Parents of Aspeger's (AKA Aspies) Children

[zippyt]

This is an interesting subject , early on i was diagnosed with dislexia and hyper active disorder , and put thru LOTS of testing , they found out my IQ was in the high 140's but i get distracted easly , oh and over the years i have figured out that i AM a social troll , all ways been a loner , I just do my own thing , my own way , but there IS a method to my madness , oh and don't bug me or ask STUPID and OBVIOUS questions when i am trying to figuer something out i get WEIRD ,, QUICK !!!!!
I have Allways suspected there was something else going on , this Aspeger's sounds sorta like me. I suspect i would rate about a 2-3 on that scale

Find your sons intrests and encourage and help him , if he does things differently, let him , he may come up with a better way , or a way that works beter for him . Focus , or should i say HYPER focus can be usefull .

Oh and don't worry Too much about your spelling and grammer , a few folks will mess with you , but they are just generly being uptight anal rententive butt heads

[Messageboardjunkie]

Originally Posted by richlevy

Anyway, while I was on the subject of hidden disabilities, I would like to say that it would be interesting if there ever was a completely thorough assessment of the population so that we could finally understand how many people have some kind of disorder, from color-blindness, to dyslexia, ADD, ADHD, Autism, Aspergers, Bi-Polar, etc. The ranks of the functioning flawed probably vastly outnumber the 'perfect' specimens.

It would be interesting and I think I'd have to agree with that probability. My husband is color blind, my mother has personality disorders and my sister claims her "ADHD is kicking in". If I sit here long enough, I bet I can come up with other maladies for almost everyone in my extended family. LOL

[Messageboardjunkie]

Originally Posted by zippyt

Find your sons intrests and encourage and help him , if he does things differently, let him , he may come up with a better way , or a way that works beter for him . Focus , or should i say HYPER focus can be usefull .

My son seems to "hyper focus" on things. He's incredibly addicted to game shows. (GSN) He's 5 and watches them like most 5 year olds watch cartoons. It amazes me, thinking of all the information that's most likely being stored in that mind of his. He tells me that someday he's,"Going on all the game shows and I will win all the money!" ROFL! As long as he "shares" with his momma, thats cool with me!

Oh and don't worry Too much about your spelling and grammer , a few folks will mess with you , but they are just generly being uptight anal rententive butt heads

That and more.........

[Messageboardjunkie]

Oops! Sorry Zippyt.......seems I still dont understand how to use the quote tools on this forum. Sorry about the misquote in the previous post. I'll get it right, eventually.

[OnyxCougar]

My 11 year old is borderline Aspergers, and after 7 years of special ed, he's finally transitioned into normal class (5th grade). It's a bumpy trip, but we're still chugging right along.

[warch]

I read the short book "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" a few months ago by Mark Haddon. The main character is a teen with Aspergers and its interestingly written from his view, although I think they label him as autistic- he's pretty high on the spectrum, more Aspergers. The reader is left to piece together the emotional responses of the surrounding characters. I found it very interesting writing.

[jaguar]

Looks like you got your wish:
US Govt. Introducing possibly mandatory psych testing for kids

President Bush plans to unveil next month a sweeping mental health initiative that recommends screening for every citizen and promotes the use of expensive antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs favored by supporters of the administration.

Not that big pharma is the *slightest* bit in making sure every one of those dangerous psychologically damaged kids that don't watch MTV and don't like McDonalds is on drugs to make them 'right'.....

[wolf]

I think the mandatory mental health screening thing is scary in a "Brave New World" kind of way ... Ron Paul did try to have a requirement for parental consent added to that bill, but it didn't make it.

In case you're missing it ... your children are now shown to be the property of the state.

[jinx]

Originally Posted by wolf

In case you're missing it ... your children are now shown to be the property of the state.

if you send them to public school.

[wolf]

Even if you don't.

The minute you applied for a social security number, they stopped being yours.

Not sending the kids to public school just limits the state's ability to indoctrinate them. Private schools still have to follow state-approved lesson plans.

[OnyxCougar]

Well, the bumpy ride took a turn for the worse this week.

My son had an incident in school Monday. For some (still unknown) reason, he sat down on the floor. He says it's because he didn't deserve to sit at the table. After repeated attempts and requests by his teacher to get him up, he was finally dragged to the office, and given 1 day in school suspension. The note came with a recommendation from his counselor to get him into therapy for "self esteem and anger issues".

