Life with Aspergers

The Special Needs SCHOOL Survival Guide looks like a thin book but it has one of the highest “fact per page” scores of any of these types of books. It's really packed with information. It’s not the kind of book you can simply read cover-to-cover. Instead, you’ll find yourself wanting to stop every few minutes to note an activity that you might want to try or a web site you might want to visit.  The book focusses on the resolution of school problems for kids with many different kinds of special needs. There's some information for parents, particularly in the early sections but the bulk of the book seems to be aimed at teachers and school occupational therapists. The first chapters deal with the Individualized Education Plan (IEP) and the 504 plan. The book covers what they are, how they differ, how they work and what parents and teachers can expect to get out of them. From there the book dives into occupational therapy in school in detail, In particular, it covers exerci...

For many people with autism, getting a job is a pretty difficult prospect in itself but once they have one, the difficulties shift towards keeping the job. Keeping a job when you are on the autism spectrum seems to be a matter of maintaining the delicate balance between being largely invisible and not being too quiet. Hiding in Plain Sight  For many people, the word “autism” conjures up bad images. At one end of the spectrum, people assume that they are hiring a person who will need babysitting rather than someone who will perform their allotted tasks independently. At the other end of the spectrum, people think of the high school shootings or computer hackers and sense danger in employees on the spectrum.  Of course, we've just had “autism acceptance month”, so everyone is fine with it all now right? Wrong. What people say and what they do are very separate things. If it was that easy to conquer fear and discrimination, there would be no reason to discuss racial iss...

Ever since I was a little kid, I have had problems distinguishing left from right. I always assumed that it was “just me” but recently I've found that a lot of people with Asperger’s have the same problem.   It might be an Asperger’s thing. It might be an “everyone” thing … or it might be a “nerd thing”. Who knows? All I know is that although I never actually get my left and right mixed up these days,  if someone asks me to raise my left hand,  there's a noticeable delay between the instruction and my compliance. In fact,  I usually have to mimic writing  (I'm left handed), in order to identify the correct hand. It's been that way for as long as I can remember. Growing Up As a child, I was always the first one to get out in games like “Simon says” but I had always thought that it was something to do with being deaf.  Even when I could hear the teachers perfectly well I still had to look at the other students before I could make a ...

Living, Loving and Laughing with Asperger's: 52 tips, stories and inspirational ideas for parents of children with Asperger's (Volume 1) by Dave Angel is a free ebook which is well worth reading. At 134 pages, it's fairly light reading and since most articles run for 1 and a half pages, it's very easy to pick up and put down. It makes great reading while You're waiting for someone or using public transport. The book itself is divided into three sections, the first and in my opinion, the best, section contains 26 tips from Dave. The second section contains another 19 reader-submitted tips and the last section, which is thankfully short contains 7 real life stories. I can't say that I liked the last section which felt “braggy”, with parents and grandparents basically saying how great their kids are. As a parent of two boys who struggle both socially and academically, I don't really enjoy hearing how great other kids are. The first two sections of the ...

Anxiety is a constant companion in our family. Both of my kids suffer badly from anxiety and it affects many aspects of their lives. As parents, we do our best to spot potential anxiety-inducing events ahead of time and either avoid them altogether or at least adjust our kids’ perceptions of those events to reduce the impact. The anxiety that my eldest son reacts most to comes from direct environmental factors which impact his senses. For example, some sounds, sights, smells, touch, taste, texture and spacial awareness.  In particular, anything that could cause pain is a high anxiety event, even if it doesn't actually cause any pain. As a result, many things are a nightmare, mealtimes for example, where the merest differences in texture (or sign, smell or God forbid, taste) will render even the tastiest of meals inedible. My son loves McDonalds but is yet to eat a hamburger, he lives off chicken nuggets and fries. Similarly, when it comes to pizza, we're still tr...

Autism and the extended family is a book with an unusual feel to it. In fact, it's opening chapters felt so different that I was initially wondering if I would like the book. As it turns out, the language is completely appropriate and it is a good book. It's just that being as close to autism as I am, I'm not in the target audience. Where most autism books jump right in and talk about the details of autism from the inside, this book remains firmly outside the circle, keeping the outsider’s viewpoint. To be honest, the opening chapters reminded me a lot of “Autism speaks” literature but don't worry, it gets a lot better from there. The book is trying to speak to outsiders and it needs to use concepts that they can understand. This book talks about high functioning individuals but it feels much more like a book for families with more difficult and more "hands on" forms of autism. The book starts with a "welcome to my world" chapter,  I can'...

When I was growing up, I liked to potter about in my father’s garage. He used it as a work shed and it was full of awesome tools. I used to try to make things, just like he did but all of my efforts produced pretty poor results. Most of the time, it didn't matter. I built a few rather pathetic wooden Star Wars themed toys and I played with them and loved them regardless. My father was less easily pleased, often telling me that I was wasting good wood. On the odd occasion that he did get involved with my creations (never on frivolous Star Wars things of course), he would take them over entirely. I was generally fairly happy when he did this. It meant that I didn't have to do work that I wasn't suited for and he always did a much better job. I'd watch for a little while and then wander off to do something useful while he completed my work. Consequently, I learned nothing about woodcraft despite having a dad who was one of the top craftsmen of his time. I learned...