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Paul, not for nothing but what kind of flies do you cast? Long time feather chucker here, mostly salt and fresh water bass.
 
Wogz, you clearly have never struggled to get an Asperger's kid a decent education in a school hardwired for average students. And your so called special needs kids are not created equal. Teachers know what to do with kids with cognitive deficits or learning disabilities. They don't know how to deal with super-smart kids with social development problems.

I am going to disagree slightly, younger teachers today (at least the ones in my kids school) are better equipped to deal with a special needs child, especially when the parents are willing to get the child proper testing. It took two years for us to get our son through the neuro-psych process, working with the combination of insurance, his pediatrician, school psychiatrist, and resource teachers. The difference so far this year at school are night and day, he is very sharp but teaching children with his unique traits/quirks requires the teacher to know what they are dealing with, he now spends about 25% of his school week in one on one instruction with the resource group. According to his teacher there are few shutdowns, hiding under tables, outburst of anger, and non-negotiable situations, his teacher also has at least one additional assistant do help deal with his needs (and possibly one other child in that class), his teacher has also been willing to work/be coached by his therapist and his doctor in techniques that help deal with children like my son. Most people who have met my son don't realize just what his issues are, since he appears to be a defiant/obstinate hyper child with some anxiety issues he also seems to have some amount of photgraphic memory (or whatever one might call it). A super-smart kid with development issues is still a special needs kid and requires specific information just like a limited child for the teacher to work best with them. We specifically discussed medications with his psych and have come to the conclusion that it is not necessary at this time and hopefully never.
 
Most people who have met my son don't realize just what his issues are, since he appears to be a defiant/obstinate hyper child with some anxiety issues he also seems to have some amount of photgraphic memory (or whatever one might call it).

I can relate to that. "Jarrett just can't help himself, it's like he does X just to make us mad" said even teacher I ever had.
 
Jarrett,

Streamers mostly, Trout & Bass.. Although I don't get out nearly as much as I'd like.. Got a fly tying 'starters kit' as a prize at a tournament. So I tie off & on..

Trolling a fly just doesn't seem right though.. :D
 
My son is "on the spectrum" according to the experts. We decided not to pursue a diagnosis as it doesn't seem that attaching the label would help much, if at all.

He is a very intelligent kid, almost as obsessed with rockets as his dad. He does well enough in school, although at times has a heck of a time sitting still. If this was 1979 he would definitely be called a Grade-A Spazz, just like my friends and I were.

As an elementary school teacher I am well aware that some kids do have very real problems associated with ASD. However, I do feel that it is often applied to kids that just happen to be a little bit different.

Sent from my iPhone using Rocketry Forum
 
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I was first examined at the age of 4, the diagnosis was that I was just "smart". I was in and out of tests for one thing or another through high school. The first time anybody said Autism was when I was 17. But my dad rejected that, and did not follow up on it.

I managed to get through the psych evaluation, and join the Air Force, where I held a top secret security clearance and loaded bombs on the F111. I was RIFd in 1990.

After I got home, I went to college. I did well initially, while I lived under my dad's roof. But when I moved out and had to take a job, my grades tanked and I bombed out. I was given a 2nd chance to get a degree thanks to my step-father, but again, working while going to school was too much for me, and I again failed out. I worked for a little over a year at Sykes Enterprises (a subcontractor for Apple's Tech Support), but ended up leaving that job due to a false accusation of misconduct (let's put it like this... I got my unemployment benefits, despite what Sykes said).

About a year later I found myself in Pdx, and I landed a job as a travel agent. Just before that, I was riding along with my sister, while she was listening to Dr. Laura Schlessinger, and we heard the description of Aspergers for the first time. Within a month my mom and stepfather arranged for me to be tested at Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in PDX (one of the only hospitals in the area for that kind of diagnosis). The answer came back as HFA on the paperwork.

After that, my dad came clean about the acquaintance back when I was 17. Turns out she was a med student who was working on getting her degree and had come across the description, and my behavior fit it to a "T". However, autism in 1986 was little known, and blamed on bad parenting, thus my dad's anger and denial.

Since then I held a steady job until 2009 when the economic downturn and the spread of online based travel sites devastated the travel industry. Thanks to my diagnosis, I did manage to get training that allowed me to finish my degree. I managed to finish the degree thanks to my retirement fund (now gone), and a settlement after being hit by a car while riding my bike (I was right hooked). Now, I'm in China, teaching English, and severely obsessed with rockets.
 
Thanks K'Tesh, for the most part your story mirrors mine. I told my dad a couple months ago expecting some sort of long debate. His reply shocked and angered me. He said "that explains a lot" as if he secretly knew or suspected all along. I wonder how different my life could have been had I knew much earlier. Not to say I am disappointed with how I turned out, it is just fun to think if I channeled my focus on the things I really enjoyed and was very good at. I had the uncanny ability to "see" things faster than other people.

In high school my friends and I use to be into go carting. I was always the person who managed to edge everyone out. Not once or twice but every time. When things were going fast, everything slowed down. It's like pro baseball hitters saying they can see the seems on a 100mph fast ball. To me, driving fast in carts and cars slowed things way down. It was a sort of mechanical Ritalin. I used to drift my '91 Honda CRX sideways at night at over 70mph on back country farm roads. When I was in the "zone" I could see every individual piece or gravel on the road and every detail zipping by. My friends were always dumbfounded and several trashed their cars trying to keep up/duplicate.

I never could explain or even understand it until recently when I discover the HFA. I was listening to Temple Grandin talk about thinking in pictures and it instantly made sense.

So many things are making sense to me now that used to bother me. A while back I was at Barnes and Noble poaching the magazines. A lady sitting near me was smacking her gum. I went on an over processing expedition...things like:

-Is she intentionally doing that to bother people or me specifically?
-Does she not care that it bothers people/me?
-Is she even aware she is a hideous monster that smacks her gum in public?
-Why does this piss me off so much???
-Does she do it at home?
-Does her husband get irritated too?
-Does she have a husband?
-If not, I know why...she smacks her damn gum
-Nobody else seems to be giving her the stink eye but me
-Why are the Model Train magazines by the fly fishing stuff and not the train stuff
-Who the hell decides where to put magazines anyway?
-Is it a corporate thing?
-Is there a map or a plan/schedule to this or is it random?

This kept going on and on until I realized....of course this silly repetitive noise is bothering you...HFA dumbass. And like that, the noise was no longer an issue.
 
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