Does anyone have children with Aspergers?

[punk-a-doodle]

Quote: Oh man, I hear you with different angles and hair. I'm getting better with identity recognition in real life...but I struggle so much with it still in movies. A typical movie night with my husband usually consists of me asking, "who is that?", "is this the same woman as in the last scene, or different?", "are we supposed to know who this guy is?". Spy movies are just the pits. A new disguise and hair style every five minutes.

Quote: Very well put, and a process I think many can relate to. I know that it was very freeing and empowering to me when the puzzle pieces started clicking into place that yes, I was different, yes, it has a pattern to it, and yes, it can be changed.

Quote: That's a really neat way to look at it...actually makes me think of some of my anthropology texts!



Quote: I think a lot of people can learn from that, in one form or another.

 

[zzGypsy]

Quote:

Oh man, I hear you with different angles and hair. I'm getting better with identity recognition in real life...but I struggle so much with it still in movies. A typical movie night with my husband usually consists of me asking, "who is that?", "is this the same woman as in the last scene, or different?", "are we supposed to know who this guy is?". Spy movies are just the pits. A new disguise and hair style every five minutes.

HA! my long lost sister!
I don't think I've heard anyone else describe that, and that is EXACTLY what our experience of the movies is like! in fact, it's how we figured out that I have an actual defect... we were watching Kingdom of Heaven and there are two characters in there that look the same to me, only in different colored costumes... when one of them was beheaded in a battle, and we find out he's dead by seeing his face in a pile of heads (so no uniform to draw on), I'm asking my hubby (for the 900th time) "wait, who is that they killed?" and he says "how come you can't remember who it is?" and I said "I can't TELL who it is..." <pause> LIGHTBULB!

we started comparing notes... I point out two people who I can't tell apart and ask my hubby if he thinks they look a like to him... if they didn't I'd try to define *why* they did to me... it's facial geometry. it's like I recognize faces as a mechanical object, not as a face. I can compare faces the way you'd compare two engine parts you're not familiar with... look at one then the other, back and forth to see if they match, or if they are different, turning them this way and that. that's what I have to do with faces... it's amazing to me when people remember me by face on very little contact. happened a couple of days ago, a guy I've seen twice in a year as a participant in two different evening seminars, and with whom I've had no personal conversations, recognized me... how do they DO that?

here's a strategy that helps me: in movies, I pay special attention to the voices and to the style and color scheme of dress. often directors have clearly defined themes for a character's costume so that's something I can use to help track who's who. sometimes, if the movie time frame is short, they're wearing the same thing throughout the movie and then I know them by their costume. in action movies, I can often recognize characters by body shape or by movement... I've taught dance for 30 years so I have a lot of practice looking at movement and that's a skill I can use in the movies.

Very well put, and a process I think many can relate to. I know that it was very freeing and empowering to me when the puzzle pieces started clicking into place that yes, I was different, yes, it has a pattern to it, and yes, it can be changed.

That's a really neat way to look at it...actually makes me think of some of my anthropology texts!

yeah I kind of feel like the missionaries who go off to live with the headhunter tribes in south america, or jane goodall living with the chimps... there are clearly things happening that the *group* understands and I just don't get. <sigh> keep watching, keep learning, keep observing, maybe it will become clear over time and I'll learn how to read and interact in their language.

I imagine it's sort of like what expatriots experience when they move to a foreign culture, except with fewer basic human communication tools built it. at any rate, there's no going "home", whereever that is, so I just make the best of it.

 

[zzGypsy]

ok, quoting myself here, because I just noticed something very Aspie in what I did... maybe this will be useful to those who are trying to understand their family's aspie behavior/thinking.