Monday evening, I came home and all was fine. At 9pm, (his bedtime) he hands me the ISS notification. He waited because he knew that he was going to get into trouble and wanted to squeak that last bit of tv in before the hammer fell.

So he got 3 swats for lying to me and corner time for 2 days. Corner time means he sits in a corner of the living room, and cannot leave it without permission, and can't watch tv or play or generally goof off. He sits there.

Tuesday night he went to bed and didn't give me a kiss goodnight. This is unusual.

Last night was to be the last night of corner time, but he kept breaking the rules of the punishment, so he got assigned one more night. We spoke to him about how rules are important and that no one really likes to follow rules, but some are there for good reason.

He tried to go to bed without kissing me goodnight. My husband called him over and told him to give me a kiss goodnight so he came over and leaned on me. I asked him why he was so angry at me. He said "Because I'm adopted." "Why do you think you are adopted?" "Because of the way everyone treats me badly. Because my brother picks on me." I told him he is not adopted, and we don't treat him badly. We're trying to teach him what is and is not acceptable behavior because we love him.

He went to bed and started the loud crying "I want attention" cry, so Husband went in there and talked to him for awhile and I went to bed.

The guilt set in. Maybe my daughter's dad was right. Maybe I'm a bad mother. Maybe it's my fault he's this way. I didn't know I was pregnant until 5 months in, and I wasn't taking care of myself.

I didn't sleep well last night and I don't know what to do now.

[Clodfobble]

OC, when I was about 7 or 8 I went through this phase where about once a month or so I would run away, and when asked why I would reply something to the effect of "Because I know that wherever I go I will be loved more than I am here." The first time I said it, it made my mother cry in front of me.

The point is, at the time I did not actually think that I wasn't loved, I was just mad about some punishment or rule or whatever and knew that telling my mother she didn't love me would hurt her. After awhile I grew out of it when I realized that even when I hurt her, I still didn't get my way. I don't know how old your son is, but it sounds to me like you're doing exactly the right things regarding discipline, and presenting a united front with your husband which is also really important.

[OnyxCougar]

He's 11. And I know you're right, but I don't think he did it to hurt me, I think he really thought he was adopted. He can't think metaphorically. He is a very literal person. If I said, "I've been beating my head into the wall" trying to do something, he'd look at my head to see if I was bleeding.

Here's a prime example:

I've told Bryan not to talk to strangers. He went to school and refused to speak to any of the children or staff he didn't know. He took me that literally. I had to explain that teachers and policeman and fireman were ok.

Then, a few weeks ago, he comes in holding a dollar. "Mom, I got a dollar!" "Where did you get the dollar from?" "From the man in the red car." "What red car?" "He was driving and he asked if I wanted a dollar and I said yes. He asked my name and I told him and he gave me the dollar and drove off." I was suitably alarmed. "Do not talk to that man again, and how many times do I have to tell you "Don't talk to strangers" before you listen! He could have grabbed you and hurt you." "But he didn't." "But he could have. So don't do it again, ok?" "OK."

And he was back to not talking to teachers again.

:|

[Philosopher]

My youngest son Sam, just turning 11 in a month, was diagnosed autistic at age 3.5.
Seriously so.

After the usual agonizing and crushing first few weeks absorbing the info that usually goes with that diagnosis regarding what his future would probably be like (they didn’t pull any punches, at both places we had him tested), we dried out, straightened up, and started doing what we could. Apart from the usual IEP and special ed stuff, which in my opinion is valuable, but just isn't anywhere near what is required, timewise, at school. No school system could afford what’s required, timewise…

What we did is what was done for me, and what I had done for his older brother (age 13 now). We taught him how to read by age 4.5. Using at first magnetic letters on a small steel blackboard. First letter recognition. "Find me the L." Then when he mastered the letters (we would have him pick them out jumbled every which way in a mess on the blackboard), we moved to the Be, He, Me, We stage, (just changing one letter in a list of things that ended the same, phonetically. Then with things that started the same phonetically. Then pasted signs on a couple hundred items in the house of things he knew (phonetically) already, so he'd see the word for "television" above the TV, etc. The whole process took 8 months, but at the end, he could see an unfamiliar word and sound it out even without knowing its definition yet. Of course, we read to him every night, then after a while he'd read one page, we the next page, and so on. I don't know how kids are taught to read today, but that's the "common sense" way I was taught to read by my grandfather. Had me reading the newspaper and doing the crossword puzzle by age 4.

