Life with Aspergers

You'll often hear that people on the spectrum have problems with "executive functioning" but what does it mean and how does it manifest in young adults?   In this post, I hope to give you some answers. Image by 11066063 from Pixabay What are Executive Functions? Put simply, executive functions are higher level functions such as planning, reasoning, problem solving, multi-tasking, attention span, inhibition, flexibility, self monitoring, self-initiation and self guidance.  Executive functions are important but in an animal sense, a lack of them is usually not life threatening. Eating, sleeping, moving and toileting for example, aren't classed as "executive functions".   While executive functioning provides many advantages, it's not so critical in the pure "animal" sense. It's people and society that has made executive functioning critical in humans. An Example: Get Ready for School The remainder of this post will focus on an example, in thi...

A lot of children on the spectrum or with other sensory needs have tendency to seek oral stimulation by chewing. In fact, chewing issues are far more common than you'd think and they have a lot of negative implications. In this post, I look at some of the chewing issues my children (and I) have and look at a great product for reducing the problem. Chewing on Shirts In my eldest son's case, his chewing mainly affects his clothing. He chews on his shirt collars, fronts and sleeves and his clothes often look tattered after only having been worn once or twice. There are a lot of negatives associated with chewing. For a start, chewing tends to bring children to the attention of bullies - particularly when the child has to walk around with a buttonless shirt or a shirt with holes in the front. Then there's the smell. It doesn't take long for chewed shirts to stink. In fact, they usually start to smell after a few hours. You can imagine the sorts of social issues this causes....

I'm often asked to contribute ideas and concepts to assist others in writing situations involving people with Asperger's and other ASDs. I find these questions quite interesting because they get me to look into areas of my past which I've "moved-on" from. Sometimes looking at these situations with fresh eyes helps me to understand myself better and quite often it makes me cringe. Often, as is the case here, it highlights things that I just haven't covered properly on the blog. The question I was asked this time was about how an autistic person would prepare for a first date in terms of clothes and gift shopping. The presumption is that we're talking about a male on a first date. Is it a date? For a start, it's quite probable that the person wouldn't know whether it was a date or just "going out". I know that in society, these terms are often interchangeable but to a person on the spectrum who is very word-specific, they might not be. I ca...

Last time I started discussing how senses affect our perception and I looked at hearing which is my weakest sense, and smell which is my second weakest. For me, even these "weaker" senses mix with memories and provoke both positive and negative emotions.  In this post, I'll continue the exploration of the senses; Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay I know that these days, it's commonly thought that there are more than five senses (including vestibular and proprioception). I subscribe to this view too but for the moment, in this post, I'm sticking to the main five. Taste In my case, taste is the weakest Of the remaining senses. My sense of taste has always been fine but there is such a strong link between taste and smell that my impaired sense of smell obviously affects taste. There are only two food tastes which I severely dislike; Sultanas and Orange Vegetables (Carrots, Pumpkin and sweet potato). Sultana's are easily the worst affecting me in several o...

Last week, I spent three days at home. I needed a break from work and September is a busy month for us at home, full of birthdays, anniversaries and father's day. My wife was glad that I was home. This meant that she too could take a break while I looked after the morning mayhem. Surprisingly, everything went off without a hitch and the kids were fed, packed and dressed for school not only on time but also with enough free time to play a few rounds of computer games. At first, I thought it was a fluke but the pattern repeated over the next few days. Does this make me a better parent? No - of course not! It does however suggest that aspie methods work best with aspie children. The Need for Routine When I was in primary school, my mother used to set my clothes out the night before. She would make a pretend person on the floor of my room with my pants, shirt and tie set out in the right places. The pretend person even included my socks separated and poking into my shoes. In the mornin...

Welcome to 2008! This post looks at the way in which people with Asperger's choose and wear clothing. This is another one of those strange posts that I originally thought was only me. After a lot of online discussion, it appears that there is a common thread amongst aspies. I don't think I've seen this discussed properly in the literature anywhere. Not following the the fashions Okay, this bit has been mentioned in the literature as a one-liner. I guess what is being said here is simply that aspies often are dressed like dags. This fits the "aspie as a nerd" image very well. Aspies generally don't like a lot of change and as result, they will often wear similar outfits all the time. In fact, on a recent shopping trip,when I found a shirt that I liked, I bought a couple of pairs in different colours and I was quite tempted to buy a lot more copies. What attracts aspies to clothing? Colourful patterns In my younger days, I had a vast array of extremely co...