I am the grandmother of an 8 yr old little girl with Aspergers. She was abused as a baby (11 months old and younger) by the other grandparents and possibly her dad and other family members on his side. She started showing signs there was something wrong at 2 years old. She is very intellegent and was able to put jigsaw (50 piece) puzzles together by age 4 without help.

She was evaluated in Missouri as Aspergers/autistic, but the school here labeled her as M.R. (Mentally Retarded). We tried to get her pre-K and kindergarten teacher to fill out observation papers for her to be properly diagnoised at the Knights Of Columbus, but the teacher just threw the papers in the trash. I believe this was because the principal or superintendent didn't want anything to do with the papers and didn't want the teacher to either.

She is in a regular class and struggling. She has been in speech therapy since the age of two and the speech therapist also noticed something different about her. (not allowing anyone to touch her hands, very focused and not aware of her surroundings when working on a task, walking off and not hearing when you call her name, if something is moved or missing from her room she panics until the item is found. She gets up in the middle of the night (2-3 am) to clean her room. She does not like change as well.

We need help in getting her diagnoised and living in the rural area where we live it is difficult to find a doctor to do this. My daughter (her mother) is a widow (7 years now) with 4 children and funds are limited to travel to the large cities for this. Maria is the only girl and is the only child to show these signs. We are very patient with Maria and try to stay on the level that she is at. But we are losing our patience with the school system. How can we get the school here to help us help her?