Life with Aspergers

The month of April is “Light it up blue for autism” month. It's the month where we we embrace exciting concepts like autism “awareness” (ah, so that's the word we use to describe “these people”) and autism “acceptance”, (ok, so I guess we can't stone them to death anymore**). ** That's a joke by the way.  They might have been started with the best of intentions but I'm really not sure that they help as much as they'd like us to think. In fact, it's just possible that they do more harm than good. It's not Just Autism  There are a lot of charities around which gear up on certain months. In particular, there are the yellow cancer charities and the pink breast cancer ones. The various charities collect funds from the sale of ribbons, bears, chocolates and other goodies. The more established of these charities also partner with grocery stores and manufacturers to produce specific items, such as bread in marked packaging, where a certain percentag...

I was recently asked about my diagnosis and about the whole genetic link in Asperger's Syndrome. I thought I'd already answered this somewhere on the blog but when I didn't find it, I figured that it was something that I should clarify.  Yes, I do have Asperger's syndrome. I also have a son, currently aged 16 with Asperger's and NVLD and ADHD(I). I have a second son with HFA but since he's very verbal, even more son than his older brother, it's clearly Asperger's now... or would be if the diagnosis of Asperger's still existed.  You can find out more about my family and I on the " About page " and you can find out more about me specifically via my four part introduction. See here for Parts  One ,  Two ,  Three  and  Four . Part four in particular talks about diagnosis. "This Book is About You" In a nutshell though, my eldest child was diagnosed at 5. His differences were picked up by his teachers who met with us severa...

Asperger's Are Us (2016) Running Time: 82 minutes Directed by Alex Lehman Starring: Noah Britton, Ethan Finlan, Jack Hanke, New Michael Ingemi Asperger's Are Us is an independent documentary about the "last show" of a comedy troupe comprised of four individuals with Asperger's syndrome.  When the documentary starts, the group have already been performing together for a few years and as they've all reached College age and are about to go their separate ways, they decide to put on one final show. It's quite a well put-together documentary which at times feels so "mocumentary" that it's a little like "the office". It features interviews with the boys themselves as well as with their parents.  While the popular consensus is that comedy doesn't come easy to people with Asperger's Syndrome, I'm of the opinion that Asperger's humour doesn't come easy to neurotypical people. There's a lot of very funny b...