Life with Aspergers

A couple of days ago, I was reading a thread about a mother who came home to find that her son had completely trashed the house - again. It reminded me of things that our family used to go through. While my eldest, now 20 is a terribly messy boy, this behaviour is now well and truly a thing of the past for us. For a while though, these problems seemed insurmountable, so I thought I'd share how we got past them. Image by yasioo from Pixabay There was once a time where if he didn't get his way, my youngest would completely trash his room (and sometimes other rooms in the house). We still have marks on the walls (and some holes) that remind us of those terrible days. He would pull everything out of his wardrobe and throw it on the floor, he would throw all of his books out of his bookcase and all over the floor. He would often tip his entire mattress off the bed as well.  These generally weren't meltdowns. They were too controlled and too planned. They were done for a reason....

When you have kids at school, it's fairly common for them to go on overnight excursions and come home with many of the wrong items in their luggage or without phones, chargers backpacks etc.  This sort of behaviour should be well and truly disappearing by about age 15 but some kids particularly those with autism, may carry it on much later in life. Sometimes into their twenties and beyond.  In this post, I want to look at some of the techniques for reducing this behaviour. The Three Categories When travelling, kids generally fall into three broad categories; The ones who never actually unpack their bags These kids will live, sleep and sometimes even swim in the same clothes while on an excursion or camp. They're usually oblivious to the smell and will say that their mother forgot to pack items without ever having unzipped their bags to check.  They rarely leave anything behind. The ones who are excessively neat These kids will fold everything sharply and pu...

A few months ago, my youngest (15) went on a school camp. There was an incident at the camp which occurred because of his differences. It wasn't handled very well and it spiralled out of control. We finally got a resolution this week and I feel that now is the time to look at the bigger picture and talk about how things could have been handled better.  I would expect this post to be useful for all teachers who have kids on the spectrum in their classes, camp "controllers" and parents in general.  What Happened As a boy with autism, my son is always nervous about trying new things. New places and disruptions to his normal routine, such as camps can really mess with his head. He works hard to push himself to try things, even if he's a little afraid of them. This particular camp had a high ropes experience and he was quite nervous about it but once he saw the ropes he decided that he would be able to do it. He did very well on the course until he reached a par...

In some of my other posts, I've talked about meltdowns , which are when people on the autism spectrum lose control. I've also talked about the quieter form of meltdown; the " shutdown " where an individual is unable to connect with the outside world.  Meltdowns and shutdowns are transitory things, they happen and they pass. They're also usually quite short, lasting at most, for a few hours. When a person with autism experiences a condition similar to a shutdown that lasts for days or even for the rest of their life, it's something else.  It's called autistic burnout.  The symptoms The symptoms of autistic burnout will vary significantly from person to person but there are a few common signs; Inability to cope with daily life Autistic burnout is often compared with a mental breakdown for good reason. They're very similar. A person may be coping well with the pressures of family or working life and then may suddenly become incapable of co...

These days, Autism Spectrum Disorders aren't uncommon.  In fact, it’s pretty clear that there's a strong genetic link.  People with ASDs Collect Together  If you have autism in one form or another (or if you have a sibling on the autism spectrum), there's a better than average chance that you will have at least one child on the spectrum. It's not vaccines, it's not head trauma or defective parenting. It's genetics, pure and simple. The apple really doesn't fall too far from the tree. What's less well documented is that people with autism seem to prefer the company of others on the spectrum. In fact, it seems that we have an arguably better sense for detecting individuals like ourselves in social situations than regular people. The odds of a person on the autism spectrum partnering with another person on the autism spectrum seem to be higher than most. The upshot of this is that there are many families out there which contain more than one p...

In Australian news this week, there was a story about a school principal who was fired for attempting to use a cage to restrain a child on the autism spectrum who was experiencing meltdowns. You can read about that story here and here . Why This is Wrong There's a lot to be said about this situation but first things first; was the education minister right to fire that principal? While I hate to see anyone out of a job, my answer here is an unequivocal "yes!" There's a few reasons for this; Human Rights First of all, any form of incarceration is a matter of human rights. You simply can't detain people, even if they're clearly in the wrong.  When I was doing scouts we were told about a park ranger who caught someone defacing park property and detained the person on site. He (the park ranger) was arrested. If the matter of human rights is made clear to volunteer groups who look after children, then I'm pretty sure that we can expect it to have...

Earlier this week in Sydney, our police fatally shot a woman who was wielding a knife . It later transpired that she had Asperger's syndrome. I didn't comment on it at the time as I was quite busy at work -- and I was also awaiting the backlash of comments to the effect that;  "the police could have shot her in the leg or tasered or tackled her rather than shooting to kill, therefore ALL police are bad" or  "all people with Asperger's syndrome can become knife wielding maniacs" To my surprise and delight, those responses weren't forthcoming.   Instead our media mainly discussed the difficulties that police face in situations like this and the problems that people with Asperger's syndrome have when it comes to understanding police direction. It was a very mature response from our media. I'm not going to go over things here because I didn't know Courtney, suffice to say that my heart goes out to  Courtney Topic's family . ...

