To punish or not punish for academic issues

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I realized this past year that my son struggles in mathematics not because he's "bad at it" as he thinks, but because he has a real conceptual understanding of math and no ability to express or understand expressions of it. We think of math as being unrelated to language, but in reality it's highly language-based.

It makes sense that he'd have trouble with probability because they just don't think that way. For them it's more black and white.

My son is a GREAT student (he's a Sophomore in HS). BUT last year he couldn't manage to get anything higher than a C in Environmental Science. He HATED the class and turns out the teacher was a real hard ass and just difficult in general. So I told me son to just maintain a C and get through the course. This year he has biology and he's doing great.

On the flip side, he didn't do his History homework. When I asked why he said that the class was boring so he hated doing the work. I said TOUGH and took his iPhone away. Didn't miss another assignment.

What made the difference is talking to him. It's like pulling teeth to get info out of him but I keep at it until I have an answer (and not just him telling me what he thinks I want to hear). I just make sure I'm talking to him and not AT him which is hard for me. But just like he's had to learn to adjust in the areas he's lacking (like socializing), I've had to learn how to get through to a kid with Asperger's and when to punish an when to not. I have 2 other NT kids and it's VERY different. But they're all different really and we have to make adjustments accordingly. Oh and my son didn't want to do his English reading because he only likes to read Sci-Fi. UGH!! Well, I made him do it. No "I'm not doing it because I don't want to". That doesn't fly. But if a class is tough for him specifically, I'll be flexible.