Children with Asperger syndrome taking GCSE and A Level exams at a young age

Every year there are several news reports of young children (below Y9) who have taken GCSE and A Level exams as private candidates but there are probably many more that are not given any publicity. Some are HE and others attend school. Do any of these children have AS or are they all NT because I can't ever say that AS has been mentioned in any of the articles I have read?

There definitely are some around according to information I have gathered over the years. The majority of kids with AS that take GCSEs as private candidate appear to be HE and very few are under 14 years old. I think that kids with AS who attend school and take GCSEs as private candidates are uncommon and there are only two such instances I am aware of. The first was a 13 year old with a GCSE in astronomy and the second was an 11 year old with a foreign language GCSE. Neither subjects were offered by the schools they attended.

I have not reached conclusion why there is a lack of interest in taking GCSEs and A Levels as private candidates within the AS community. The commonly held view of kids with AS is that they are clever so they should be prime material for taking GCSEs and A Levels early. There is certainly sufficient evidence gathered from another AS forum that I use and from meeting parents that GCSEs are important and they want their kids to get at least 5 good grades. However, almost nothing has been mentioned over on the forum about taking GCSEs and A Levels as a private candidate. One possible explanation is a lack of knowledge in the AS community about how to take GCSE and A Level exams as a private candidate. Another explanation is that social issues and problems at school resulting from AS overshadow any proposals to take GCSEs as private candidates even if the kids themselves want to take GCSEs. I also suspect that more parents are in favour of their kids getting the full NC rather than concentrating on their strong subjects.

My son took a maths IGCSE exam last year when he was 13 and is currently studying for A Level. He planned on taking an A Level in computing but decided against it as he was not impressed with the course. He is still on the look out for any computer related courses that interest him.



That's a commonly held view but it's some way off from the truth. I haven't encountered all that many children with AS who are highly talented in school subjects. More often than not their strengths are outside of the subjects schools teach rather than in school subjects. I suspect that many of the so called prodigies who take GCSEs and A Levels several years early are hot housed by their family as opposed to being naturally gifted. Something else to bear in mind is that the majority of children who take GCSEs several years early confine themselves to just a few subjects such as maths, music, foreign languages, ICT, and occasionally science. The numbers taking English or humanities subjects are very small judging from media coverage.



I raised a similar point over two years ago. I can understand the logic behind the social problems at school but I have difficulty understanding the mentality why so many parents place the NC before their children's talents and strengths.

An interesting finding. Something that merits investigation in more detail. It could reveal information about the development of the brain.

I certainly would have encouraged my son to take GCSEs as a private candidate when he was still of school age if I had known how to take them. He knew most of the maths GCSE at the time when he started secondary school and was several years ahead of the NC in science and ICT. The local HE movement was only in its infancy and didn't place exams high on its agenda when my son left secondary school. I enquired about exam centres that accepted private candidates but nobody knew of any.



I was informed at an AS meeting about a theory that all babies are born with AS and neurotypicality increases with age apart from a small fraction of people who later end up somewhere on the autistic spectrum. A neurotypical mind is required in order to succeed at subjects like English literature, humanities, and sociology. It is not required to succeed in logical and factual subjects like maths, science, and chess. This increasing neurotypicality with age explains why you find child prodigies in maths, science, and chess but rarely in English and humanities because the brain has not sufficiently developed to succeed in these subjects until one is a teenager.

Just found a report of an 8 year old with AS who got an A grade GCSE in ICT. No idea if he is HE though...

A directory of colleges and other institutions offering GCSEs and A Levels to private candidates is definitely needed for this website. If anybody knows of any then please inform us.

Politics could be another area. An example to illustrate this increased understanding with age resulting in a change of perception is the Dogtanian cartoon. The reason for using Dogtanian is that it's intended for an audience under 10 years old and it happens to be one of the most political cartoons ever produced. Most kids who watch Dogtanian see it as lots of swordfights between clearly defined goodies and baddies, with Dogtanian and his allies being the goodies, and Cardinal Richelieu and his henchmen being the baddies. In reality, the storyline centres around the complex politics of both France and England in an era of hostility between both countries where corruption and betrayal takes place amongst senior political figures. Anybody who manages a reasonable understanding of this political situation will realise that there really aren't clearly defined goodies and baddies - just political opponents and a few corrupt or traitorous individuals.

There is anecdotal evidence that history is a difficult school subject for kids with AS. I think it's unjustified to say that kids with AS are generally bad at history because I have encountered many who enjoy studying history and possess an in-depth knowledge of certain historical topics. Some are even members of historical societies. I am beginning to conclude that kids with AS tend to struggle with historical topics that are underpinned by complex politics but they have little difficulty understanding those which aren't.