Aspergers son aged 7, how do i help him express his feelings??? desperate for advice please

[brandy77]

Hes in a special school with children that lash out a lot, which i understand they cannot help. The problem is that when a child punches him he smiles! He will not say go away or i dont like that stop. One particular boy is quite fixated with my son and will bear hug him, hes a big boy and will really bear hug hard. He punches him in the class and the playground and other kids have randomly slapped or punched him. He does LIKE school which i am so pleased about after never thinking he would enjoy school after a disastrous mainstream experience. He is so vulnerable and he wont talk to the teachers, he wont even tell them if hes been hit so when he sees me at the end of the school he erupts I did speak to the teacher today and shes so lovely and approachable, i asked her how we could help my son express his true feelings more and she said "i dont know". I found that unusual as its a special school. Ive tried ringing NAS but their advisors are busy. I just cant understand why he smiles when hes being attacked Any advice much appreciated. x

Aww your poor ds. I am surprised as is special school the teacher couldnt help. Dont have any answers sorry. However, if i were you, i would speak to head teacher, explain the problem, and see what they can do about it.

thankyou shazian

the teacher described him as "people pleaser"

anyone else ? tried NAS again and they still busy

As its a special school you would think there would be a lot of classroom assistants in the playground etc. How are the other kids able/allowed to hit, hug your ds. Your poor ds this is heartbreaking, especially that he actually likes school. Hope you manage to get a solution soon.

Would a feelings diary help at all?

We had a similar problem with my ds1 (also AS) when he was about the same age, although he was different from your ds, as he was unable to see the positive in any given day. He is in MS and was dreadfully bullied, but his bullies were far to canny to get caught.

Initially, I created a very simple diary for him using very basic emoticons (happy face, sad face, straight/normal face). His teacher took 5 minutes at the end of each day to sit with him and get him to circle the emoticon that best explained how he felt about the day. To start with that was all we got, but eventually she started being able to ask him a bit about the reasons why he identified with that emoticon.

The next stage was when the EPs got involved and got him to scale his emotions. This involved laying a piece of string on the floor and blu-tacking some numbers 0-10 from one end to the other. 0 was the absolute worst feeling in the world, 10 was super happy. They then talked about things that made him happy, sad or just feel normal and he stood on the appropriate number along the piece of string to identify how happy/sad etc each thing made him. So, playing on his DSi was a 10, being bullied in the playground was a 0.

At the same time we worked on expanding his emotive language skills by teaching him new words to express happiness and sadness etc. So for example, ecstatic for super-happy, devastated for really upset etc. This was really important, because all he used to say was 'the worst ever' or 'OK'.

Then we redesigned the diary to incorporate the numbers/scale and new words, with them all set out along a scale on the front page for easy reference. We also changed it to be completed three times a day - after morning play, after lunch and at hometime and to include plenty of space for a sentence or so about why he had scaled his emotions as he had.

After a few weeks of this, we (and he) found that he was able to identify that no day was either all bad or all good and he started to gain some perspective. It also became apparent that it was an invaluable source of information for both his teachers and ourselves about what was actually happening in his day when the teachers weren't watching and this ultimately led to his bullies finally being dealt with once and for all.

It took a over year to get the system working right, expand his vocabulary and understanding etc, but its a great system that works really well now. This year I have added a parent/teacher communications page to the back of each sheet and that's been a really valuable addition as well.

thanks moosemama, im going to print this off so its easier to follow and show it to the teacher, im really surprised that they dont do this sort of thing as its a special school. my sons the same and will say its been the worst day of his life i just want to kill myself, hes only 7 fgs

he says he wants to kill himself not me

moosemama has given you good advice, which will come in useful for my 9 year old ds too. He is also unable to express his feelings although he's otherwise very articulate.

I am curious though as to the type of special school your ds is at; is it an ASD school or BESD?

There's a condition that sometimes sits alongside ASD called Alexithymia which means an inability to attach words to feelings. Much of the emotional literacy work we do with autistic children tends to rely on them being able to describe, even at a basic level, how they feel in simple terms, but if they lack even that degree of emotional recognition it can frustrate them further to be asked to talk about 'how they feel'. If the problem is as deep as that they'd struggle with an emotional diary.

My son wouldn't talk to his teachers either - he just didn't know how to put into words what he was experiencing and feeling. Often it would take hours in the evenings for me to get to the bottom of his behaviour and find out what had happened during the day.

