I would prefer to home ed him for stability, but unbelievably he doesn't want me to - he has a best friend and a few other friends (which is rare for a child with ASD) and doesn't want to lose them.
Dd is pretty used to it to be honest. In fairness, screaming is rare and extreme and fortunately for us, he is never physical with anyone - he's always been very passive. He usually just gets really distressed, cries for hours, doesn't sleep, paces and rants a lot. She has cried a couple of times when he's reached screaming point, but we tend to split up and one has ds1, while the other distracts and reassures the other two.
Ds2 finds it hardest to cope with, as they are very close, only two years eight days apart in age and share a bedroom. They love each other so much, but ds2 is often the focal point for ds1's anger and although he's never physical he can be very hurtful with words. We have to make sure we make time to talk it through with ds2, explain what happened and negate anything ds1 has said to him.
Its sounds awful I know, but ds1 is a really intelligent, funny, sweet, caring and sensitive boy who brings us all so much love and fun. Its only at these flashpoints that we struggle. We have just had a lovely summer together and yes, he's had his moments, as do all children, but the dcs have all really loved being together all day everyday, the boys have played laughed, watched tv and chatted together happily for weeks on end. He just struggles so much to cope with the demands of school, particularly the social side and dealing with change.
We're hoping it will settle down quicker this year, as we brought in a lot of help last year for him and the school are far more aware having had appropriate training regarding asd now.
All in all its been a tough old couple of years. He did ok in infants, where things were more consistent, he had more adult help and there were less social demands. He had a few struggles and anxieties and was bullied, but mostly coped. Left year 2 top of his year in the SATs then went into year 3 - so started the junior section of his primary school - and fell to pieces. He's made no academic progress to speak of since year 2.
It took 18 months of waiting, seeing paediatricians, Ed Psychs, Autism Inclusion workers and finally a specialist assessment team to get him diagnosed and he finally got a diagnosis of Aspergers in January this year. He was assessed as highly intelligent, particularly high verbal skills, but conversely very low non-verbal skills and there was no doubt at all about the diagnosis. It is definitely easier now we have the diagnosis though, it helps us to access some (but not enough) support for him at school and enables us to discuss and explain things properly to him and his brother.