Does anyone have children with Aspergers?

[scratch'n'peck]

I'm just checking back. I'm glad to see more people have responded. Temple Grandin is one great example of a person with high functioning autism. I know she has written a few books on the subject of autism and when I just did a search on her I found that she has a web site: http://www.templegrandin.com/

 

[Bullet]

Thanks everyone for the responses and the links. I'll have alot of reading to do!! I really appreciate it and so will my son

 

[zzGypsy]

how about an adult with aspergers?
that'd be me... let me know if I can help in any way, answer questions, whatever you might need.

I wasn't diagnosed as a child (because, in part, the definition didn't exist then) but as an adult I scored 42 out of 50 on the assessment test. I don't have ADD or ADHD in the mix, but I have brothers that do.

the biggest thing I've struggled with is the social disfunction - the good news is that social behavior can be learned in a rule-based observation-based way, especially if someone can help to understand and teach the rules. aspies are often quite smart, and if they can see the value and advantage in learning the rules, they can get good at it... I have. doesn't ever make us function in the same way as someone who has "normal" social skills, but with practice, we can be much more effective at it than you might expect.

it's good that your son is going to have a chance to learn how to work with the way his brain is made... we don't function the same as "normal" kids, and that can be good in some ways, and difficult in others. if he can learn his strengths, he can use them to compensate for his weaknesses. lots of important, accomplished, successful and unusual people have aspergers.

I struggled through this as a kid without any support, and it wasn't until I was in my early 40s that a therapist put a name to what was different about my brain. some things I had learned to manage and work around, just because i'm a problem solver (one of my aspie traits) and stubbornly (aspie) refuesed to give up on learning (aspie) certain things.

once I understood *what* was really happening in my brain, it helped a lot. I stopped trying to do things the "normal" way, I got it that my brain *isn't* normal, and decided that any solution that worked for me was fine, even if it wasn't the way that other people got things done. there are still things I struggle with, but when they get sufficiently in my way, to where I need to solve them, I can now work out strategies for making them work better, instead of struggling blindly with them.

I kind of look at it like having a set of talents that most other folks don't... at the cost of not having talents that most people have. at 52, I think it's a fair trade. I do think help when I was 7 and 15 and 27 and 35 would have made the journey a lot easier.

anyway, your son's constelation of talents (present and missing) will be unique. let me know if I can help.

 

[Bullet]

Oh he's super smart, Especially in Math! His biggest problems are social skills. but he will be working with the school social worker 2 weeks a month learning that. He is also learning chineese at school as well and is fantastic. he is with kids that this will be their second year this is his first and he is ahead of some of them. I'm so proud of him he makes me smile everyday. He doesn't understand cause/effect or understand punishments all that well. and if you don't play by his rules he gets really angry! he doesn't understand when someone teases him either, that makes it really hard! No one has picked on him yet. I know that unfourtunately will come someday. He is doing great without being on medication for his adhd. I don't like him on it. The meds change his personality totally. We had to teach him to give us hugs and kisses and say I love you, but now he does it so much to us. He has a lot of love in him but just doesn't know how to express it. He is my little einstien (spelling?) When he grows up he wants to be a turkey and duck farmer. his first pet was BBB Tom and he could hug him and everything. He loves animals. But his obsessions sometimes drive us nuts. he is obsessed over the weather he thinks he controls it. did I mention he has a God complex aswell? He is just all over the place at different times. It's hard sometimes I think more of the adhd than the aspergers but He makes me proud. we had huge problems with his school last year not wanting to test him. they finally did after getting in trouble by the state. but they didn't understand him and were not trained in how to react to his problems. I switched him to another school this year and he is doing fantastic I don't have to fight with him anymore about going to school. he actually wants to go and loves to learn about everything as much as he can. he's a little sponge! sorry if i'm rambling but I don't get to talk to too many people lol. but again everyone thanks for your imput. I really do appreciate it!

 

[zzGypsy]

Quote:
yeah, that'd be aspies. be sure to work with the school social worker yourself - you'll need to know what social rules he understands, and what he doesn't so you can help make some logic out of what he gets/ doesn't get. there are ways to understand social situations on a rule-basis, but it requires knowing what to observe for, and having a set of rules to go with it. if you learn what they're doing with him that works, you can make sure you're supporting that strategy, and also apply that strategy to other situations. in my experience most aspies *want* to fit in socially, but get frustrated because they just don't understand how to make it work. once they learn that there's a way to make it work, they can put that excellent intellegence and their naturally obsessive aproach to learning to work on the problem. the problem with being frustrated is that it can make them stop trying, or decide not to care.

