My son M was diagnosed late in life with having autism. What has most amazed me on this perilous, uncomfortable journey has been how seeming experts aren't experts and how we had to figure out a diagnosis, present it, only to have it rejected and, then, accepted. Imagine a surprise birthday party where no one knows there will be a party and the only person who does is the birthday boy or girl. Gradually, people realize that it IS that person's birthday and only puts together the party as an after thought then, suddenly, expecting the person at the center of all this to act surprised when they knew it was coming all along.
M was diagnosed as a sophomore in high school. We had struggled with this for some time moving from "expert" to "expert" and turning to the school district teachers and staff asking for their help only to be told that M was just a quirky teenager. When he was correctly diagnosed there was a sigh of relief for us because teenage years are difficult enough and, if you throw in the autistic spectrum as part of the mix, it made a difficult situation at least understandable.
Only the people that came to the conclusion that M had autism didn't seem to understand the condition at all. The vice-principle Ms. R who interacted with our son supposedly had a background in special education and yet missed all the subtle clues, consistently miscommunicated and generally led M on a wild goose chase. When the school district failed to inform us on two separate occasions that our son had stated he was going to kill himself during sessions with a special education teacher and the vice-principle, we were shocked beyond belief. You see we found out about these threats weeks after they were made and they acted as if we knew things that we weren't privy to.
Children with autism fall under a wide spectrum of behaviors and one of these behaviors can be Asperger's something that was recognized by one school psychologist (who was promptly transferred to another school once she had developed a working relationship with our son undoing all the progress of a year's worth of work. I mention this because, you see, children with autism don't handle change particularly well and it can damage progress when change is introduced without regard to their particular condition).
M did very well the first six months but then, suddenly, a massive amount of change was thrown into his path and his progression ground to a halt and, in fact, we lost everything we had gained. First M developed a crush on a girl. That wouldn't be unusual except that M was exceedingly shy and those with Asperger's often also develop stalking behavior. That isn't all that unusual in many respects as it is an exaggeration of behavior many have when they develop a crush on someone. M approached me asking if giving someone money would be appropriate for a birthday and asked me to help him pick out a birthday card. Determining that he knew the person only vaguely, I picked a card that was appropriate and said money would be fine. When M developed the courage to give the girl his gift, he didn't expect anything in return but she did freak out since she didn't know him all that well. He started hanging out in the same area as her and she approached the vice principle expressing her concern over M. He didn't do anything unusual nor did except want to be near where she wanted to be.
The vice principle took M aside and explained (without our knowledge) that the girl was bothered by his behavior. She also promised to see if she could broker a meeting between the two so that M could at least get to know the girl but also so that she could express her concerns. She did so without ever asking the girl or her parents and, when she didn't deliver on this, it caused additional waves. M's behavior increasingly became erratic after this primarily because a school psychologist was assigned to observe M. As many will be aware, someone with this condition dislikes being followed around and observed as there is a heightened sense of paranoia.
From there things tumbled out of control as the Fairfield Unified School district bumbled around like a blind folded man in a room full of sharp objects-the problem was every time they ran into a sharp object they injured M psychologically. Bounding him around to four different schools over the course of a year; consistently not living up to or failing to document things asked for in M’s IDP.
The Fairfield Unified School district failed to report when M threatened to commit suicide multiple times (we found out about it weeks later and were never notified until it was mentioned in passing). The vice Principle Ms. R promised to do things for M related to school which she then failed to deliver on.
The net result was a student demoralized, depressed and facing an abyss. The level of incompetence Of the school district was astonishing and matched only by the tone deafness of people who reportedly had training on how to help special needs children.
The coda has good news but it took three long years to undo the damage of the school system. M went back and earned his high school degree. He rebuilt the self confidence shattered by an incompetent school system. He is on his way to self discovery but only after severe damage and torture at the hands of those who were there to help him. I am proud of M but I am horrified that it took a threatened lawsuit to accomplish much of what was necessary to rebuilt this damaged child.
