HFA in Boy's Club

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Sorry, no. I have known Hal, that I like very much, for about a year. He does have malicious intent on occasion like many other kids. If that is not an "aspie" trait, then you would not consider him an "aspie." Where then would your criticism be of me? You can't have it both ways.

My mother knew me all my life and she never got it.

Just stop being so sure about it, that's all I'm asking for.

Last edited by magz on 05 Jan 2018, 12:55 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Yes, I understand your point. And as I mentioned in my last point, that brings up the question of whether Hal is the kind of autistic person you presume him to be. Since he seems not to be, perhaps your advice is not pertinent. Perhaps you are projecting what I am saying about Hal, who I like very much, onto yourself.

I didn't say he wants the other boys to think him as smart. I wish that was the case. I said he wants to feel smart and is being tricky to make that happen.

Elsa, you have been very kind and helpful. May I describe some instances from last night and invite you to interpret them?

As usual during the "gathering time", which is pragmatically left kinda unorganized, a number of boys were tossing soft rubber balls around to each other. When Hal arrived he was carrying some materials in his hand that one of the adults gave to him to bring in from the car. Right away, without putting down the materials, Hal picked up a ball and threw it at the head of a boy that was nearby but not looking his way. I asked him if he had tried to hit the boy's face. He said no, I then asked what he was trying to do. He said he was throwing the ball to him. I dropped it there.

A bit later another boy, on his own, started organizing a game where the balls could be thrown into some pails, scoring points. Supporting the boy in his initiative, I encouraged the boys to join in, get in line, and take turns. Hal started turning the pails over. I encouraged him to play the game with the rest of them, to get in line, and take his turn. He turned the pail back over and did what I asked.

I am sorry your mother didn't understand you. I know very well how that feels. How when family says they love you, but they really mean the person they think you should be, not the person you actually are. I just let them think what they wanted and of course didn't feel loved.

There are some things I am very sure of, but others i am trying to piece together, with all of your help. Can you, yourself, be so sure never having met Hal?

Excuse me for quoting your post twice. I am really trying to understand your point and make sense out of all this. I have noticed almost no "special interests or fascinations" nor "peculiarly focused attention (positive, like interests, or negative, like sensory issues, irritability)" in Hal. I expected them and have looked for them and they just aren't there. So then he wouldn't qualify as autistic according to you...

Could he be transitioning out of being autistic? Hmmm...

On what basis do you assume this to be the case? Why is the first explanation so difficult to believe?

See, again, you are looking for any excuse to assume he is not autistic.

I am by far the least experienced person here. I will bow down to other people's expertise.

To me this low-level disruptive behaviour suggest an unease or lack of understanding of rules and attention seeking (through trying to involve themselves but not knowing how). Also the times you mention are transition times - arriving from the car - and the beginning of the new game. In my experience these transition times are often when children with ASD / PDA would be the very most vulnerable and often find most challenging in particular if it is in unstructured play where the rules or expectations are not clear.

Going to sign out now and enjoy some time away from the computer, but good luck, there are very many extremely insightful and knowledgeable people on this board, if you can listen to them I think you can bring some fresh eyes to the situation.

Sorry, I am unsure what your pronouns refer to and sincerely do not want to confuse the discussion: Which this to be the case and which first explanation?

nonsense

I'm pretty sure my mother does love me. Genuinely. But she is adamant about misinterpreting my actions. Based on what? Something "obvious" that I never could get. She uses the word "obvious" about things totally confusing for me.
And she often mistook my lack of social compass for a lack of moral compass. This is what I have gone throught, so I am very eager to spot such possibilities.

I am not sure. I give a lot of space for doubt. As ASDMommyASDKid pointed out, working with an ASD kid requires a lot of trial and error. Careful looking at outcomes.
So we give you possible different explanations to things seeming "obvious" to you. To seed the doubt: why in the first place they seemed obvious to you? Body language? This is one the most misleading things when it comes to ASD.

I see some patterns in Hal's behaviors. He sticks to doing a mischief to every person once. Even and systematic. As tomatos are fruit, why shouldn't a "fruit" salad contain them? This is literal thinking together with not noticing the box outside of which people are encouraged to think. Oh, yes, he is proud of himself, because nobody else got this idea!
There is logic. There is system. I guess he is good at systemising.