Quote:
and he says "how come you can't remember who it is?" and I said "I can't TELL who it is..." <pause> LIGHTBULB!

my response to my husband was based on his having used "rembember" and my objecting to that characterization of what was happening because it was INCORRECT. the function I was using wasn't memory, it was recognition. pointing out that fine detail was a major clue to what was wrong in my processing. however, the fact that I would CARE about that inaccuracy, and feel a need to FIX it, is straight up aspie.

we can slice things to the width of a gnat's butt and still not be happy that it's accurate enough. things are what they are and they are NOT something else. "aproximate" is a learned skill for us, and often generalizing is tough. and the apparent uber-litteral behavior can drive people nuts. thinking back, my mom said "you KNOW what I meant" in exasperation a LOT. actually, I can remember thinking "no, I know what you SAID. if you MEANT something else you should have SAID it."

one story she tells about me, calling it an example of my early intellegence, I think is actually an example of being aspergers. we were driving somewhere and I was perhaps 2 and she was trying to keep me occupied while she drove. she was pointing out things as we went along - look there are cows, there's a red truck, that truck's blue... there was a large moving van with a stylized lion emblem painted on the side and she said "look, there's a lion" and I, at 2 years old, said, "no, it's a picture of a lion."

welcome to the world of aspergers.

Things ARE what they ARE. that was definitely NOT a lion. it was a PICTURE.
the fact that it was a picture OF a lion is NOT AT ALL the same as it BEING a lion.
followed by a thought... "what is wrong with you, can't you tell the difference between a LION and a PICTURE?"
and probably accompanied by a facial expression that clearly communicated that she had done something wholely unfathomable.

THIS is what goes on in our brains.

me, Age 2, take two:
my mom calls this an example of my stubbornness, or maybe my creativity. I think it's classically aspie.
it's my birthday and my mom's made a cake for the party. I, being two, was not patiently waiting for it to be served. I was putting my finger in the icing and licking it off... because she had said "don't touch the cake"... and I wasn't touching the cake, I was touching the ICING.
so she said "keep your hands off".
and I climbed up on the table, knealt down, put my hands carefully behind my back, bent over and took a bite out of it.

perfectly Ok, because my hands were NOT involved.

we don't generalize well.

had she said "leave the cake alone" it probably would have worked just fine.
but she didn't SAY that, she said "hands off". which I did.

having COMPLIED with what we were told, we are CONFUSED why you're still MAD.
makes it tough to figure out the rules, and frustrating. it's like we're missing some secret decoder ring that we could use to figure out what you REALLY MEANT in spite of what you ACTUALLY SAID.

fortunately, generalizing is a learnable skill, and understanding that one needs to look behind the directive to understand and respond to the PURPOSE of that directive is also learnable.

once I understood those things, and had some skills there, it got to be kind of entertaining to be in my brain... funny things go on there.

 

[EweSheep]

Ah ha, moment! Thanks ZZ for your mom's birthday cake story!

I kept telling dd not to bother the hamster, do not touch the cage, blah blah blah. She still does it and says, well MOM, he loves me and wants me to hold him (he was sleeping!). Do not touch the cage, do not bother him! Well, a few minutes, dd goes right back to it......sigh!

We just found the hamster after six days missing. He was trapped in the Igloo container for who knows how long and it was a fat butterball when he escaped and now he is skinny. DD did not understand the meaning let him rest, let him sit in his cage for awhile to recover.... Nope, she is still at wanting to play with him.

So I moved him in our bedroom, which she knows it is off limits to her. No sooner I turned my back on her, there she was in the bedroom, taking the hamster out of the cage.....I told her to put the hamster back in the cage and please leave my bedroom. She was frustrated at that point that she can not play with him.

Suggestions?

 

[zzGypsy]

Ah ha, moment! Thanks ZZ for your mom's birthday cake story!

I kept telling dd not to bother the hamster, do not touch the cage, blah blah blah. She still does it and says, well MOM, he loves me and wants me to hold him (he was sleeping!). Do not touch the cage, do not bother him! Well, a few minutes, dd goes right back to it......sigh!

We just found the hamster after six days missing. He was trapped in the Igloo container for who knows how long and it was a fat butterball when he escaped and now he is skinny. DD did not understand the meaning let him rest, let him sit in his cage for awhile to recover.... Nope, she is still at wanting to play with him.