Does your school have access to the Mind Reading software created by Simon Baron-Cohen? It helps children recognise emotions in speech and facial expressions, and to put names to them. It's a useful tool because children can use it independently without input from adults, and it's fun to use.

One book I found very useful (and it might be particularly handy in your son's case, with the aggressive child) was Stick Up For Yourself by Kaufman, Raphael and Espeland. It works through a Feelings Vocabulary and helps children work out how they feel and how to respond appropriately. It was invaluable for my son.

I used a lot of 5-point scales with my son, similar to what moosemama used. Eg ds used to regard all other children as 'friends' or 'enemies' - there was no middle ground. In time and with a lot of practice and talking, he came to realise that most people were 'those I get on OK with', and he understood that he didn't have to love or hate people with extreme passion. 5-point scales are very useful for tackling similar areas which can be measured in degrees.

Sorry I haven't included links - I'm crap at them and in a bit of a hurry .

I agree with Moose. Also we've been taking things slowly with DS aged 10 and his school PSAs have been telling him in the playground not to lie on the ground and smile if he gets hit, followed by an explanation of why that behaviour doesn't help.

The Transporter DVDs are meant to be very good for teaching emotions, though my DS doesn't like them.

Ds1 was similar to that streakybacon. No-one would be able to work out what had happened during his day. We couldn't ask him in the afternoons/evenings because he would just get really distressed and clam up more, but eventually he got into the habit of telling us snippets when we put him to bed and everything was calm and quiet.

The EPs sent home 'emotion snap cards' for us to play with him and he just could not do it. A few of the faces he just reeled off happy or sad for and the others he couldn't come up with a word for at all. I think it was at this point that it really hit me how much he'd been struggling all his life without us knowing. I couldn't believe how hard he found it.

Since then we've discovered that he has a degree of face-blindness, so working out people's emotions from their faces is almost impossible for him.

Ds used to say that all the other children were either friends or bullies. As with your ds, no middle ground. Using the feelings diary has helped him to see that not every experience or person sits on the extremes of his scale and now he would tell you that he 'gets along' with most of the children in his class and some of his days are OK days.

We still need to work on his use of emotive language, as he has a tendency to put 10 great, 4 not good or 5 OK a lot, but the numbers have at least given us a better idea of how he's been feeling. Now he's able to fill in a sentence about something that's happened in relation to that number, we/school are able to help him deal with any problems and he feels more validated and supported. He's gone from school refusing, to getting upset that he can't go to school on weekends and holidays, so its definitely changed his overall attitude to school.

Brandy - that's exactly what ds1 used to say if you asked how his day had been. Hang in there, it can get better with the right help and support and hopefully, with your ds being in ss, you will get more cooperation about implementing things that can help him than we did.

Am posting a couple of links:

The book Streaky bacon recommended

The Incredible 5 Point Scale book

My Book Full of Feelings

Free printable behaviour charts

thanks for the links moosemama, thankyou streakybacon, il write down the mind reading software you mentioned for school , very interesting about the Alexithymia.thankyou creatovator, i dont know if they explain to my son about the smiling when being hit, i think they are having trouble probably figuring him out as hes the quite perfect behaved one in the class, the other children have quite challenging behaviour. peace flower its a BESD school, the autism school nearest to us is from aged 11 and thats 20 miles away

would the book be suitable for him streaky, he cant read, ive had a look at moosemamas link that shows the inside of the book, is it done in pictures? it doesnt show, thankyou.x

i mean the Stick up for yourself book

I worked through Stick Up For Yourself with ds, I didn't just let him read it himself. That way we had lots of opportunity for discussion, how might he handle X situation, had he ever felt that way etc. Sometimes reading is an issue in itself - the words are scanned and read but the meaning is missed - so it's better to read it together so you can be sure he's understanding it. I'd say it's worth getting a copy, have a read through yourself and decide whether it's worth trying with him.

It's not illustrated as such (ie no pictures describing the text).

Another one that was helpful for my ds was Bullies Bigmouths and So-Called Friends, which helped him to find strategies for dealing with other children who weren't very nice to him. Very primary-level but realistic - I found a lot of friendship books aimed at younger children were misleading, suggesting that if you were kind to others they'd be the same with you, which we all know isn't true .

I think you would need to work through any of the books with him yourself brandy. Its very much an adult/parent/teacher led process and you'll need to walk him very slowly through each stage.

