<p>my d has inattentive ADD and has typically rejected using any accommodations, as she felt it was “cheating” to have any extra anything. However, she has realized in college she may occasionally need to ask for additional time in getting a paper in, (her classes have had heavy writing demands). She had some challenges first semester and now recognizes it is in her best interests to use accommodations when she needs them in order to manage stress and time. We had set this up once she had registered for her first semester classes, but she needed my assistance in re-connecting with the office of disabilities in order to actually use them…and have the need communicated to her professors. She sees now how this can help her overall happiness, as she knows she can seek support, not get inundated…</p>
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<p>OMG. S1 would say exactly that. S2 would say I’m his executive function, too. In our house, the ADD-inattentive looks a little Aspie for one, in the other, it’s clearly exec function with visual/motor integration and fine motor issues. Both had informal accommodations until HS. </p>
<p>Missypie, it must have been such a relief to talk to someone who GETS IT. Sounds like you have some good recommendations to begin with and that S is receptive. We know folks who have had kids at Landmark College and Curry College and have spoken highly of them. Both specialize in ADHD/Asperger’s students and offer significant supports to help them thrive, including independent living skills.</p>
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<p>Fine motor issues and visual/motor integration are also hallmarks of Aspergers.</p>
<p>As nice as it felt to talk to someone who gets it, I am starting to feel really guilty that I didn’t have that conversation with anyone two years ago. I would have been interviewing every college (like Shawbridge actually did, I guess), asking for commitments/ability to provide X, Y and Z.</p>
<p>I keep wishing someone had told me how unlikely it was that he’d succeed at a four year college away from home without extensive intervention. But I guess we’re “rogue data”, too. Lots of the kids aren’t college bound and some have community college as a goal. I don’t think there’s anyone in our high school who even knows the issues.</p>
<p>Now there will no more merit aid options, so we’ve got to be able to pay out of pocket for whatever options we pursue. (I looked up Landmark College and this year it’s $54,000. Not gonna happen.)</p>
<p>I do have to admit that I’m also ticked at the lady in the disabilities office. She has told me through email and to my face, repeatedly for almost a year that she’ll help Son get whatever accomodations he needs. So when I finally asked about getting some today, she said would would need a current assessment recommending the specific accomodations. That process, of course, will take a month +. Why did she never say that although she has documentation of the disablity, she would need additional paperwork if we actually wanted something?</p>
<p>Missypie have you heard of the SALT program at U of Arizona? I know that it helps kids with LD issues am not sure if Aspergers is under their domain or not but it is a school within the school and may bear a look.</p>
<p>[The</a> University of Arizona, SALT Center](<a href=“http://www.salt.arizona.edu/]The”>http://www.salt.arizona.edu/)</p>
<p>OOS tuition at U of A is comparatively inexpensive but why would he have to forgo merit money? Can’t he just apply as an incoming freshman with his brilliant high school stats? </p>
<p>I don’t know how it works but since he has so many AP credits wouldn’t it be worth it to expunge or ignore any classes completed at current school so as to not have to count his collegiate academic record? Like I said, I am clueless on this and just musing but I would think that unless you are asking for credits you wouldn’t have to let the new school know anything about the old. Therefore your S’s stellar hs record would be the only one that would count. Just a thought</p>
<p>I don’t think you can just pretend you didn’t attend a school. I know a guy who registered his kid for a full semeseter of classes at the local CC when the kid was out of the country. The kid stayed out of the country another semester but no one remembered to drop the classes so the kid had a semester with all Fs and he couldn’t get admitted anywhere else.</p>
<p>Colleges ask, on their applications, for transcripts from every college attended. Pretending that a student didn’t attend a college when he actually did sounds like a bad idea. I’m not in favor of lying even if one can get away with it.</p>
<p>missypie, is this the same person from the Disabilities Office that you met with after first semester? On what planet is she living?!?!?!</p>
<p>Don’t beat yourself up. You made the best decisions you could with the info you had. With your S’s HS record, you had good reason to believe that he could manage things with the help his college said they could provide.</p>
