Life with Aspergers

I've been reading the (so far excellent) book; "We said, they said: 50 things parents and teachers of students with autism want each other to know" by Cassie Zupke.  A review is coming soon.  In the meantime, Chapter 5, entitled Hooey talks about the the confusing amount of contradictory and money-grabbing autism theory out there.   I thought it was probably worth my while stating my motivation and my point of view. Hooey is not a word we use in Australia.  I'm presuming it's an American word for bullsh1t.  That's how we say it in Australia. We tell it like it is. Motivation My motivation on this blog has always been to raise public awareness of Asperger's syndrome and to provide a more balanced and positive place for parents and people with Asperger's syndrome to learn about themselves and their children.  I don't claim to know everything but I do claim to have lived daily with Asperger's syndrome (if not the knowledge that I had it) fo

My  Latest Post over at Special-ism is now up; It's called; " Kids with Isms can benefit from using Lists " Please have a look at it. It's all about how lists are one of the best tools for children (and adults) with Asperger's Syndrome and Autism and other similar conditions can really benefit from using lists as management tools.  If you're the parent of a very young child on the spectrum, this is still worth a read because I describe some pre-verbal lists which you may find your child is already using.

We all want to send our kids to school and have them return as bright and educated young adults. Unfortunately the "playing field" is far from level and many of our kids simply struggle too much with everyday tasks to become academic superstars. Sometimes we just have to revise our goals and accept that we, our children and the school have done the best that we can do. Too often I find that parents are confused by school. They believe that the purpose of school is nothing more than to return our kids to society with an academic education.  They consider that what their kids  are learning at school isn't useful if it isn't focussed on the their child's primary issues. The reality it somewhat different.  In this post, I want to touch on some of the supports in and around school systems and see how they combine to help children with special needs. Hopefully by the end of this post, you'll understand that school is only a small part of your child's educa