Advice please, HF ASD 5yo DD at school

[newscot]

I have just come from a meeting with my DD's class teacher. This is her fourth week at school and her first week full time. We had the meeting as we are off to see her paediatrician next week and wanted she is interested to see how she is doing. Basically she is doing really well, is happy at school and home and has absolutely no problem with the academic work.
Two problems though have come up (they are just old problems transposed to school)

1. DD will sit and watch everything else but the class teacher when they are having mat time. She does this in other lessons too. She is listening to what is being said (she takes everything in !) How do we get her to focus better?

2. She asks a lot of repetative questions to which she already knows the answer. Partly this is her way of processing things and partly it is a way she keeps herself settled. Any thoughts on how we can get her to internalise (i.e think and say them to herself in her head) her questions

I would appreciate any suggestions you have with this. I can't believe how grateful I was when she started asking 'why' questions a few months ago. Now I wished she would stop!!

Hi newscot, I've got a HF ASD six year old who's also doing well in mainstream.

I'm interested to know why the first problem is regarded as a problem? If she's taking in what is being said, does it really matter where she looks? Are you worried that the other children will find it odd if she looks at them rather than the teacher? Or is it that the teacher finds it disconcerting? The only thing I can think of (which you've probably tried already) is to try having "mat time" at home- you or DH read her a short story and try encouraging her to focus on you just for short periods of time, and build it up from there?

My DS is very "rule-focused" - is your DD like that too? If so, perhaps you could introduce a rule that she's allowed to ask the same question, say, three times, but that's enough? Would that work?

I know what you mean about why questions - my DS was exactly the same! Reassuringly, one year on he is not half as bad!

I also have a chils (DS1, almost six) with AS who is in mainstream. He's much better there than at home TBH, I think the routine and rules suit him. We did have the focussing problem, but it turned out to be a problem with his glasses prescription ), now he stares intently instead! Just as disconcerting. We get the repetitive questions too, I don't think the teacher is too bothered by them, at lest she knows he is listening.

I think if she is listening you need to educate the school not to expect eye contact. She may not be able to look and listen so ask them which they would prefer. That is quite well established and is something I know our local autism outreach team try hard to educate ms schools about.

If the questions need to be limited then worth trying dino's suggestion- ds1's anxiety levels drop with boundaries.

Thanks all for your replies. Dinosour-soooo relieved to hear the why questions have diminished!!! All of you are right about questioning if eye contact is the be all and end all. I suppose I so long for her to 'fit in' and not be noticeably different to the other children that I get upset whenever I hear she is doing something a bit different. Thats also why the questions bother me- other children have commented that DD asks questions all the time. Thing is a lot of her questions are really quite clever and she does want to find about lots of things, well, everything actually!
One good thing to come out of the meeting was that for the first time today DD approached another pupil and asked her to be her partner when it was time to walk outside.

I know I panic about things but the future terrifies me- I worry that she will get more and more noticeably different and will have difficulty maintaining friendships. She has such a full and happy life now. It pays not to think too much.

agree - why on earth is it a problem where she looks? Why is the teacher even bringing this up? why so totalitarian? Surely even a school child can have the freedom to look where she likes? A cat may look at a king!As Jimjams says, she may not be able to look and listen at the same time - and I have seen research showing that many, many kids have the same 'problem'- ie it's pretty normal, and not confined to children with ASD. They 'hear' better if they are not also being forced to 'look' as well.
Repetitive questions, are they truly repetitive - ie does she really feel she has the answer? Do they give an answer containing the question and really explain it. Do they ask her questions to clarify what she wants to know - ie 'well, I've said X and Y, what else do you need to know?' I think even as adults we sometimes only feel an answer has been partially given - think Jeremy Paxman! My ds often wants the question to be given in the answer so he feels truly heard - ie 'Um, why are cats different colours? Well,...' and to be honest, these questions are bright and interesting and deserve a real answer, which means talking about genetics for some kids, in others just a discussion about how we are all different - some of us have blonde hair and some brown etc. (ds did ask me this and I did have to talk about genes, which is difficult as I am a scientific know-nothing )
Other than that, yes, maybe give her a limit of three times and maybe suggest after that she can come home and ask you if she's still dissatisified.
I think she sounds as if she is doing fantastically well. We are all different and maybe her differences should be celebrated. Feeling really positive after finding out about a girl with severe dyspraxia who has just got the highest mark in the whole country for her English Language A level (a perfect, flawless score) and is off to Cambridge. She has a great blog site too. Very inspiring.

She's Vicky Biggs, and if you google Vicky Biggs Dyspraxia, you can find out about her.