He doesn't understand cause/effect or understand punishments all that well.

that's going to be an important one to solve. without that skill, a lot of other aspie talents can't be used to their best advantage.

and if you don't play by his rules he gets really angry!

that's interesting, it makes sense to me... where he's got rules, they should WORK! the trick is going to be getting the RIGHT rules. we LOVE rules, the make the world make sense. and we WILL supply our own if there isn't a set we like or understand provided to us. unfortunately we don't always get them right when we make our own. that was tough for me as a kid... now I understand that if the rules aren't working, I've got one of the rules wrong, or I've observed the situation incorrectly... as a kid, it just frustrated me.

he doesn't understand when someone teases him either, that makes it really hard! No one has picked on him yet. I know that unfourtunately will come someday.

I still can't always tell... its the one social skill I still feel really not competent in. most everything else I can manage fairly smoothly if I put my attention on it.

We had to teach him to give us hugs and kisses and say I love you, but now he does it so much to us. He has a lot of love in him but just doesn't know how to express it.

see we love it when we figure out what works.

sometimes once we find something that works we try to apply it to every situation... we can become quite the pest with some things. it's better once we have a bigger set of things that work, and start to develop some observation skills so we can tell which tool to use.

I remember discovering things that worked... and then I'd use the HECK out of them. I'd start to feel confident they were going to work. until that shocking moment when I'd boldly deploy a trick I was sure would work and it'd fall flat on it's face... then I'd feel stupid, embarassed, and my confidence would be shot and I'd stop trusting everything I knew for a while. I think if I'd understood that process, or had someone who could have coached me through those failures, it would have been a very different thing growing up... if there'd been someone on the outside who could have seen those moments and helped me understand what had just happened, and how to try some new solutions, I'd have lost much less ground each time that occured.

He is my little einstien (spelling?) When he grows up he wants to be a turkey and duck farmer. his first pet was BBB Tom and he could hug him and everything. He loves animals. But his obsessions sometimes drive us nuts.

did you find out yet that subject obsession is a typical thing for us? it's part of what makes us really really good at some things.

I discovered horses at summer camp when I was 4 and it became an obsession. every single penny I earned for chores or got for birthdays went into the horse fund. since my folks weren't going to buy me a horse, I studied. read every thing. I got a "horseman's encyclopedia" for christmas when I was maybe 6 or 7 - 726 pages and I memorized it - I could quote word for word *every*single*section. just give me the chapter and heading and I could give you the text, word for word. I bought and paid for my first horse at 10 yrs old. my parents just supplied a yard to keep him in... I did everything else, care, feed, got a paper route to pay for everything. delivered papers on horseback

... yeah, we're kinda obsessive.

look for ways to channel and expand that obsession... get him reference material at his reading level on ducks and turkeys... feed his knowledge, give him ways to put that knowledge to work, ways to try it out and experiement with putting what he knows into action. it'll make you less crazed with him, and teach him how to put his natural talent for learning and acquiring information into the context of useful work. we love information and we are powerfully drawn to learn everything there is about a subject. makes us great researchers. if he can learn early how to build his skills around research, then those skills will help him in other areas - like researching and deploying rules around social behavior.

he is obsessed over the weather he thinks he controls it.

wait... you mean we don't?

the ADHD I can't help much with, except to tell you that my ADHD brother was made *much*much* worse by artificial food colors. he'd be fine until you gave him a popcicle or something else with food dye in it and then he'd spin up to a degree that was astonishing to watch. he was pretty wound without it, but on foodcolor he'd be unreachable.

sounds like he's in the right school... that'll help a lot. along with both you and him getting some training with the social work folks. (at least if they're on the right track and have some experience with our kind of minds.)

read everything... some of the aspie websites and forums are *very* helpful to understanding how our brains work - even for us! you'll gain a lot of insight to his behavior by reading them. expecially useful to read what the aspies write about their experiences - it'll help you understand how he experiences the world. I've found some of it is quite surprising to folks who have brains made in the usual way. when he's older, there are some forums that have other aspie kids on them - that'll help him to understand the process and to not feel isolated.

we're smart, and you can train us... especially once we learn that there's a way to make things work. we do hate giving up our rules though... even if they aren't working. it gets better once we learn we can trade in a non-working rule for some new ones that work better. I have a really hard time letting go of a rule, even if it clearly isn't working, until I have something to replace it with.

PM me or post any time if I can help with some insight to how the world works for us.​

 

[Bullet]

your so insightful Gypsy I wish he could meet you lol. most people that meet him fall in love with him at first sight, my avatar or what ever you call it is a picture of him from a few years ago.