First, I apologize for posting something that could cause confusion. The tomato/fruit salad scenario was an hypothetical example of what does, not an actual thing he did. I can't think of an actual example like that right now, but there have been many. Usually it is something verbal that disrupts what is going on. Something that takes the wrong meaning of something, very intentional.

OK, why is his intent obvious to me? For a short example, the last meeting in Dec it was time to collect the balls that were being thrown around. I was holding the bag and the boys were placing or tossing them in the bag. Hal had the last ball, walked up close to me and threw it directly at my face, probably as hard as he could. He then made excuses like it hit your hat, not your face. See, he was trying to mask his intent by changing what happened. (high level thinking! ) I would have thought his intent was benign if he said something like: I thought you would catch it in your mouth, or how else were you supposed to get it? especially if he had tossed it instead winding up and throwing it from arm's length.

And yeah, I wonder about the deal with the snowballs and the hotdogs being done to each boy just once. I can take it that he is being socially inclusive, which is good, but in the wrong way. Kinda like a toddler wanting everyone in the room to have a stuffed toy. But then there is the "just once" thing. That, to me, signifies he was planning his excuses ahead of time: 1. treated everyone the same (being fair) and 2. was very limited (not worth making a big fuss).

Gotta go.

I'm going with the assumption that the child is indeed autistic. I find it unlikely that he would have gotten an incorrect diagnosis at such a young age. The lining up of objects when in a confusing social setting supports this, as do the obvious social difficulties. His therapist sounds clueless.

About 'transitioning' from autism: possible, but highly unlikely. A lot of 'transitioning' is just learning life skills. Nobody knows much about this, but most autistics would tell you that people's neurological makeup doesn't change much, it's the strategies and skills that do.

I'm commenting on this thread because 'Hal' reminds me a lot of myself as a child. I would play jokes on people, and in retrospect I see that I was incredibly annoying about it, because every joke went on way too long. The way NT kids do it is they pick a kid with lower social status and push him until he's upset. Meanwhile, the other kids are 'safe' and they deal with it by blaming the victim or ignoring it. Meting out a little bit of teasing for everybody is a very autistic thing to do, we're born democrats. Also, he might be giving himself little challenges by creating a rule that he has to touch each and every kid.

I draw four conclusions from his behavior:

1. He's intelligent, which is why it is so hard to see which of his behaviors are his own and which are just his uninformed copying of other boys.

2. He's extroverted, which is why he is trying to to figure out the rules of social interactions by interacting with others and trying to make a pattern out of how they react. A more introverted child with the same intelligence would be passively observing to a larger extent.

3. He's been trained to mimic neurotypical behavior. There may have been some abuse involved in this, physical or emotional. Has he received ABA therapy? Some of that is incredibly effective at scaring autistics kids into copying NT behavior.

4. He probably has hyposensitivities. Were you looking for those, or only for hypersensitivities? Be aware of the fact that the same sense can be both hyper- and hyposensitive in different conditions. I can be hyposensitive to loud sounds, but hypersensitive to softer sounds, as an example.

Here is a good explanation of sensitivities: http://www.autism.org.uk/about/behaviou ... world.aspx

I agree with eikonabridge about special interest, though. He should be boring the other kids to tears with explanations about things he finds fascinating. I often found when I was little that some adults liked talking to me because I was so precocious, though. Sometimes the brainier kids have a variety of interests, so they're more able to converse on a range of topics. He may have received a strong message about not talking about special interests.

This 'handshake' thing is something that would boggle the mind of an autistic boy, though. You're basically training kids in the art of fake apologies, and he is of course not able to fake it. I doubt any of them have much empathy for others at that age, and he, because of his autism, is emotionally immature. Automatically deduct a few years from his chronological age when it comes to this kind of thing.

