I found out over the weekend that Spelling Bee champion Evan O'Dorney does indeed have Asperger's Syndrome, something I suspected but didn't want to mention unless I knew for sure.
On Friday, Evan appeared on CNN's American Morning. Keiran Chetry interviewed him, then gave him a word to spell. Only she mispronounced it, then couldn't give him the language of origin, then told him he was right when he wasn't (and the word was, of course, spelled out on the screen). It was a disaster. Why? Aside from the obvious reasons, Evan couldn't laugh along when Keiran got flustered, he just kept asking for the language of origin. He was a terrible interview.
Which returns to my point from the original point about home schooling. Kids with Asberger's are highly intelligent. Their academic excellence is inevitable. They need school for the social aspect as much as for the academics. Home schooling takes away that chance.
Put the Spelling Bee trophy on the shelf, put the money away for college and send Evan to a public high school. It'll do him good.
Sorry, it'll do him well. (see? public school worked for me...)
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2 comments:
Being bullied in schools does nothing to create social appropriateness in a child who has ASD. Many school systems don't even offer social skills classes, nor do many teachers really understand how to teach social skills in a developmentally appropriate manner.
That's the mistake most parents make...sending their kids to school and NOT taking responsibility for their kids between the hours of 9 am and 3 pm. During school hours, the kids are the school's responsibility, right? WRONG. It is up to the PARENTS to inform the school and create TEAM in CONJUNCTION with the school to ensure the sucess of the AS child. Having a child with AS is hard work (I KNOW) but that's the breaks...your duties as a parent don't end when your child walks into school.
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