Thanks Aloha. Another thing that came up at the meeting was that she wouldn't stay still during mat time,i.e, she would have her legs straight out in front of her, cross them uncross them etc. When she said this I thought in my head (after saying quietly FFS)'is that hardly surprising in a group of children who have just started school!! I suppose if that is the worst they can say, they are struggling for things to say.
And yes my daughter is amazingly clever and fantastic- in the last year she has travelled across the other side of the world, participated in a full on ballet stage show, gone off to gym classes, goes off to friends houses to play (with reports of how wonderfully she plays) all without blinking an eye or getting upset or anxious. She has such a go and get em attitude to life and I just love her so much. I just hope it doesn't get knocked out of her by having to confirm to things that in the great scheme of life aren't really that important.

newscot- I have a 6 year old DS who is AS. I find it amazing that your DDs school is being so critical of her to be honest, especially since she has only just started! Does the teacher have any understanding at all about ASDs? What about the SENCO-is she involved?

Tiggiwinkle, I don't think the teacher was being intentionally critical. She had positive things to say as well. Before she started school I wrote a list of things that the teacher should be aware of (such as saying her name before speaking to ensure her attention, stuff like that) At the meeting we ended up going through the list I had made and talking about the things on it so in many ways we were talking about the negatives and not the positives. This did dissapoint me a bit. I am a teacher myself (Special needs ha ha!) and I always try to focus on the positive because in the vast majority of cases the positive far outweighs the negative.

I'm going to get on my soapbox here-warning!!. I am not from Britain but Australia (been here 2 and a half years) I find in a lot of schools here that the children's personality is not allowed to shine through. They have to confirm and sit there meek and mild and if they show any sign of being different then woe behold them. I have taught some fantastic kids who's academic ability was never going to get them anywhere but who would always get by because of their great personality and sense of humour (often wonderfully warped) Children are meant to be loud, active, questioning,enthusiastic-why do we try to knock it out of them.

And finally...I have not told the school my DD has a diagnosis of ASD. As far as they know she has a mild language disorder. I chose to do this because I have experience of how once a child is labelled then that label follows them and everything they may do which is not quite the norm is becasue of their diagnosis and not just because it may be something a child just does. Just realised that is a very long and poorly constructed sentence. Also my DD is very mildly ASD IMO and with maturity I hope will be able to compensate for her difficulties and thus live a full and productive life without a label. I realise in saying this how very lucky I am and don't wish to offend or upset any other mothers on the special needs board.

she sounds like my ds , especially with the constant questioning and my son also likes to watch other peoples faces. often when im talking to him i have to ask him to look at me to make sure i know hes listening and if i ask him whether he heard what i said sometimes hes listened but not always as he gets terribly distracted, does your dd actually listen, if so what the problem ? my ds is also wonderfully entertaining and full of life with constant curiosity about his environment..somethings are already going over my head.. he asked me the day how i could make a remote control for a burglar trap he was making and he was terribly serious as in , lets get batteries, pieces of wire etc and hes only just nearly 6..

BTW how are you doing tiggiewinkle, hows your ds getting on at school now? is he still in same school

Hi Bambi-how are things with you? DS is still in same school-just started back on Tuesday. Has a new teacher so am waiting to see how things are with her-if no better I shall have to move him. School are refusing to apply for a statement-SENCO says he does not need it but I am going to seriously consider applying myself. Lewisham have new policy of not statementing autistic children apparently!
Did you sort out your DLA yet?

Have reread my last post and realise I sound like a whinging immigrant who comes to a new country and complains. I'm not really!! I love it here and have even added to Scotland's dwindling population since our arival. Now if I could just understand what everybody was saying......

I wouldn't worry about the constant wriggling- my NT son does this so much it drives me batty (really it does! Can't stand still for a minute) but although he is active it's coz he is healthy and inquisitive. If she's the only one who wriggles in her class, they should be worrying about the others.

Your daughter sounds delightful, really special. The sort of kid who is ging to do OK whatever life throws at her. That's worth so much more than eye contact and the rest IMHO

You don't sounds whinging at all, newscot. I took a different approach to telling the school about my DS1's diagnosis, in that I wanted them to know from the outset so that he could get any extra help that was on offer. But I do agree with you that there does seem to be a tendency to want to label any behaviour that is even a little bit out of the ordinary.

You don't sounds whinging at all, newscot. I took a different approach to telling the school about my DS1's diagnosis, in that I wanted them to know from the outset so that he could get any extra help that was on offer. But I do agree with you that there does seem to be a tendency to want to label any behaviour that is even a little bit out of the ordinary.

I think you sound great Newscot, and not a big whinging and I agree with you 100% about schools (some schools and some teachers obviously) sometimes crushing children's passion for learning and individuality. As for going on about her stretching her legs...don't they remember being a child themselves? This is what children do. These are really little kids, not a roomful of 80 year olds. I truly despair sometimes. I can see why people home educate.