Please note: Under the DSM V, the concept of Asperger’s syndrome no longer exists. It is now simply referred to as Autism. Throughout this post, I use the word "Asperger's" because it's more frequently associated with the word "mild" but my comments here apply equally to both Asperger’s syndrome and autism.  You see it all the time on web forums,  things are going smoothly until a parent somewhere pipes up with the phrase, "I have a son who is mildly Asperger's. ..." and from there on, the group dissolves into two factions. One is continuing to remain loyal to the original purpose of the group, providing support and advice while the other is offended and is either busily discussing the semantics of the word "mildly" or tearing strips off the poor person who used the turn of phrase. It's also a turn of phrase that some people on the spectrum use to refer to themselves although this is much less  common.  What is "mild Asp...

My latest post over at Special-ism is about reducing the intensity of meltdowns by reducing the sensory input.  Hop over to Special-ism for a read . Meltdown? Reduce Sensory Input, Reduce the Intensity by Gavin Bollard http://special-ism.com/meltdown-reduce-sensory-input-reduce-the-intensity/ Over the years, I've written quite a bit about meltdowns on this blog. For a long while, they were very regular events in my life, they "owned" me and I hated them.  They followed me from early childhood through to adulthood. Now they're quite rare (for me personally), though they're not rare in our house. I have two kids on the spectrum and the next meltdown is never very far away. Here's a selection of my previous posts on meltdowns; How the rules of relationships need to change to accommodate the needs of meltdown-prone adults - April 2012 Adult Meltdowns and the Problems of Restraint - April 2012 Less Confrontational Strategies for Approaching ...

Last time, I talked about adult meltdowns and how they're just as real as meltdowns in children but are usually more controlled (due mainly to experience and self-knowledge). I also talked about how both physical and emotional restraint can bring about a more explosive and dangerous meltdown.  Today, I want to discuss how meltdowns occur in relationships and how keep your family and possessions safe. I've had new couples tell me that they're getting married and that they've "perfect for each other" because they've never had a fight - or even a disagreement. I'm usually far from impressed with this degree of "love" and suggest that they at least wait until they've had a few fights. You see, some people fight dirty. Some people give in too easily and some people hold grudges. It's really not a good idea to settle into a long term relationship without a good idea of how you and your partner fight, what tips them over the edge and how...

I was asked by a reader if I could write something about Adult Meltdowns.  This is my attempt.  It's not terribly good because I find this topic very difficult to write about.   In children, meltdowns are sometimes incorrectly referred to as "tantrums".  I've talked about the differences between a meltdown and a tantrum before so I won't bore you with the details again. The key things to remember about meltdowns are as follows; They are not controlled events Once "tripped" they can't be stopped easily. The reasons for them are often long term and/or sensory (even though the triggers are usually immediate). A young child can often be restrained or moved to a place of safety during a meltdown but what about older kids and adults? As a parent, you can often tell your kids to "go to your room" and sometimes they even comply but what happens when it's your spouse that's having the meltdown? Adult Meltdowns Do Happen (the...

In my last post, I looked at less confrontational strategies to approach autistic children with under normal conditions . In this post, I want to look at how it's done during a meltdown. A Brief Look at Meltdowns I'll begin by defining a meltdown. Meltdowns are generally violent and loud events which look very much like temper tantrums with one very obvious distinction. Meltdowns are " out of control " events.  The person is not using the meltdown as a means of getting what they want - in fact, they want the meltdown to stop more than you do. Not all meltdowns actually are violent but all have the capacity to be violent. A person in a meltdown state is not responsible for their actions . For this reason, it's important for young children on the spectrum to learn their triggers and how to avoid them. To Approach or Not to Approach The first question that you need to ask yourself is; is it dangerous for you, for others or for the child? If the situation isn...

This is a "best of the best" article. Check back here after September 15 for more articles by other authors on this topic. There is a saying about Aspergers which I believe applies equally well to most, if not all, other special needs - to paraphrase; "if you've met one person with special needs, you've met ONE person needs". Just as all special needs people are different, the calming techniques required are also quite different. Techniques which calm one person may simply infuriate another. Trial and Error In this post, I plan to cover a few approaches but the application of these is very much a matter of trial and error. If your actions seem to be worsening a situation then stop and try a different approach. Getting Attention No technique is going to work unless you have attention. It doesn't have to be total attention, part attention is fine. Don't forget too that many special needs children have issues with eye contact, so "attention" ...