It does sound as if it might be the wrong school setting for your ds, if he doesn't have BESD and all the others do and on top of that he is pacifist and appeaser. Are there no other special schools that are for more general additional needs, rather than BESD?

mmmm i might have to have a look on amazon, my sons avoidance to anything he thinks is school related (reading/writing) at home is pretty horrific!! he likes a bedtime story read to him but thats it. He loves his All cats have Aspergers book, but its because its lovely pictures with captions.

Moosemama, i never forget the paed saying to me "he will be ok at the school depending on what children hes with". Its a lovely lovely school and because i dont have trouble getting him there and he likes going i just quietly worry about the hitting etc. Well i say quietly worry, i speak to my mum daily about it and another mother at the school! There is one school with an high functioning autism unit attached but thats from age 11 and the other school which is an autism school is 20 odd miles away, way too far for him too travel as he has medical needs also which affect his bladder. I love the school as its so local and i can take him and pick him up but i do worry that the bigger these children get (the girl in the class hits him as well) the harder they are going to hit him. Ive started telling the teacher of ALL incidents now and only yesterday told her that I want my son supervised more in the playground, such a worry isnt it

Are you keeping a diary of incidents? That was instrumental in improving things for my ds when he was being bullied. I do understand that this is a different situation, but being able to confidently state facts/details will still really help when dealing with the school. I would keep a diary, keep on informing the teacher for a few more days and if nothing changes, take it to the Head. Also, back up anything like requests for greater supervision with an email or note/letter. You absolutely shouldn't be having to worry about your child being hit on a daily basis, let alone by several children every day and are totally within your rights to demand the school puts appropriate strategies in place to prevent it.

We had the same with writing for years. Ds1 flatly refused to do it. He spent most of year 3 producing zero classwork. Not such a problem with reading, as he used it for a long time to avoid written work in class (he used to sit in the corner and read instead). He uses an alphasmart at school now, although they still insist he writes for maths and other subjects that require less actual written work. It has improved and this year the resistance to writing seems to have significantly reduced, but its taken over two years to get to this point. Part of the key was finding topics he was genuinely interested in for him to write about.

hi moosemama, ive written in the contact book a few times to log incidents but i will keep a records from now, thankyou Im pleased for you that your son is now progressing a bit with his writing, i wish my son would learn to read as im sure when he does he will be a bookworm and learn so much through books.

I think my problem is that im still too "understanding" about the other childrens behaviour, being an ex TA doesnt help, its just my frame of mind. I have got to be more assertive though and instead of saying "oh i understand ...." say "well i do understand BUT my sons welfare is paramount and what strategies can we put in place ...." and if it continues il see the deputy head, all the staff are very approachable. In all honesty I think they need supervising more. There have been a couple of incidents in the classroom which I couldnt believe had happened. Thank you for all your support

The topic my son is obsessed with is WWE wrestling! perhaps i could ask him to write out all the names off his cards lol

Sorry for hijacking brandy77, can anybody tell me how to move on from recognising feelings on pictures to actually expressing it? DS (6.6 and ASD) is good at looking at pictures and telling us how other people are feeling, but has never been able to tell how he is feeling. So he can't say things like 'I am in pain', or 'I am feeling sick', 'I don't feel happy'. Thanks in advance.

We're still working on that one someoneoutthere, but Mind Reading is definitely helping, plus other discussion as and when.

Talking about the physical feeling and matching words to it will help. A few months ago ds told me he thought he must be nervous (he was going to a new Drama group, getting the bus there by himself), because he had a hungry feeling in his stomach but knew he couldn't really be hungry because he'd just eaten. Lots of praise and congratulations because he'd recognise it, then keep working and wait for the next lightbulb moment!

Ds is 13 but he still has a very long way to go yet with regard to emotional recognition and undestanding. Surprisingly, he's better at noticing it in other people than in himself. Watching tv is useful, things like Agatha Christie with lots of guilty expressions and duplicity. He's getting very good at working who's hiding something and why, and what they might do next. It's all practice.

The EP did a lot of work with my ds on the physical effects of emotions, eg hungry/butterfly feeling in the stomach when nervous, sweaty palms etc. Then started getting him to take notice of when he had those feelings and then to start associating one of his new emotive words to the feeling.

We also had to work with him based on previous experiences we knew he'd had eg 'how you felt when x happened, is worried/scared/sick/pain' can you tell me what your body felt like when that happened? What was happening to your tummy/hands/head? Can you think of another time your body has felt a bit like that? etc Then working up to asking him how his body was feeling - rather than how he was feeling - in circumstances where we would have expected him to be nervous/sick/sad etc and gradually getting himto pair the physical feelings with the emotions and apply the right emotional vocabulary to it.