Autism Forum - Teacher's Worst Nightmare.

...seriously. I do need to learn to bite my lip. My son is in speech therapy and the speech therapy assistant is not working on his IEP goals. She is concentrating more on language goals and today they worked on prepositions. There is another child that works with him and he may have language goals in addition to speech (articulation) goals. They were working on prepositions (i.e., up, under, over...). Nathan knows those as indicated by several tests. The other kid did not - he is younger. She misunderstood what Nate said and quickly answered him. Another time he was correct. She then put the game away and told the other parent that the exercise was too advanced for "them" and went on to the most basic of sorting, which Nate was able to do two years ago. When she said it was too advanced, I stated that Nathan does know his prepositions. I have worked with him on those since he was 18 months old. I am a school psychologist for goodness sakes...I am hyperanal about that stuff. I have a degree in speech and hearing sciences (speech pathology and audiology) as well. So, when she looked at me and shook her head as if I didn't know what I was talking about I basically almost flipped. It was everything I could do to just stay quite.. I am not one to say my kid knows stuff that he doesn't. I am little more analytical then that. I really tried to let it go. I don't think this woman likes me. She really seems nice and I really just let her go about her job and usually sit there quietly although I don't agree with how she conducts her speech therapy.

Preschool is another issue. The stuff they do in there is a repetition of what he has been doing for at least a year. He knows his shapes, colors, alphabet, sounds, and can almost count to a hundred. His difficulty is social norms (autistic spectrum). So, here I am. He will be going into kindergarten next year as one of the youngest kids and he is not ready socially. Holding him back may not make a difference for him because it's more of a "disability" problem and not necessarily maturity. If I hold him back, he will be that much more ahead. He is starting to read a little.

I found out today, I have some pride issues with my sons intellectual level and if anyone insinuates that my son doesn't know what I feel is a basic concept (that is average or above average for his age level), then I just start steaming. I honestly never knew I was this bad until today.

I fear I am going to be every teachers worst nightmare. If I find out they are working on letters of the alphabet or alphabet sounds, I will not be happy. I just need to let it go knowing that it is just part of the kindergarten curriculum and Nathan may be more advanced in academics then the average child. He is just so weak in the social norms and attention. He is on the lower end of the Autism Spectrum - most likely Aspergers but it remains to be seen.

So...how do I let it go?? How do I just deal with the fact that school may be working on concepts that are just too easy for him and let it be? I am not a gifted person so I don't understand. I just feel so bad for the future teacher unless I can "get a grip and chill!"