Life with Aspergers

In part one of this series, we looked at how parents react when their children are labelled. In part two, we look at how the person being labelled reacts and discuss the best times for disclosure.  The Age Differential Most people with Aspergers seem to be "born with a knowledge of their difference", though in truth this awareness develops over time, mostly during their primary school years. The age at which the label of Asperger's or autism is used to describe these differences seems to have significant impact upon the way in which they are received by the person with the label. Of course, there are other factors too, particularly the way in which others receive the news. The Very Young As you would expect, telling an "under 8" year old child that they have Asperger's Syndrome or autism is pretty similar to telling them that they are wearing a blue cardigan or that they were born in Australia. Their reaction is pretty minimal. Of course, the fact that...

The BBC has a really interesting test on its web site at the moment. It's all about whether or not people can spot fake smiles versus real ones. I figured that since it's part of the diagnostic criteria for aspergers that we have problems reading non-verbal cues, it would provide some insightful results. Real versus Fake Smile Test http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/smiles/index.shtml The test shows you 20 videos of people smiling either real or fake smiles. You can't replay the smiles until you've finished voting but you can spend as long as you like thinking about them before you choose your answer. I expected to do badly but in fact, I did really well. I got 19 out of 20 correct. You'll need a flash enabled browser/computer to do the test. My Secret (Don't read this until you've done the test yourself) At the end of the test, it asks you to indicate what clued you in. In my case it was not the smiles at all. It was other head movemen...

I'm always interested in personality tests, mainly because when a lot of aspies do them, patterns start to emerge. I'm not entirely a believer in them but that doesn't make the patterns any less fascinating. Anyway, here are my results from the Enneagram test. There are a couple online. In this test , I got equally 1 (Perfectionist) and 5 (Detachment). I've already noticed that a lot of aspies who do this test seem to score 5. http://similarminds.com/test.html Main Type Overall Self Take Free Enneagram Personality Test Enneagram Test Results Type 1 Perfectionism |||||||||||||||||||| 90% Type 2 Helpfulness |||||||||||||||| 62% Type 3 Image Focus |||||||||||| 50% Type 4 Hypersensitivity |||||||||||||||| 70% Type 5 Detachment |||||||||||||||||||| 90% Type 6 Anxiety |||||||||||||||| 70% Type 7 Adventurousness |||||||||| 34% Type 8 Aggressiveness |||||||||||| 46% Type 9 Calmness |||||||||||||...

Introduction The aim of this series is to look at how various groups of people react to label disclosure. There's always a lot of information on the criteria and the tests but there's not a terrible lot of material on the reactions once a label is assigned.  I plan to cover, the reactions of parents, those being diagnosed and others around them. Parental Reactions Parents often have very extreme reactions to their child's diagnosis. Depending upon the parents, their reactions could be opposite. Indeed, when my son was first diagnosed, my wife and I experienced the "opposites" reaction described under "relief". The Quiz and Denial One of the biggest problems with autism spectrum disorders is that there is no "litmus paper" test. On the face of it, Asperger's and autism often gets diagnosed with a quiz and a bit of observation. This makes it very easy for parents to deny the condition. After all, it's like someone doing an "...

The Curebie debate continues to rage and while it's not normally a thing I'd get involved with, there's quite an intelligent article from Tiff on Life on the Spectrum The article is called; Just Plain Fed Up http://lifeonthes.blogspot.com/2009/04/just-plain-fed-up.html It walks the fine line between curing and acceptance and advocates neither. If it advocates anything, it's an end to advocacy. There's no doubt about it Tiff would certainly investigate a cure if one came along but it's this line that makes her different; I'm not shinning a positive light on autism, I'm shinning a positive light on my SON who happens to have autism. He has a lot of gifts and I refuse to walk around looking like I've just attend his funeral so people can throw money towards a cure I'm not sure that I agree with a cessation of all advocacy. After all, it's advocacy that gets ideas off the drawing board and into real life. I do however agree with Tiff's s...