So I moved him in our bedroom, which she knows it is off limits to her. No sooner I turned my back on her, there she was in the bedroom, taking the hamster out of the cage.....I told her to put the hamster back in the cage and please leave my bedroom. She was frustrated at that point that she can not play with him.

Suggestions?

interesting problem... and to me it sounds more like the ADHD than the aspergers (which is the part I really understand best), but here are some thoughts, maybe one of them will fit.

BTW, my brother was what they called "hyperkinetic" at the time... the internal inpulse was MUCH stronger than the external perception - so if you sat him with his knees against a wall, and then described something that he desired on the other side of the wall, he'd stand up and go straight into the wall, even though he "knew" it was there - the impulse from the inside desire was just so much louder than the external perception of the wall that he effectively couldn't see the wall at all. stimulants helped him quite a bit (they increase the gain on the outside perceptions) as did taking him off sugar and artificial colors.

your daughter sounds a bit like that... what she DESIRES is just much much bigger than what has come in from the outside messages.

or it could be that she doesn't take your messages seriously, disregards them... lots of reasons that could be true, and that needs a hands-on observation from a skilled therapist to sort out.

anyway, here are a couple of thoughts from the aspie side of things:

1) can she explain WHY you don't want the hampster bothered? we reeeealy like knowing why, and it helps us guide our decisions. "because he's not feeloing well and needs some time to rest and get well." maybe sit and watch him together and discuss HOW you know he's not feeling well - sleeping a lot, too thin, etc. a REASON why helps, as do some observations to help make that reason more visible to us. we might not "see" those things until pointed out. "NO" - just because - is not rational and so we don't give it much credence.

2) maybe a WHEN - not just leave it alone, not just NO, but leave it alone until 6pm tonight.

3) maybe something else to fill in the gap - no, it's not feeling well and now we need to feed it the best possible food to help it get better... so let's learn about the best things hampsters can eat to get well and put on weight. (that would have worked on me, I'd have gone off and researched hampster recovery diets)

other than that, especially if she normally honors the "no bedroom" rule and is disregarding it in light of the hampster, I don't have a lot of insight for you.

I do find the projection of feelings onto the hampster curious... it's not that she loves the hampster, its that the hampster loves her... that's one I'd follow up on with the therapist - it strikes me as a little odd in structure, and maybe that's a clue.

wish I had more help for you... I'll stew on it some and see if anything else pops up.

 

[EweSheep]

That is why she is diagnosed with BOTH ADHD and Asperger's because whatever the situation is, it can go either way. Her teacher and some Asperger parents recognized some of the symptoms in my dd.

She is a bit better this evening. Looked peaked so I think after staying up since three am this morning, stressed out by daddy being out in in WV, coming home tonight, she wanted to stay up with me, waiting for him to come home. I assured her that once Daddy comes home, he will give you a kiss if he is not too tired. But he will be there for her in the morning, for sure!

She did alot of excessive talking today, interrupting.....too much that it bothers people, including my mother, letting her know, please do not interrupt. "Its because I have Asperger's and I can not help it!" Sure, glad you can see that but lets see if your brain can stop much quicker than 200 ft later when we asked you to be quiet LOL! She did a bit more hand flapping/waving as well.

She gave a kiss to the hamster, hamster was rather annoyed or irriable from his slumber. She really wanted to take him to bed but I let her know, he has his own bed that he is comfortable and safe as much as she does.

She is on Inituniv 2 mg now, and taking things slowly. I don't like the way her skin and lips are pale, mouth dry (common side effects) and takes a bit of a nap. I know it is the third day of taking this dose and she will come out of it. She was on it earlier, and switched to Adderall, which it was WORSE, more violent.

All in all, hope Daddy being home from his vacation will do her good! She mostly has been a good girl but with a bit of definance going on, testing me. I have to know I can not ever let my guard down or it would be hell to pay if I did.