Life with Aspergers

Sensitive Sam visits the Dentist is the second in the Sensitive Sam series. These are great multi-level books which are suitable for reading by young children, parents and professionals.  The book starts off with a fairly straightforward story about Sam visiting the dentist. It touches on several of his anxieties but eventually he ends up enjoying his visit. This first section is aimed at very young children and contains easy to understand words and activities. In fact, young children are encouraged to participate in the story by tracing the line that the car travels to the dentist and choosing the flavour of the toothpaste. It's all very engaging. Along the way, there are numbered hints to parents. These hints refer you to pages in the back of the book, after the story.  They say things like "Show, tell and do. What does a dental hygienist do? Page 23). Following the story, there are a series of tips for parents, numbered 1-15. As you would expect, the tip on page...

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 ...

This has been a very busy week in terms of autism rights and there have been a number of incidents which demonstrate very clearly that people with autism are not being treated with the respect that they deserve.  History is full of stories of groups of individuals who were victimized for physical, economic, social or theological characteristics and while we still have a long way to go, constantly pointing out these issues has proven to be the best way to make progress towards an all-inclusive society.  Autism is yet another of these groups but it's still in infancy. At this point, we're still fighting for acceptance and the concept of true equality hasn't really been considered. It's important for us to continue to point out oversights and to correct thinking patterns which can whenever they arise. The Murder of London McCabe Last week, London McCabe, a six year old with autism who "loved hats, loved his parents, and was ‘all smiles'." was thrown ...

Empathy is often the worst and hardest part of any relationship with a person with Asperger's syndrome. You might feel that your partner lacks empathy entirely but if you could see inside their mind, you might be surprised to find that they are far more emotional than you are.  Obviously this isn't the case for everyone as we are all individuals but quite often people who display very little empathy are actually full of emotion.   So why then, is it so difficult for people with Asperger's sympathy to "show a little empathy"? There are three major problems relating to empathy that can really cause problems for people with Asperger's syndrome;    Identifying Your Emotional State   People with Asperger's syndrome have a huge amount of trouble determining your emotional state if you don't tell them specifically how you feel.  If you're crying, then most likely you're sad.  If you have a "sad face" on but no actual tears, then who...

My latest post out at Special-ism is about changing your child's behavior to attract less attention. I'm always encouraging people within the autism community to be proud of themselves and to be themselves.  The problem is that behavior that is too far "outside the norm" can draw a lot of unwanted attention. The best thing to do is to tread a cautious middle-ground and that's the point of the post, to show ways that normal autistic behaviors can be modified to become less noticeable. Hop over to Special-ism for a read; Change Your Child’s Behavior to Attract Less Attention http://special-ism.com/change-your-childs-behavior-to-attract-less-attention/

One of the strange things that I've noticed about people with Asperger's syndrome is that when it comes to religion, they often fall into the categories of all or nothing. Of course, there's a plethora of individuality out there and not all people with Asperger's syndrome sit at extremes but there does seem to be a bit of a trend nevertheless. The aim of this post is to highlight some general themes and trends that I've seen. I'm not sure how much of what I've seen is down to Asperger's versus general opinions on religion but I'll be happy to hear your thoughts in the comments. The Highly Religious  A highly religious person with Asperger's syndrome tends to be focussed mainly on the inward aspects of religion, such as prayer and good moral values. They may spend a lot of time perusing, memorising and quoting religious texts. I've noted that direct involvement with the church, synagogue or clergy tends to be in the form of very sm...

Unless you were lucky enough to enrol your kids in a school which streams kids all the way from kindergarten to college and you remain in the same geographic area throughout these years, you will probably be faced with the prospect of selecting a new school at some point in your child's education. It's not an easy choice to make under any circumstances but with a child on the autism spectrum, things are a little more complicated. In this post, I hope to take you through some of the factors that you need to consider; Qualities of the School The size of the school is always a difficult choice because on the one hand, you tend to think that your child is less likely to get lost in a smaller school. That the teaching staff will pay more attention to your child and that class sizes will be smaller, allowing more"one-on-one" teaching. There's also the fact that smaller schools aren't so overwhelming for your child.  Unfortunately though,  small...