Strange, brilliant square peg applying for COLLEGE!!!!

Parents Forum
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<p>It might be that if he graduates from the CC with an associate’s degree, he will receive automatic admission/articulation to a number of the public schools in your state. Check out the policies. </p>

<p>You might consider Muskingum. Our GC’s recommend the PLUS program there for students with learning differences. I have known two students who have gone there; one is still there and the other has successfully graduated and really matured. [Muskingum</a> College: Center for Advancement of Learning](<a href=“http://www.muskingum.edu/home/cal/plus.html]Muskingum”>http://www.muskingum.edu/home/cal/plus.html)</p>

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<p>I think you’ve gotten great advice in this thread and would add that you may want to consider the college’s career services office when making a decision. While your son may do very well at the right college, from your description (…“avoids in person social interaction, overly literal, a creature of rigid routine, marches to his own drummer, intolerant of fools”…) I would imagine that he would benefit from a lot of coaching on resumes, interviewing, etc. in order to be hired for jobs and internships. A college that can help prepare him to be self-sufficient after graduation would be invaluable.</p>

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<p>oh, also probably a place that can guarantee a single. Forgive me if I’ve read too much into your description, but it sounds like having a roommate could be very anxiety-producing for him (and maybe not that fun for whoever else is assigned to the room).</p>

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<p>A single would be the right thing for a student who doesn’t tolerate goofiness well. Odds are good that any assigned roommate will do a few dumb things that will really annoy the OP’s son.</p>

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<p>I think that this thread brings up such an interesting question about whether it is better to “mainstream” kids like this and try to confront them with the “real world”, or whether it is better to put them into a situation that is tailored to their needs. This is still an unresolved question, as far as I can tell. The OP chose not to “mainstream” her son from sixth grade until now, and is confronted with the idea of him facing the “real world”. Which approach prepares students more appropriately for independence as adults? This discussion about the roommate is just a piece of this…but is it better for him to have a roommate to learn how to deal with this, or is it better to protect him from being annoyed and have this annoyance get in the way of the college experience, as MidwestMom has pointed out will undoubtedly happen?
I don’t have the answer, but I am just opening up the question.
I do think, however, that the OP’s son is so high-functioning that he can learn many of the social skills that he has not yet acquired. This will help him in life much more than anything else.</p>

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<p>Thanks so much everyone, but I wanted to specifically reply to tsdad. I am quite the special ed testing and iep expert…but most of that is in the past. He was pretty much kicked out of our school district’s gt/ld program for middle school (they placed him in ED, which is when we left the school district, not having the stomach for a hearing and appeal.) We put him in a special ed private school for kids with language based learning disabilities, and he was bored to tears, and eventually expelled for kicking the headmaster (I hope no one hears this, but frankly he deserved it for picking up and carrying my 6th grader tiny son.)</p>

<p>What has worked best for him is letting him be his own strange brilliant funny sweet annoying self, in a very small not special ed school where he learns at his own pace, his actions have consequences but there are no power struggles, and he can manage his anxiety. He gets his meds from his shrink whom I mostly visit, and talking therapy not so much since he hates to talk. I simply cannot imagine him walking into a special ed office on a campus and discussing an accommodation. It is not a matter of teaching him self advocacy skills, he would rather make another choice in life. </p>

<p>He has a long logical explanation for why books are evil, but he CHOSE Nabokov’s Lolita and Atwood’s Year of the Flood as some of his independent reading books. he says he is lazy but he built 2 computers from parts this year and taught himself some basic reading and speaking Japanese – as much as my college son learned in 6 credits I think. And he started Calculus in mid 10th grade and does ALL the work. In fact, he does all the work in everything, unless he thinks the assignment is stupid, ambiguous or he really can’t think of what to write.</p>

<p>He took the PSAT’s last week (I had no idea, found this out last night) and he said they were easy and he finished in plenty of time… so even with slow processing he is likely to be fine for the SAT’s… I can’t see doing the whole testing thing over to get more time to raise his score if he says he refuses to write a college essay! On his 10th grade psat he did well enough that I’m not terribly worried.</p>

<p>The single versus double is NOT an option for him… he has made that crystal clear. </p>

<p>I’m pretty chilled out now though… it turns out I have a pretty super community college in my county, and it does indeed have a guaranteed route to our flagship state school, and a decent entre to 4 year math, engineering, computer science (including gaming) programs. So that’s my stand-by, default, back up plan… he can live at home and do CC, and he can live at home and do the flagship state school (or get an apt). </p>

<p>Of course if he decides to write an essay, well then the world opens up a bit more to him.
And still, it is only October junior year.</p>

<p>Thank you thank you thank you.</p>

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<p>Wow- I learn so much about education from CC. I need to comment on the social issues. A student does not need to have all of the problems described by posters on this thread to be behind socially. There are plenty of us who have no learning disabilities but do not follow the average pace for dating, marriage, et al. The pattern of late/less social development seems to continue through the generations- probably because we meet and marry our peers. Unless there are huge/noticeable problems with social interactions I would not worry about that.</p>

