angrier and angrier, and the boy is getting more and more confused. Later the boy gets a dx and is better understood.
You might also check your local library. I can't think of what books I've read now, but I was surprised to find a variety of books at the library.