Life with Aspergers

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 ...

As it turns out, I'm the writer for June's "First things First" article. This article was number five in a series of articles by various parents in the special needs community. The articles were intended to raise awareness amongst special needs parents that they need to look after their own needs as well as those of their children. Togetherness: A Dad's Perspective In traditional society, mothers and fathers tend to live in completely different worlds. The home, the kids and school are all in the mother’s realm while the father is more likely to take care of bread-winning and financial matters. The working week has expanded to take in weekends and the hours of work have lengthened too, courtesy of the traffic problems. Many fathers today hardly see their children and not because of the high divorce rate either. It’s simply that they have to leave before the kids are awake and they don’t get home until after bedtime. Some fathers have frequent out of state business...

Sensory issues are common amongst children on the autistic spectrum and one of the most obvious places is in the mouth. Some children need extra sensation there while others have a very low tolerance. Either way, it causes problems. The Need for Extra Sensation My youngest son was always putting objects into his mouth as a baby. In fact, it's something that he still does most of the time now, aged six. It wasn't just food that interested him, it was wallpaper - which he ate at night from the walls nearest his cot. It was toys and stones and bits of fluff too. My wife used to have to watch him closely all the time becuase he'd often start choking and have to be rescued. The sensory needs were so overwhelming though that no sooner had he spat out the object he was choking on then he would start eating it all over again. On the first Christmas we had after he could sit up, we had to unplug the lights on the Christmas tree because he kept trying to mouth them. Later on, ...

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 ...

I received an email from a concerned parent who was struggling with her child's new label and I wrote a reply. Afterwards, when I re-read the reply, I thought that it might be a good thing to share with other parents who are in the same situation.  So with names and places changed to protect the innocent, plus a whole lot more detail added, here it is; Image by Виктория Бородинова from Pixabay An Asperger's or autism diagnosis is always frightening and overwhelming for parents but you are not alone. There are lots of parents out there in the same boat and lot of very successful "aspies" and "auties" out there too. Your child will not be "defined" by their label. It won't describe them fully and it won't necessarily limit what they can do. All people on the spectrum show considerable variation from one trait to another and the mix is always unique. More importantly though, your child is, and always will be, an individual. First Steps ...