Life with Aspergers

Catchy title aside, I'm not about to suggest that you need to kick all your autistic kids out of home. I want to cover one specific recent instance for us and I want to look at the reasons why we believed that it would work while others thought it might fail. Why we did it anyway and why we feel it is succeeding. Image by Jose Antonio Alba from Pixabay Kids who Stall We have a lot of friends and relatives who have kids on and off the spectrum who have "stalled". By stalling, I mean that they've become; Permanently at home Often Unemployed Caught in unproductive routines (TV, Gaming, Extra Sleeping, Overuse of Routine) Often stalling is linked to other obsessions, such as computer gaming but it also appears in non-gamers and active kids. People can get into a stall pattern simply by filling their entire lives up with chores and leaving no room for themselves to forge ahead.  There are a lot of reasons why stalling has become common in the last couple of generations in...

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...

Child support essentials is a new series which looks at the essential roles in a special needs child's life, how they help the child and the ways they can hinder when applied improperly. Advocates play a very important role in a special needs child's life. They help the child get access to support and services, they stand up for the child's rights and they promote the child's needs without damaging their self esteem. In my opinion, the best advocates have a similar condition to the child they are supporting and they have a unique understanding of the child. I also think that the best advocates are free. I like to think of myself as an advocate. I spend a lot of time trying to raise awareness of Asperger's syndrome and "bust the myths about it". I'm always fighting negativity and highlighting the positive aspects of Asperger's syndrome. My efforts are directed towards helping others to understand and to better accept the differences in those on ...

I don't often talk about specific issues with my kids on this blog preferring instead to tackle general topics which could benefit everyone. (and of course, I try to protect their privacy a little). I'm going to make an exception in this case because it illustrates perfectly some of the issues and decisions which parents of special needs children face all the time. My eldest son, aged almost 12, is in year six, his final year of primary school. He's been in "special needs" since kindergarten seven years ago and on ritalin almost as long. Over the years we've had our share of school issues, both social and academic and it takes each new teacher nearly an entire year to understand him. It was always our hope that one day, when he was old enough to "self-regulate", we could ditch the ritalin and I think that we all expected him to be off it by now. There have been many times over the years when we've forgotten the ritalin (or run out). ...

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)...

Anxiety in children is a topic which is very close to my heart at the moment. It's not that my children are particularly anxious at the moment although we've certainly had our issues with anxiety in the past. This time it's the fact that that my wife and I are both scout leaders (she does Joeys and I do cubs) and we both have some anxiety issues within our groups. It's quite different when it's not your child. When you're outside of the day-to-day life of the family (scouts is mostly once per week). This time, instead of being the parents, we're the "professionals". Being on the other side of the fence is giving us a whole different point of view. Immediacy of Results The parents of our anxious children are coming up to us and talking about how "they can't see their children settling" and about how they feel like "maybe they need to take their children out of scouts". We understand their position - after all, we used to be t...

For my blog readers who are getting sick of the scout stuff you can relax, this is the last post (it's only been the topic of the last 3 posts). This is obviously going to be a subjective post because it depends greatly on your scout group. In this case, I'm talking about the special needs branch of scouting in NSW Australia. I was recently at a two-day Special Needs Conference and I was quite interested to see their knowledge and attitudes towards special needs and the degree to which they engage with special needs children. I was expecting to hear a couple of guest speakers and a bit of a potted history of special needs with maybe a couple of examples and some mid-eighties style attitudes. I was totally blown away. Apart from a couple of cringeworthy moments, the general quality of the conference was very high. The Cringeworthy It's always nice to get the horrid bits out of the way so we can spend time on the good stuff. A Statement about Non-Disclosure We were discussing...

This post follows on from part 1 . In part 1, we looked at the idea of "fallback friends", the opportunities for parental involvement and the balance between variety and structure. In part two, we'll be looking more specifically at the structure of the scouting programme and rewards system and how it meets the needs children with aspergers. Since my scouting experience tends to be limited to the younger ages, I'll be using a lot of cubs-specific terminology. Rest assured, the other parts of the scouting movement equally cater for special needs. The Special Interest Few aspies are so caught up in their special interest that they are unable to focus on anything else but most experience significant improvements in their results if they can somehow bring their special interest into their work. It's common to use the child's interest to drive their other activities at school but how does this work at scouts? The badge system at scouts is an amazingly wide-rangin...

I've just come back from a scout leader "training-conference" for special needs scouting and I'm inspired by their acceptance, preparedness and amazing teaching methods. I'll talk more about the conference itself in a later post but right now I want to talk specifically about why Scouting is such a good choice of activity for children with aspergers and the other higher functioning forms of autism. Most of what I cover here is also applicable to children with ADHD. Fallback Friends One of the main reasons for getting your children into after school activities is to help them establish "fallback friendships". This is particularly important for children who are isolated for various reasons or who have poor social skills. Unfortunately as parents of children with ASDs, we have to accept that there will be times when our child feels that their entire school hates them. This quite often results from a massive social blunder which travels from class to class ...

Image by Lorri Lang from Pixabay "Congratulations! Your child has Aspergers!" I'll sometimes say this to parents and the blank/astonished looks that I receive make it clear that they just can't see the good in the label. There are many worse conditions that your child can have. People with autism spectrum disorders can have rich and fulfilling lives. They can get married, they can become successful business people and they can have loving and supporting families. The main keys are; Early Intervention Supportive and Understanding Parents, friends and partners Early Intervention There's a lot more to early intervention than just detection. In fact, if you're going to stick with detection only, then you might as well, not bother getting a diagnosis. For a start, there's information dissemination. You can't keep the diagnosis to yourself. You're going to have to tell people. A lot of parents hide the diagnosis on the grounds that they feel ...

As discussed a few posts back, I've been doing a lot of cub scout leader training recently. It's been very interesting because it has taught me a lot about myself. In this post I want to discuss a recent experiment with eye contact. Overcoming the Eye Contact Behavioural Issues I don't have a particular problem with eye contact compared to my aspie peers. This is because most people assume that I am giving good eye contact and don't hassle me about it. In truth, although I don't give good eye contact, I give great "lip contact", though probably not the kind you're thinking of. Being deaf has taught me to stare at people's lips when they talk as an aid to lip-reading. Since most people simply assume that I'm looking at their eyes when they're talking I haven't been subject to the constant corrections that other aspies have to suffer. Of course, it has its downsides too. Every now and then, someone will realise that I'm not look...