My son is 11 and will be entering 6th grade/middle school in August. His school experience up to now has been okay--no major problems with bullying or academics anyway. Making friends has been a weak point, but he does not seem too concerned about it, so I'm not pushing too hard. But I am very nervous about Middle School and how he will manage getting from class to class, adjusting to a different teacher for each class, possibly taking the bus to school and all the social hazards that could entail...
Not to mention the social nightmare that middle school seems to be for many kids, even those without social communicatopm difficulties.
Has anyone lived through the middle school experience yet? What did you face? discover? How has it been working for ya? (...and your child).

The transition can be hard, especially when the hormones kick in. Our son had a one-on-one aide, and was in mostly mainstreamed classes. He had a rough time in 6th grade, right at the beginning, and a really great year in 7th. We did have to adjust his meds in 6th, but once we changed over from Risperdal to Abilify, he got his sense of humor back and life really was better. He's 16 and going into 11th grade this year.

Middle school had it's ups and downs. My one son was in reg ed full inclusion but with the help of an aide. The hardest thing really was dealing with different teachers who had little to no experience in autism. We also had to get a behavioral plan in place. We now do school at home in a Virtual Public school.
Teresa

We just finished our first year of middle school. The beginning of the year was filled with promise and things went better than I could have ever imagined! The kids were so fantastic to my son it was amazing. I did however discover that my school was not really ready to deal with the challenges that raging hormones would bring for my son. Behavior problems arose and there was no plan to deal with anything. Changing classes my son thought was the greatest thing, He wants to much to be like everyone else and he told me he is a real teenager now.