Life with Aspergers

I just want to draw your attention to what is quite simply the best article I've ever read on Low Muscle Tone in Aspergers Children; It's called; Low Muscle Tone and Motor Clumsiness in Aspergers Children http://www.myaspergerschild.com/2010/11/low-muscle-tone-and-motor-clumsiness-in.html The article covers detection of low muscle tone (or hypotonia to give its "proper" name), how it presents, exercises that you can do with babies and age-specific exercises you can do with older children. It covers a wide range of topics from motor clumsiness to handwriting, grasp and balance problems. It even looks at the social implications. It's well worth a read.

Right at the beginning of this series, I suggested that Asperger's by itself isn't a debilitating condition. I stand by this. It is not simply Asperger's that is the problem but the co-conditions which frequently exist alongside it. Often these co-conditions are called comorbids but it is a word which I have stopped using because there are limitations on what can and cannot be referred to as the a comorbid. I'm not ready to accept those conditions. Co-Conditions It's hard to determine whether or not a co-condition is an entirely separate condition existing at the same time as Asperger's or whether it is simply a facet of the Asperger's itself. Sometimes the conditions seem to start out as part of the aspergers but separate later into fully fledged conditions of their own - sometimes it goes in the opposite direction. I think that it varies from person to person and from condition to condition. When a co-condition exists as a part of aspe...

John Elder Robison (author of " Look me in the Eye ") has posted part one of a story about a female with aspergers on his blog . I was quite interested to read it because the female aspie is something of a mystery. Under-diagnosed and under documented, there are undoubtedly fewer female aspies than males. I'm still not convinced that they're as rare as they seem though. Anyway, I'd encourage you to read and respond to his article; Life as an Aspergian female - a story I had to share http://jerobison.blogspot.com/2009/09/life-as-aspergian-female-story-i-had-to.html My Take Personally, I felt somewhat miffed by the article. It's probably my OCD/Pedantism rebelling against the generalisations in it but I'll try to outline my reasons in more detail; The Bad Empathy It would take several blog posts to even begin to break the surface on the whole empathy thing. I have big problems with the whole definition of empathy and still ha...

How an Individual Education Plan (IEP) is Structured An IEP is designed to be a "flow-on" document where the issues are identified up-front and the remainder of the document covers methods of dealing with them. The IEP will start with a bit of information about the child, the diagnosis, who is present at the meeting, etc. I'm not going to cover this bit as it's simply box-ticking on the form. The first part of the IEP will attempt to ask and answer two questions; 1. What are the child's strengths and interests? 2. What are the perceived weaknesses of the child? It is important to get these questions properly answered as the entire remainder of the IEP will reference them. This post will attempt to provide some background on the sorts of things that should be in these areas with particular emphasis on their relevance to the aspergers condition. Keep in mind though that aspergers manifests itself differently from one individual to another and that all c...

Although it's not part of the official diagnostic criteria for Aspergers, low muscle tone is nevertheless an condition strongly associated with Aspergers. Why is it so Confusing? When most people hear about "low muscle tone" they assume that it has something to do with bodybuilding - I certainly did at first. This is particularly confusing since many newly diagnosed aspies are children and it's quite uncommon to see any child with a well-developed set of muscles. Most parents will either simply ignore the condition or assume that a bit of outdoor activity, eg: playing soccer, is required. The other confusing thing is that there are adult aspies out there who regularly attend the gym and who have "better" muscles than many NT people. How do they fit the criteria? I saw a great line on a web site discussing Hypotonia . "Your kid seems perfectly good with their muscles - they are strong, they run round with boundless energy, but they have tro...