Expert: Paul Johnson - 1/8/2011

Question
My eight year old son has mild autism/Asperger's and is cyber schooled.  In the last month or so I have noticed an alarming regression in his academic skills.  He used to get 100% on all his spelling words, but lately he cannot even spell two of his words from his list without much difficulty - even after verbal and written practice.  His self-stimulation has increased a lot as well.  I do not understand. He is in second grade and was doing so well up to this point.  Our family has not experienced any trauma or changes lately.  The cyber school is resisting giving him academic testing. Is this a regression a sign of something more serious?

Answer
Hey Rebecca,

Thank you for your interesting questions.

I am not sure I fully understand the question, however I feel we are talking about the lack of physical contact that is designed in a cyber school arrangement.

I find it ironic  that we as a group struggle with social contact but here the lack of social contact makes matters worse for us. A parallel Aspie concern of many that I know is the movement in the human services world to have electronic contact and not have ones application and contact done in person.

We need a certain amount of human contact. I know it is counter intuitive but we are not as effective when we are allowed to create our own structure. I also believe his increase in self stimulation is a by product of the arrangement. He is setting his own structure which allows him to settle to a routine that is most familiar-not necessarily the most advantageous to him.

Yeah over all I do not view these correlations as a coincidence. I think they are related.
I do not view the cyber school as meeting his overall interest.