Thank you thank you thank you!

My son has autism, very high functioning (well, not until after 6 months of being GFCF, but still). To the point that although 4 respected medical professionals gave him the diagnosis, his TEACHERS thought it was *purely* behavioral. I told them, time and again… this is SENSORY. I mean, he could not stay on track at school. He was in a rage 95% or more of the day, and that is not hyperbole. At home, he was fine. I told them…. he is not trying to be defiant. (My son is actually VERY compliant, more so than the average kid, when he’s not “overloaded” (that is what he calls it). Once he has ‘overloaded’ he cannot be brought back down, no matter what you do. He just needs to be shut in his room (I know how mean this sounds, but honestly, we’ve tried EVERYTHING) until he calms down. It is because there is no stimulus in his room.

Anyway, the school said he’s fine with loud noises. I said… I know! It’s not the volume. It’s *how many* noises. They don’t have to be loud. Can be how many people in the room are breathing, scratching their pencils on paper, erasing, whispering, teacher talking, etc. His rage in school was so bad that he got suspended once for destroying a classroom. Talk about mortifying. And then, he started doing it on purpose trying to get sent home, because the class was “too much noise! it’s hurting my ears!”

They tried headphones, but I tried those headphones, and it only lessens the volume, doesn’t stop it. And like I’d told them, it wasn’t about volume. He was NOT learning in school. Soon, the behaviors were spilling over to his home life, and he was having night terrors and headaches. I was in school DAILY. It just wasn’t working.

Finally, the school moved him to an autistic cluster. It took a real fight to get them to do it, which was strange. The way he was acting, I’d have thought they’d be happy to be rid of him. I think they only did it because I was *adamant* about it. I said I would call everyone under the sun until they figured out what all the medical professionals had had no trouble seeing.

The DAY they moved him to an autistic cluster, his behaviors decreased 90% in school. I KNOW it’s because of a few things, but mainly
1) Smaller class size, less noise.
2) “cubicle” desks. There weren’t a million visual stimulants in the room (he doesn’t do well with that either).

The thing the old school had trouble with was that he was “fine” usually during the first half of the day (at first). I tried explaining to them… It’s like putting a tight rubber band on your wrist. It’s fine at first. It bothers you, but you can cope. But after a while, it starts to hurt more and more, until you’re just irritable. That is how it is with my son. They thought he had no coping skills. He does. The problem is that once he can’t take anymore, he doesn’t know how to act, and so he has not self control at that point.

It’s something we still struggle with. And to be honest, the hardest part sometimes is people who don’t understand. We have two other kids, 1 typical and 1 who I think is affected by my oldest son’s autism. I kept telling the school, this is NOT a typical kid who just has behavioral issues. (Besides, he didn’t talking until after age 4, he had lots of stimming behaviors and potty training problems before he went GFCF, and he has articulation problems still, sequencing problems in general, and regressions in his learning.)

If the school had their way, they would have diagnosed him with 10 different things, instead of just calling it for what it was: Autism.

They also thought that because they know 1 autistic kid without rage, that rage wasn’t an autism issue. All kids are different, autism or not. Sometimes, to be honest, i think it’s harder having a kid who is high functioning. People think they are “just bad”, and parents with autistic kids don’t always accept you either because your kid can talk so they don’t think your kid is really autistic either. There’s a lot more to it than whether your kid can talk or hold a conversation or be “trained” to be social (and to this day, my son has social issues–either he avoids, or he is TOO friendly with total strangers).

Sorry my reply is longer than your article. I just can’t thank you enough because this spoke to my heart. Opinion or not, it’s something I see with my own son and have for a long time, and it’s nice to find someone else who can speak about this who KNOWS.