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<p>silversas–</p>

<p>I just wanted to say I love your attitude about your son. With that kind of “support” and understanding in his life, he’s going to be just fine when it all “kicks” in, which it will. Good luck to you guys. I’m sure it’ll be like everything else in life…for everyone. :)</p>

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<p>wis75, I am not talking about not following average pace for dating and marriage - that pace has changed quite a bit from our day anyhow! The OP has a son who was going to be placed in a class for emotionally disturbed children. Rather than do that, the OP sent him to a private school, where he kicked the headmaster in 6th grade after the headmaster picked him up. We do not know why the headmaster picked him up. The OP then sent him to a tiny alternative school. I think that the OP is extremely wise to consider a community college. However, I think that the OP needs to look into the future for him…and it sounds like the OP IS noticing problems with social interactions, but has avoided “labeling” him with formal diagnoses. I would strongly urge the OP to consider the social aspects of how this young man is going to make it on his own someday and try to do something about it. I am not convinced that it will just “kick in” by itself…there have been indicators from way back that this is just not a typically developing young man. I just hate to see a young person at risk because normal developmental tasks have not been resolved.</p>

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<p>levirm, it was a little more complicated than that (public school wanting to put Mr. Q in ED program, we put him in private school where he kicked headmaster! (for one, the timing was actually reversed))
Mr. Q has always been a complicated case, and again I say best to conceptualize him as very very high functioning autism spectrum. There are many autistic children who will kick or hit if physicaly handled, which is what happened. His oppositional and defiant behavior warranting the ED placement was his “refusing” to do the open ended questions on exams (despite word retrieval in the 1st percentile), refusal to follow the principal to her office, refusal to come out from under the desk (all complete anxiety shut down after being asked to do language tasks he was incapable of doing). Oh the other hand, he was in the 99.99th percentile in math on untimed taskes, so the put him in a highly gifted math class, with 36 kids sitting in straight rows, and he has adhad, sensory and processing issues, and when he got distracted, missed something or frustrated he would quietly shut down, and this was disobedience because it is “against the rules” to put your head on the desk and he was “disobeying” instructions to “pay attention and do his work.” So he was sent back to his gt/ld class for math where he was bored to tears, in distress, and couldn’t express himself, and where the interventions they were doing for typical learning disabilities were not overly helpful to him and despite our private testing, educational consultants and even well written IEP they insisted on sending him to the principal’s office every time he “refused” to do work (always writing or speaking, always open ended). We moved him to private school that year (where he kicked) because he was getting so depressed, but wanted to move him back to public school for middle school because we believe in inclusion, mainstreaming, the real world etc.
That’s when the public system decided the ED program with rewards, punishments and “levels” would be the right placement for him… but they had no plan for how to teach him algebra as he was ready for it, and we knew that there was no punishment/reward system in the world that could help him AT THAT POINT write a full page to “give your opinion of the X” if he could do it in one sentence: I liked it. or, I did not like it. (Because: I answered their question.)
(Famous moment in our house:
Mr Big Brother (with great annoyance): Mr. Q takes everything literally!
Mr. Q (after thinking and calculating): Not everything.)
So the private school he wound up in is the education we wish the public school could have provided – where they built up trust, and figured out what they wanted to teach him first (are we teaching paragraph writing, in which case we can ask a better question, Please write a paragraph, with a topic and concluding sentence, that includes your opinion of X, three supporting facts and how the theory of Y that we studied helps you interpret those facts OR are we teaching how to use social understanding to figure out what teachers mean when they ask for your opinion in a one page answer? </p>

<p>Meanwhile, his language weaknesses became less important as he grew up a bit, because having some language skills of a 3 year old when you are 9 is awful, but it is survivable to have the language skills of a 12 year old when you are 16. And it’s only part of his language abilities… his vocabulary is way above average (though I don’t know how, he doesn’t read!), even his reading comprehension is above average just that it is far enough below where his IQ and other high skills are to show the effect of the deficits. Lowest are verbal and working memory, word retrieval, auditory processing, and other things having to do with producing spoken and written language. Which is why the schools thought he was just non-compliant… smart kid “refusing” to produce.</p>

<p>He can argue about the precise meaning of the terms metaphor, idiom, colloquialism, slang, simile and aphorism. As he did the other night. (He is 16, I am thus at my maximum age of stupidness). But he has difficulty using and understanding these concepts – yet can do abstract math … </p>

<p>Thanks for letting me talk about him. It helps me better understand him when I have to describe him. </p>

<p>Sorry for it being such a teal deer. (Do you use that here? TL/DR too long/difficult read)</p>

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<p>Kudos to you, silverseas, for everything that you have done…and for expressing yourself…and please address the social concerns which are MORE IMPORTANT than the academic ones in regard to how your son will do in life!</p>