I bring this up because it worked, in more ways and with more challenges that we ever imagined when we started. And it might help someone. It was always done as a "game" and in the beginning we'd cut it off after 10 minutes, 3 or 4 times a day. Later we'd gotten attuned to his level of interest waning and would stop before it got there, and changed the game next session to rekindle it.

The key thing was that when he hit Kindergarten, it gave him something he knew that the other kids didn't. Self-confidence in ANYTHING helps a lot in the socialization process. By age 5 he was reading anything he could get his hands on. But the social aspect was still ahead of us.

The reason I bring reading up so much is that there is no way we could have given him a repeated insight into how other people think, with a wide variety of characters to mull over. Time is limited, and I'm not schizo enough to be 600 people for him. : )

We made a point of picking books that had kids his age in a variety of situations: historical, cultural, geographical, sci-fi, etc. But the same set-up, a kid trying to figure out how the world works.

A movie would often be used to chase a particular setting in a book, but only now and then. Because the reading forces him to imagine settings, and reading pries into other people's thoughts, unlike film, which is a great medium in some ways, but not as a primary medium for him. Particularly good were films where the protagonist kid narrates his thoughts as he's thinking.

Telling stories, real fables or made up ones, about kids losing out because of "all or nothing" attitudes getting in the way of achievement helped reduce that typical attitude. He slowly stopped the "I'll sit here till the next ice age till I get what I want" stuff.

We sold him on "manners" by asking him if he ever noticed how adults tended to ignore kids or treat them different than they treated other adults. He said "Yeah...." So we asked him if he wanted to try an experiment with adults. That if he always looked up when any adult entered the room, looked straight into their eyes, and smiled and said "Hello! I'm Sam. Who are you?" while holding the look (and several other gambits), that we thought adults would treat him much more like an adult than they did other kids, and would he help us test that hypothesis. (Worked like a charm). After a while, the sense of power made him come up with his own "gambits". Realizing that he could catch adults off-balance and crack them up this way made him a LOT less shy about introducing himself to other kids his own age. And so on....

I'm rambling... but I feel for other parents that have and are going through this, so much... And if any of the things we did can help, try ‘em… don’t let anybody tell you it’s too late. The brain keeps rewiring throughout life, responding to the input. Consistency of input, sometimes straight ahead, sometimes flanking, is the key. It’s a muscle. Train it. But make it a game. Teach them to enjoy competing against themselves.

Bottom line. All I have said is part of what seems to have worked. I cannot but believe that prayer, constant prayer by us and his grandparents, uncles and aunts (we are Roman Catholics) was crucial. But then, that's me.

If I was to rank the order I'd have to say my God, most Merciful, Sam himself, Mr. Tenacity, then my son Nick, who has spent the most time with Sam (fighting, teaching, ribbing, goading, kibbitzing over his shoulder at the computer games), then my wife, then me, and finally the school. All essential, each with with their own angle.

By age 6, Sam literally had his Kindergarten teacher in love with him. By age 9, elected class representative. Salient ability: Writes long stories with a command of grammar and dialogue 5 years ahead of himself. Scores 93% percentile and just got admitted into the Highly Capable program his brother has been in for several years.
Caused an odd reaction from Nick (resident genius) until I took Nick outside and told him where he stood in that ranking as to who was the most helpful to Sam getting where he is. Then I swore him to secrecy, that he was never to EVER tell Sam that.
That put an end to that jealous nonsense.

Asperger's? Possibly. He does have a very good memory, but not the kind usually ascribed to Aspies. He can concentrate on a job for hours, but not to the point of tuning out the world, nor does he get upset when interrupted. Though he used to be, and holler up a storm. Socially skilled now, funny, more so than his brother, lol, the only things that remain are a bit of stuttering when nervous, but not bad. Oh, yeah, and he still turns red-faced and tears up mightily, to the point of being almost speechless when faced with having to eat something "strange". I only see it now over food, though it used to happen over many, many things. Bizarre, that that one would hold out...

What can I say. I consider myself the luckiest bastard alive. <shakes head> And the most grateful.

And I pray that some part of this helps someone out there. I'll pray for that anonymously; my Lord knows well who needs those prayers without my having to know their name.

[Undertoad]

That's awesome work by you sir. You deserve all the credit in the world. Good goin'!