...8 (in days gone by)...

 In Days Gone By:
27.September.2018

In the "further tales from an autism home" category, we've been on tenterhooks for the last week or so regarding some recent grades that showed up in the online student portal for J. At the time, he was surprised/disappointed/confused by a few of them...all low, all from the same day.

And so was I.

After all, this is my straight A scholar. My "can't get it wrong even if he tries" wonder-kid.

And yes, the stakes are high this year...this first, freshman year of high school. The stakes are high and the pressure is on. All honors classes. All honors teachers.

(Honors teachers who are known, quite often, for non-compliance regarding IEPs-for declaring the adaptations and accommodations won't be adhered to because...Honors! ***bang head here***)

So here we are. High stakes. High pressure. Low grades

Confused Mami, confused student.

Emailed inquiries got us nowhere. Voicemail inquiries, ditto.

Until...today...when one of those graded assignments was finally handed back to him in class and he saw "the answers I had written weren't the ones I had thought".

Errrrrr??? Huh??? Say what now?

Just to put a framework on this, this news was delivered to me as we walked back up the driveway this afternoon, me heavy-laden with his bookbag and lunch bag and....yeah, you get the picture...huffing, puffing, and trying to keep him from walking directly into a tree.

(Oh, did I forget that part? Yeah...trees...and sensory overload. Great match at the end of a long, hard day when the boy has been doing his damndest to self-regulate all day, masking his true self and passing for neuro-typical. We've a long history with this long, steep, tree-lined driveway and end-of-school day collisions.)

Now, where was I? Watch out....twig there! Up and over and....school...grade...answers??? "What do you mean?"

J-"Well, the writing was mine, but the answers were different than what I thought I wrote...what was in my head never made it to the page."

?!?!?!?

J-"But, I figured it out Mami. That was the day I forgot to take my Rescue Remedy."

!!!!!!!!!

And just like that, it all makes sense. On the day when the protocol was not in place, his intellect was there but his function wasn't. On the day when he didn't have a para to provide the reminders, he didn't remember. On the day when there was no accommodation, he couldn't participate.

The grades are there. They can't be erased or replaced. He can't get a "do over" for that day. These are the high stakes/high pressure/high school realities.

But at least, today, we're relieved to know the answer.