 

[AquaEyes]

It's been mentioned here already, but I wanted to echo something that will guide you in relating to your son. Imagine how children learn "the rules" of how to be around other people -- trial and error, with positive/negative reinforcement/punishment based on social responses. Now imagine that many of the social responses given to "normal" people during this process aren't perceived the same way by your son. For example, your son does something that is AWESOME, and you want to run up and give him a big hug and pick him up off the ground to say "What an AWESOME thing you did!!!" Well, now imagine that receiving that hug will be perceived by him to be something he wasn't looking forward to, and might even get anxiety over. In effect, what you thought would be a positive reward has become a positive punishment. Now imagine a kid going through life learning lessons through this system -- not fun.

So what you need to do is throw away what works as positive/negative rewards/punishments for most kids, and figure out what does the same thing for your kid. It won't be easy, because some things will be the opposite of how you'd perceive them -- because you are "wired" differently. But don't focus on the wiring -- focus on the effect. You might feel like you're scratching your left ear with your right hand at times, but it gets the job done.

I don't have hands-on experience with aspie kids yet, but let's just say it's pretty "close to home" with me. I don't fit all the characteristics, but I teeter on the edge, and can at least speak from personal experience about living life "wired differently." Come spring, I'm hopefully going to start working with aspie and high-functioning autistic kids in an internship, because that's where I want to focus when I go to grad school for clinical psych after I graduate this spring. I have done some reading of research done with various methods of applying scholastic learning to social skills, in a sort of enrichment summer-camp atmosphere that has classroom activities. These are based on other models of treatment aimed at improving behavioral inhibition in ADHD kids. I can PM you some info on it, but you'd probably more quickly find it by googling, as it's been around and researched and utilized quite a bit for quite a while now, with good efficacy.

Remember that the focus isn't on getting him to be like everyone else. It's going to be about getting him to learn how the rest of the world works, and how to best navigate through what to him is going to feel like a bunch of crazy people.

 

[EweSheep]

My daughter has ADHD and I am very certain she has Asperger's even her doc said no. Love the "positive punishment" because whenever we praised her for not wetting her bed, or getting along with her father, following rules, blam...she was right back to doing the "naughty" stuff again. She would love the praises but get anxious over it and telling us that "kids shouldn't do this or do that" blaming others for her problems. Yes, she is socially "outcasted". Lately our PSY doctor said it is because of us, how we raised her, bringing her anxious level up (hubby has that ADHD problem too). They were going to report us to the DCFS because of our "corporal punishment" (in spanking her when she is very very very bad, or very defiant with a hell bent attitude that nothing else worked, used spanking as a very last resort) and alot of times it would snap her back to reality that her behavior was totally unacceptable and she would not do it again. We never spank her everyday as she told them that. Once in a month or even as long as three to four months she would go without a spanking. A stern word would set her right is all she required. If the DCFS comes, our whole family would back us up 100 percent and tell them to get screwed because what they are doing is letting the kids get by with it. No wonder we have already reached 700 kids already been reported this year in our town alone and only five kids been sent to foster care. And violence in schools are at all time high. Jeez! Its been two weeks Wednesday, we are still waiting and it makes us shy about counseling when we are asking for help for our daughter in disclipining her, get tips and waiting and more waiting. My father said they are abusing US, as parents, for getting the help we need when we asked for help and not getting it.

Not all doctors are created equal, but this one takes the cake.

 

[goldtopper]

My son is 17 and an aspie. So much of whats been said is true. I wouldn't trade him for the world. He is so gentle, so smart and so loving.
My biggest worry for him is being taken advantage of due to his trusting nature- he's learning though.
He's a math genius, literally, and that is his focus in school. He has experienced zero bullying. I know bullying is a hot topic these days, but honestly, it was a lot worse when I was a kid!
My wife has a whole slew of available help options, including agencies, groups and tips for getting your son set up for SSI. This can be instrumental in helping with education costs. I also feel it won't be long before there are Autism Spectrum-based scholarships.
I'll try to get the names of agencies for assistance soon and post them.
The good news is you and your son are special and blessed! God only gives what you can handle.

 

[mama24]

My oldest son, 12, has AS. My 3rd son, 6, is HFA, same thing, only he had a speech delay.

They are both wonderful boys, super smart, and very funny. They just have a hard time with school and making friends. I'm not too worried about them, though. I am sure I have AS myself, it just wasn't diagnosed when we were children. My husband's brother also. I like to think it's just a different way of thinking. It has its difficulties, but it also has some positives. They Tony Attwood book is the best.