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<p>Yep. Emailed back and forth before the decision was made on the school. Emailed back and forth over the summer. Met in person on move in day. Met in person in January. It was always “whatever you need.” Until we need something.</p>
<p>Missypie wrote:
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<p>That doesn’t do any good if colleges don’t accurately describe what services they are prepared to provide for disabled students.</p>
<p>Yes, the interview versus the bureaucratic reality are two completely different things, even when a school is really up front at the outset, which I must admit, University of Michigan was. (A high level LD office person made clear that their interpretation of what warrants supports is stringent, requires in-depth current documentation, and is very carefully doled out…and that navigating all the services could be complex.) </p>
<p>BTW, Cardinal Fang, I am also beginning to suspect a correlation between Inattentive type and Aspies (teachers used to always peg McSon as aspie due to precocious vocabulary, for example). From what I’ve read the last few days, the executive dysfunction/working memory element seems to have a high degree of hereditability and is related to two specific genes, one of which “builds dopamine pumps” so fast that there is not enough free dopamine available (as it’s all being cleared by these genetically inspired ‘fast’ pumps). The inattentive type, according (I think) to a UBC researcher named Adele Diamond, may arise in a different PART of the prefrontal cortex (called the striada, I think, but could be wrong b/c now I can’t find that paper!). I’ve seen that referred to with respect to Aspergers as well. </p>
<p>Clearly, my own working memory isn’t working for me at the moment. If I find coherent notes on this somewhere, I’ll post em. But I def. agree there seems to be overlap, and I suspect that overlap is connected to those genes and the dopamine system in the prefrontal cortex. Or perhaps diagnostic nuances that are awaiting future definition.
(And if this is true, this would also explain the anecdotal incidence of marijuana reportedly improving focus in ADD/Aspergers, as it, like chocolate, nicotine and coffee, increases the levels of free dopamine in the brain. Can you imagine the debate if someone ever finances a definitive study?: eg Do we give our kids speed or pot to improve their academic performance 
All jesting aside, it’s interesting territory.</p>
<p>I have read (somewhere, I forget where) that parents who are diagnosed with ADD are likely to have children who are diagnosed with Aspergers, further suggesting a genetic link.</p>
<p>Edit: I meant to say that ADD parents are <em>more likely</em> to have Aspie kids than other parents. But I’m pretty sure that most kids of ADD parents are not Aspies.</p>
<p>I don’t know about the pot - lots of Aspies have reported that it can induce or enhance paranoia that can take weeks to clear.</p>
<p>all I can say is you guys are amazing parents. and Lindz so glad you are back.</p>
<p>Just spent the past half hour talking D off the ceiling. She has never gotten over test anxiety. I mean, for heaven’s sake, how much does she have to study?? She feels like she has a good handle on the material but “that’s when I always do the worst, Mom!”<br>
This has no basis in fact, it’s just the only way she can perceive it right now…
This particular midterm is 7:30 tomorrow evening. Regular class time is at 11AM. I wonder how those kids who pull all-nighters make out with an evening test time.</p>
<p>Have you checked Adele Diamond’s website? She’s very smart and I think is the person who made the first links between developmental psychology and neuroscience.</p>
<p>lindz</p>
<h1>theoryson has also refused accommodations.</h1>
<p>I can’t figure out how to make him see these as something like a hearing aid for the hard of hearing, but I am afraid he will need to have another bad semester (which of course I don’t want to happen) before he understands he should take them</p>
<p>Sorry, I really wasn’t advocating lying but see that it sure looked like I was. </p>
<p>I just think though that this is not the same thing as if MP’s kid had gone off and drunk himself into oblivion and lost his merit. It may be worth a phone conversation to the admissions offices at schools you/he may be looking at. If a school is particularly sensitive to the needs of the Aspie student, or claims to be, it seems that they would bend perhaps. What if Missy son were deaf and had been assured an ASL interpreter who couldn’t do the job? It’s the same. He was given a peer mentor who wasn’t competent to meet his needs so his academic record shouldn’t be compared to the general pool of transfer students.</p>
<p>Again, I don’t know how these things work but it’s all sort of uncharted territory isn’t it?</p>
<p>D2 called tonight and told us that her left hand has turned blue and should she go to the health center. WHAAAAAT?!! She said that it has happened once before. WHAAAAT?!! She thinks it is due to stress–both times she was under the gun to finish a lab report or study for a final. Last time, she went to sleep and the hand was normal the next morning.</p>
<p>We did NOT get such phone calls from D1 when she went to college…</p>
<p>^^^^^^
yikes</p>