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Hi everyone, I'm new here. I'll get to my question first - I'm looking for a website for my 11yo son to go to to learn about Asperger's. He recieved his educational diagnosis today and we are waiting for the medical diagnosis. He needs a consise article to read that will help him learn about it.

Thanks!
Leigh Ann

---I'll type up an intro later on.

You won't find it here. The current definition of AS changes daily and a lot of people here bend it to diagnose themself.

The pediatrist you will see will provide you with a resource and may set you up with a support group. If the Dr. wants to put DS on meds please get a second opinion.

If you would like AS community feelings about the abobe I would recomend postin another post.

I guess what I'm looking for is a website or article geared toward kids (grade school or jr high age) that explains Asperger's in a concise way. I told him as best as I could, but it would be nice to have an article to refer to. I guess I could order a book for his age group if I don't find anything.

there is a kids' forum here, which probably would be a good place to start. It's waaay down at the bottom of the list. Maybe there's some help there...

Thanks, I'll check it out.

There are some books many parents here have used. The one that comes to mind is "All Cats Have Aspergers," but I'm not sure what age it's geared towards. I'll see if I can find some of the other titles and post again later. Otherwise, hopefully one of the parents who knows the titles will post.

A more adult / broad view will be found in any of the books by Tony Attwood.

The kid's forum isn't that active; mostly kids posting with each other. The adolescent forum gets into some touchy teen issues. A lot of what goes on in both of those are kids comparing notes about what they like, don't like, and how they experience the world.

I've found this forum to be a good resource for understanding the why's on the things my son does, especially the ones he hasn't figured out for himself yet. It's also a good place for brainstorming solutions on sticky issues, and just venting about all the frustrations you'll find with schools.

Welcome!

I hate to say it, but I was going to say something similar to what "courage" said. I wouldn't have been so blunt, but that is why I didn't do it.

Also, don't think it is purely the self diagnosed here. Psychiatrists, etc... are certainly at least as guilty. The reason why there is NLD, AS, autism, etc.... or even the DSM, is because the diagnosis is supposed to tell you SOMETHING about the person. It seems that even someone with MUNCHAUSEN'S may be misdiagnosed, etc... even though that is FAR simpler. I guess I shouldn't say any more, because some would take it is a big insult.

I wish you the best of luck in your quest. One that I think is a LITTLE bit better view, but certainly FAR lower traffic, is http://asdgestalt.com/.

Unfortunately in our case we've got so many diagnoses in our family, I wouldn't have seeked this one out unless I had to. I'll type up a formal intro when I have more time, but I have two children, both of which are on the autism spectrum. My daughter age 13 has Rett Syndrome, and a mitochondrial disorder. Both my son and I have low muscle tone, and he's just been 'different' since he was small. He was diagnosed with ADHD from an early age, but that didn't cover all the problems he was having. What bothers him most is the tics, so he may end up with a dx of tourette or OCD as well. The low muscle tone makes me wonder if we should be checked for the mito disorder as well. His dad has taken meds for ADHD when he was in college, and both of us probably would have fit the AS criteria as kids. My son's school is who suggested we start looking into AS. We had always assumed it was just ADHD. So, I guess what I'm getting at is, there's no Munchausen here, we are too busy for that, LOL.

I think my son is going to turn out fine, but I want him to know what he's going through and why. I never understood my problems as a kid, and I didn't fit in, and it led to depression and anxiety. I think if I had known more about it, I would have gotten along better. Both my husband and I do great now as adults, and I expect the same for him.

My son has the low muscle tone and, more applicably, "loose joints." Muscle tone can be improved; the loose joints you're rather stuck with. And there I was all giddy watching my baby sit up by pushing himself through a center split. He could put his feet behind his neck, too. I thought he might be a great gymnast someday. But, alas, all that comes with poor muscle tone and it is what makes writing so painful and virtually impossible to learn. His OT tells us it also explains the need for contstant motion: when the joints are loose, not all the sensory signals get through, so someone with this problem needs extra sensory input just to sense their physical placement in the world. It was an AS adult here on Wrong Planet who tuned me into that.

It has helped my son quite a bit to understand there is a reason he is different, and to realize his favoirte parts of who he is are tied to the same condition. He can accept the balance of it, most likely because he wouldn't trade his gifts for anything. He has had some golden moments showing off his gifts.

AS is often misdiagnosed as ADD. A child can have both, but often it seems to just be a mistake. AS can present as ADD, but the causes of the distractions are different. As a very general statement, I describe ADD as being an internal distraction, a mind that won't stop jumping around ideas; AS is more of an external disctraction, caused by sensory issues and stress factors. Which is important to keep distinguished in a world that wants to medicate all our kids.

wow, your son sounds a lot like mine. and the sensory input issues just came out in his testing. We always thought he was just hyper. So we are looking at his condition from a whole different perspective now.

As far as medications, he does take a stimulant. I don't know how he could get by without it, to be honest. He doesn't seem to get anything out of what is going on around him due to all his distractions, and the med minimizes them somewhat. If any of you have any other ideas, I'd love to hear them.

WOW, I ALWAYS knew about MY sensory problems, but nobody could relate and understand me.

I think families here are about half and half on who is medicating and who isn't. My son isn't, but he also got through preschool and K without anyone suggesting it. The preschool just thought I was a bad parent - but that is a whole other story. Since 2nd grade, it's come up a few times because he has such trouble staying on task with schoolwork, but I've always worked it out with him instead. Diligently looking for triggers and distractions, mitigating them, helping him find ways to relieve his stress, sitting with him to do his homework, etc. We'd just keep trying things until something worked, and we always found something, so I've become confident that my son's needs are situational, not ADD. But many, many AS kids really have both, and those situations are different. Quite a few AS kids end up homeschooling, where the environment can be set up most optimally for them, and if push came to shove and it was a choice between home school and meds - I'd pick home school. But it never shows itself as a clear choice like that, does it? Still, look hard at environmental issues and do your best to mitigate them; don't allow the meds to be a crutch or a free pass on this; he can't take meds forever (or so I've been reading) so at some point you need to know how to help him without them.

One thing to be aware of is that most AS kids NEED some sort of repetitive self-stimulating motion. When you get the child to suppress the behavior, you actually decrease their ability to focus and stay on task. My son learns more if he is squirming in his chair than if he is not, despite how annoying it is to the teacher, because not squirming requires him to focus on not squirming and no energy is left to listen. Teachers need to know that. He also likes to chew while doing homework (straws work well) and needs intervals of pacing time throughout the day (literally bashing into furniture and walls while his mind is off in some fantasy - lots of AS kids enjoys trampolines or swings for a similar purpose). Once we stopped trying to suppress the pacing, we had less meltdowns and a more focused student. So much of it goes against conventional parenting wisdom, but it can make such a huge difference to just let your child be who he is, even if we can't understand those needs at all.

This is all so interesting, thanks DW. You're right, I should go with my own gut feeling, that this is who he is. The teacher said he seems to absorb everything, even if he doesn't appear to be paying attention. We'll try some things over the summer to hopefully help him next year. I'm still afraid though that the distractions will be just too much. I could home-school him, but then he wouldn't get near as much practice with social skills. But there could be other benefits as well.

Yes, I know all about bashing into furniture, LOL. We don't have a trampoline, but he has jumped on a pogo stick for hours, so that makes sense.

Thanks so much.