I have a 13 year old son who was just diagnosed within the last year and we are having a problem with forgetting learned behaviors. Such as reading and daily routines. Within the last year he has adapted to a stricter schedule and has appeared to adjust very well. And then all of a sudden with in the last month it seems we have started all over again. He seems to not remember what he needs to do every day and the reading has gone from a 3rd grade level to a 2nd grade level. Is this an expected thing for someone with HFA?? Does the diet affect this behavior as durring the summer he was on a strict non-dairy diet, and since returning to schoold it cannot be as monitored as it was at home? He could be getting dairy products. Which seem to affect his behavior in other ways. Could this be something related to his age (puberty) or possibly is this symptomatic for this disorder. I would greatly appriciated any help or advice on this subject.
If this was me or my son I'd put it down to stress.
Is stress a possible factor for your son?
my son becomes more forgetful if he is stressed and if he is forgetful it increases his stress as he is so fustrated with himself. Has there or is there to be any changes in his life? My son will become very stressed about change of any sort. Changes seem to be an added burden of worry for him.
I have not seen any major changes in the last month. I would have expected this more in September when school was beginning. He has not mentioned any added stress at school. But he has had a little more freedom in his after school activities. We try to keep to a set schedule. Although his teachers state that he is doing much better in all classes. He is still very disorganized he always forgets pencils, notebooks, back packs, and coats.
He's probably got deficits in his short term memory, a thing very common to Aspies.
Is there any things that can help with this deficit? Is he needing maybe a boost in a certain vitimin or is there an exc ersize that we could do to improve the memory??
I'm not sure as it's more of a brain feature ie. his brain will be wired differently to most and be more suited to long term memory storage.
Sometimes it's a retrieval problem rather than a storage problem.
Getting nervous and stressed makes it all that much harder to retrieve recent memories. Simplifying his routines as much as possible could help as the more things to remember the more likely something will be forgotten. Writing lists of things to do and crossing them off as they are done can be helpful with short term memory issues.