Life with Aspergers

Normally, I don't post correspondence here as I like to keep those things private and individual but I recently got an email from a parent who was concerned about a number of traits her son was showing.  I've replied to her questions in prose and as I was reading it back I thought it might be a useful thing to post, so... all identifying information removed and lots of extra links added, here it is. Eye Contact Inconsistent eye contact is generally a sign of "gaze avoidance" - ie: lack of eye contact. Darting ones eyes around the room during a conversation is a great avoidance tactic as it gives a person a break from being totally focused on the speaker - something which is quite painful at times. Some children with autism give good eye contact but most do not.  You might want to encourage your son to look at mouths instead as this keeps his head pointing in the right direction and reduces eye-darting without making uncomfortable eye contact. If he do...

In my last few posts, I've looked at the positive and negative effects of media and device access for children with Asperger's syndrome.  It's clear that while our children certainly benefit more from the media than their neurotypical peers, excessive access is still quite harmful. In this post, I want to look at some techniques for limiting media access and overcoming the negatives in a sustainable way. A word on Sustainability No technique is worth using unless it is sustainable. If your partner isn't going to stick to the rules and routine, then it simply won't work. Similarly, if you think that you can only stick to a new routine for a few weeks, then it's no good. In that case, you should choose a different routine - one that is sustainable. The Use of Rules and Routines Children with Asperger's syndrome handle rules extremely well. That's not to say that they will obey them without reinforcement but simply that clearly stated (and written)...

I don't know if it's just me, just aspies or everyone but it seems that most of the deep one-on-one social and philosophical conversations I have these days are about living with excess emotional baggage. It's perhaps an "age" thing because I really don't remember my friends talking about these issues when we were younger. Strangely enough though, even my conversations with today's youth are picking up these angsty traits. There are two good reasons why I'm beginning to suspect that its a trait that is stronger in aspies than in NTs. The first is that my "meaningful" conversations are increasingly being held with other aspies and the concept of emotional baggage seems to be increasing proportionately. My other reason is that when I examine my life and my present day actions, I'm relying on some aspie traits which I know aren't as strong in the average NT. Chief amongst these is the vivid long term memory, The Influence of the Past Th...

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...

Introduction With all the negative things being said about aspergers on the internet, you could be forgiven for thinking that they make terrible parents. It's not true. In general, aspies make no better or no worse parents than neurotypicals. Everyone is different and everyone selects their own parenting style. A lot of things affect your parenting style, including your own parents, the environment, the nature of your partner and your childen themselves. Parenting is not some genetic switch than simply turns itself on when your child is born, it takes years of hard work, guidance, plenty of mistakes and a lot of patience, experience and love. It's sad to think that we only become the best parents possible for a given age group when our children are leaving it for the next set of age-related behaviours. It's funny to look back on my original thoughts about parenting and some of the naieve things I said that "my children would never do". I've been wrong ...

I found this article today. It's on ADHD but is equally applicable to Aspergers. In fact, personally, I think it suits Aspergers better than ADHD. The article gives tips on travelling to family gatherings and helps you to avoid a common problem... Relatives trying to pin the condition on your parenting flaws. If you've ever been told; “You really let her get away with a lot” or “If I had him for a week, he’d learn to obey.” , then this one is for you. "You Just Need to be Firmer with Him" by Carol Brady Ph.D. The article comes from additudemag.com . If you find it interesting, you can subscribe (it's free) and receive daily/weekly emailed articles from them.

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...

As I mentioned in my last post, many of the problems with aspie love stem from the aspie's inability to find love or to receive and interpret appropriate signals from partners. There are a number of factors influencing aspie courtship and these include; General Shyness Aspies are usually fairly "shy" beings - not just with the opposite sex but with everyone. This shyness is even more problematic with people in whom they have an interest. Often, the aspie will simply look or smile at their intended partner and assume that this is enough to "call" the other person's attention. If the aspie stares too long without proper conversation, it becomes "creepy" and they will lose any opportunity they may have had. Aspies generally need to be approached since they'll rarely do any approaching of their own. The Naive Mind Aspies tend to appear very naieve and sometimes, we are. More often however, while we are well aware of the scope of human endeavors,...

Aspies are often described as unfriendly, yet we (reportedly) have the unique ability to be friendly with everyone regardless of physical characteristics such as age or color. So why are we perceived as being so unfriendly? The Early Morning Aspie-Initiated Hello In the morning as I stroll through my office to get a cup of coffee, there are always a lot of people with their heads down doing work, looking for things or otherwise engaged in activities. Interrupting them to say "Good Morning" makes no sense to me. In any case, how do I know if it's good? and don't they already know that it's morning? Usually, I'll truncate my "sayings" to Hello, or Morning, and even then, I'll say it very quietly. I just don't get it you see. Half of the people in my office will ask me a work-related question at some point during the day and I'll often greet them with a "hello" then. The other half usually don't ask for help and can probab...

The words that really drive my wife up the wall are; What are we doing today? What are we doing now/next? What's on the Agenda? What's the Plan? They're obviously annoying to Neurotypicals, but they're part of a well developed aspie defence mechanism for change control. I'll be talking more about change and resistance to change in Aspergers in another post. Right now, I want to focus on what daily planning organisation means to Aspies. What is Change Resistance? Aspies are quite resistant to change. It's funny, because when I first read that, I thought... "no I'm not, I'm always one of the first people to upgrade to new software etc...". That's not what the line means. It means that aspies resist changes in their lifestyles and daily routines . In my software example; sure, I'll upgrade my software but I'll still use it to do the same things, and do things mostly the same way and in the same order. Aspies are more likely to resi...