Life with Aspergers

Edward Adrift The Sequel to 600 Hours of Edward by Craig Lancaster A Review. It's been almost seven years since I reviewed 600 Hours of Edward on this blog. It was one of the first books I reviewed here. At the time, I said that I finished it and wanted more. Edward is a very likeable character and I always felt that a sequel was needed. Imagine my surprise when out of the blue, Amazon's "recommended reading for you" page offered a sequel - and at a very reasonable price too. I really wanted to go back and re-read the first book but unfortunately I simply don't have the time these days. I guess that means that you can pick up this book without having read the first one. A Well-Rounded and Accomplished Sequel Edward Adrift feels like a much accomplished book than its predecessor. It seems longer and more complete. It really feels like two stories but they're so expertly entwined that one naturally leads into the other. Edward Adrift is a g...

Developing Leisure Time Skills for People with Autism Spectrum  Disorders: Practical Strategies for Home, School and Community. (Revised and Expanded Second Edition) (Revised and Expanded Second By Phyllis Coyne, Mary Lou Klagge and Colleen Nyberg. It's fairly common for very young children to be quite “clingy” and to be more or less incapable of dealing with spare time. What you might not realise is that many older children and young adults experience difficulty with the concept of free time. Even older adults, who are verbally challenged and are on the autism spectrum experience these issues. The problem is that since these people can't manage their free time without assistance, they will often "get into trouble" if left alone for more than five minutes. As a result, the parents and caregivers of these people are often unable to take even short breaks for self hygiene without risk unless they arrange for substitute care. The aim of this book is to help p...

I've been reading and writing blogs on Asperger's syndrome since 2007. Over the years many of the blogs I was following have closed down and disappeared. Others have experienced a decline in posts until finally they fall silent.  Of course, I still have my feelers (RSS feed reader) out there and every now and then one of those blogs reactivates, though usually only for a lone post or two. The Post This happened earlier this week. The blog in question is from a neurotypical ( normal ) lady married to a man with Asperger's. The blog is mostly one-sided and often contains an angry rant. The relationship doesn't seem to be a happy one and clearly the author is not getting the respect that she needs from the relationship. To her credit, she has such high morals and is so devoted to her religion, that she won't leave, she simply struggles and endures (and complains). Her recent post was about how, as soon as they stopped marriage counselling, things went rig...

The Littlest Inventor by Mandi C Mathis (Illustrated by Danielle Ragogna) The Littlest Inventor is a children's picture book which tells a story about adjusting to sensory difficulties with some very sensible "inventions". These days, I'm finding myself reading a lot of really thick textbooks on the subject of autism and sensory processing disorder.  As a children's book with limited text and some gorgeous illustrations, this was an absolute breeze to read.  I really enjoyed it. At around 30 pages with one or two lines of rhyming text every couple of pages, it's the perfect size for a bedtime story or to read in the classroom. The story is about a boy who goes shopping with his parents and experiences a sensory overload. (Mild spoilers follow) The senses covered include sight, flickering lights, sounds in the form of chatter and smell. The ordeal in the shopping centre leads to a meltdown. When the boy gets home after the experience, he heads...

Self Reg: How to Help your Child  (and you) Break the Stress Cycle and Successfully Engage with Life by Stuart Shanker Self reg is more of a textbook aimed at professionals than a book aimed at parents. It contains a lot of general theories and a whole lot more specific real-life examples but it doesn't have step by step problem solving procedures. It acknowledges that all problems are different and it’s trying to teach parents and professionals to “problem solve” using the Self Reg framework. The book starts off with some theory exploring the various systems at work in a growing person’ body.  There's a lot of detail on various social experiments, marshmallow theory and various experiments aimed at exploring the relationship between parent-child interaction. It's all quite fascinating and there’s more than a few “ah-ha” moments as Stuart points out the flaws in these experiments. From here, the book talks about change but what makes it radically different from mo...

It's not uncommon for people, males in particular, to have major difficulties with the words “I love you” but in neurotypical (normal) males, this tends to be related to a commitment issue rather than a problem with the concept of love.  People on the autism spectrum, particularly those with Asperger’s syndrome have rather different problems with the words both in terms of honesty and understanding. Honesty People with Asperger's are often meticulously honest. That's to say that they go out of their way to be honest about things, even when honesty really isn't the best policy. It's not that people with Asperger's cannot lie but simply that many, not all , feel very uncomfortable about lying. If you ask a neurotypical person if they love you, you’ll generally get a “yes” response (if they're going to give you one), immediately - even if they don't actually "love you". This is because a neurotypical person is fairly comfortable with...

The world of employment today seems to be obsessed with university degrees.When I was starting out it was okay to just have one but today, employers are expecting two or three. There are a few problems with this approach; The World of Paper Qualifications  First of all, degrees (and indeed all forms of tertiary education) are now very expensive. They were government sponsored in the recent past but now it seems to have gone back to the idea that only rich people can have degrees. Even then, it seems that most people have to take out loans for their education, meaning that they have to spend years paying them off when they really need to be saving for a home. Secondly, degrees, particularly multiple degrees, take years to complete. That means years spent in academia learning what usually amounts to outdated concepts instead of getting useful experience in the real world. Finally, there just aren't the jobs for degree-holders today. Employers are requesting degrees but th...