Aspies For Freedom

My son has Asperger's syndrome and will be going to high school next year. This is the first year that he's been in all regular education classes and he is doing terribly. He's getting mostly F's so far, and it's breaking his heart. The frustrating thing is, he is very bright and reads college level books for fun, like "A Brief History of Time", but the school is not doing a great job of working with him so far. For instance, he has a problem with taking notes because he writes very slowly and wants to get everything perfect, so if he makes a single mistake he stops, erases it, very carefully rewrites it...and by then everybody's moved on and he doesn't have the notes that he needs.
Anyway...I am in central Florida, but I am willing to relocate this coming summer if I can find a high school that is accomodating to Asperger's students. I find that Asperger's kids generally get along best with each other, they're not mean and bullying, they understand each other's quirks, etc. etc. Does anyone know of a high school in Florida with a class for Asperger's students, or that works well with Asperger's students? Or if not, maybe Raleigh/Durham area? I know California's Bay Area is supposed to have great services for these kids, but everyone I know lives on the east coast and I can't really afford the Bay Area.
Any tips would be appreciated!

As for the notes I was the same. I have terrible handwriting that is so slow and even in rough drafts I will stop and rewrite words if I forgot to capitalise a letter or insignificant things like that. I learned because one day my mother gave me a whole lesson on writing in a form that isn't exactly short hand but just where you write a little key of acronyms for the themes and then you don't have to continually write the theme and then you just leave out the words that are not needed for a sentence to make sense. If you just teach him how to do that it might help him and he might realise that whilst perfection is good, in its own way this short way of writing is perfection because you are able to write down as much as possible in the minimal time and effort.

Thank you! I am working with him on the notes.  He's really going to need that skill as he goes through high school and college.

Bay area? Good education? HA!

Really? Darn. I'd heard otherwise. I also assumed that any area with a high population of technogeeks would have good resources for Asperger's. My son's father is a computer software engineer and I think he has a lot of Asperger's tendencies.

However, I haven't ever had experience with the school system there, so I don't know firsthand.

My high school education was fairly decent. I went to a small private school, though.

As for notes, if that is still a problem, then ask if he can type them. If you happen to have a laptop he could use, then that'd be great. But of course for the most of high school students who don't have this, then ask if the school has anything like an AlphaSmart. It's basically a portable word processor, and I think it only costs 100-200 dollars (which is a lot, but still less than a laptop).

My school provides me with an AlphaSmart so I write my notes on there. By using cords then it can transfer the files directly to a printer or to a word-processing program on a computer. They have fancier new versions that can access the Internet and other applications besides basic word processing with spell check, but I think this is a lot more expensive.

We live in the San Francisco Bay Area and the school my son goes to has been excellent for him.  This is a large place, however, with probably over a hundred school districts, and even more schools, so I am sure it varies.  Honestly, we've gotten such good services and understanding.  As a generalization, I think the area is pretty well tuned in on Aspergers.  BUT, that isn't going to be universal.

As a teen with AS I recomend that you look into either a magnet school or a private school for your son.Not Only are public schools large and intimidating, qualities that often upset or annoy Aspies,they lack a certin motivating flame that most aspies need to develop on our academic and social abilities.

yes that uis true but not all public schools are that bad

I made  thread about the school I go to.
http://www.aspiesforfreedom.com/showthre...?tid=10747

and here is the schools actual website
http://www.romsey.hants.sch.uk/

and the aspergers unit in it
http://www.romsey.hants.sch.uk/~asd/index.html
(the above needs updating! )

well, in Cardiff there is a school especially for the disable, called Kings Monkton, but i WOULD NOT recommend it. i was not happy at all in year 7 there, and spent alot of time in the library, because i was given a special pass that let me on the computers in there.

I have no idea as to high schools in the US.

However, I have a lot of sympathy with the difficulty of keeping up in class. Sonic and White_Shadow_Ninja will be entering year 10 after the summer holidays so I am planning to teach them some short hand during January to help with note-taking.

Good idea. I also wonder if it's possible to tape some of the classes as people do in university with those tape recorders that take mini tapes? Shorthand seems to be a bit of a lost art these days. It's also important to be able to get the gist of what the teacher is saying so that it doesn't have to be written down word for word but that can be hard at times.

While im not saying the American education system is better or worse than the one in the UK, our  public school systems in urban environments are unfriendly to Aspies and Nuro diversity.

I go to a charter school for the arts (I'm in the creative writing program). The social atmosphere among peers is far better than at the home high school, or any high school I know of, and the special services are pretty good as far as accomodations, but you need to have either yourself or a parent to effectively state what is needed. We don't have special ed. classes per se, but we do have "Academic Lab" blocks, where students can spend that time practicing skills, doing homework, and getting help one-on-one. They do require a minimum 2.0 to enter, though, and to maintain a 2.0 throughout.