Here's how I would interpret your behaviors at that age: most likely, the other boys are pranking each other, but hiding it better. Or one of them does, and Hal is copying him. It may be someone at school. Since he sees other boys doing fake handshakes/apologies, he assumes that it is all part of the game. Because he has Theory of Mind issues, he believes that you are aware of what the other boys are doing, but you are for some reason harder on him. So he sees it all as a big game that he hasn't really figured out the rules of, and that you don't really mean all the stuff you say about being sorry. The handshake thing is something very insincere, which would lead an intelligent autistic child to think he is surrounded by insincere adults, which is supported by the fact that he has obviously been drilled at faking a lot of social skills at home. In his position I would not take these adults very seriously, as, obviously, they are likely to say all sorts of things they don't mean, for some reason that is unfathomable to an autistic child. Basically, adults do crazy stuff.

Also, if as you say your organization has a religious base, he may be one of those autistics who just don't 'get' religion. I remember going to Sunday School and thinking 'Why are these adults telling lies to children? These stories are obviously not true.' It led to a lifelong distrust of religious people. I assumed that religious people were lying intentionally, because I didn't understand that people could believe things that didn't make logical sense.

Also, the empathy thing: he may not have much of an idea about personal boundaries because people are overstepping his boundaries all the time, and he assumes he is just as valuable as the next person; therefore if he has to put up with crap, others should also stop whining at small stuff.

If he is indeed autistic, he will respond to logical explanations of things. Logic gets through to us in a way that feelings don't.

I don't know the kid, but here is an alternative explanation. It may be wrong. You may also be wrong. I see a lot of baseless assumptions about his motivations in your posts. If you could stick to observed facts and not interpretations, it would be of help.

Please recognize that Theory of Mind goes both ways; NTs are rubbish at interpreting autistic body language and intentions. You are just as handicapped as he is in this situation.

Let me relate another incident involving Hal. I am hoping you fine folks can at least see why I view him capable of manipulation and malevolence like most boys. I do not ask anyone to agree with me and welcome alternate interpretations. One interpretation that will mean little to me would be a short quip like "That's what aspies do!" Also, please understand that I am not condemning Hal and am trying to be nonjudgmental. I won't go into my religious beliefs on this. A big fear I have for Hal is he will do something perceived as antisocial as he becomes a teen and get physically assaulted or worse. That happened to a boy in my High School many years ago...

Hal's gang was planning meals for a campout. They were brainstorming, each calling out different items to tentatively put on the menu. Hal called out "fried dirt" which he thought was funny. Nobody else did and some said so. This didn't seem to bother Hal and may have even been the response he was looking for. (This is one of the reasons I think he is being clever to impress himself rather than others. He never fishes for compliments, either.) After there was enough items for a particular menu choice, the boys took turns crossing off any items they just didn't like. When the list got down to 2, they voted on which would be on the menu. A boy I will call Ivan didn't like mozzarella sticks which was an item Hal had called out and so Ivan crossed it out. This upset Hal so much he declared that whatever Ivan put on any list, he would cross out. And that is what Hal did the rest of the meeting. (Ivan is a very stable kid and was puzzled by this but did not get upset. I explained at another meeting what "cutting off your nose to spite your face" means. He kinda got it.) A meeting or two later, out of the blue, Hal said we should elect a new leader (The elected one hadn't been coming.) and that it should be "Sampson" (Ivan's younger brother). This was obviously a deliberate snub on Ivan, who was the natural leader. I have never seen any rivalry between the brothers, btw. It would take quite a bit of convincing to make me believe that Hal is not capable of manipulation and malevolence, just like any other kid.

Anyhoo, there are times that I have seen Hal intensely focused on something and we have let him do so, sometimes to the point of messing up whatever the gang was trying to accomplish. Since it was something he didn't seem to have control over, we blew it off. It's sorta of a messy endeavor, anyway, so no big deal. Those times, sure, we can chalk it up to ASD and get on with what is next. But other times when there is deliberate, planned disruption I have to put it under the category of a kid messing up, hopefully let the gang work it out, and get on with what is next. But in addition to that, I plan on keeping closer tabs on Hal and give him more caring guidance. Kinda like if a kid had a physical problem, giving him tips on how to do what the other kids are doing, maybe helping him over an obstacle when he is really trying.

Maybe some of you can see why I am very hopeful for Hal. From what I gather from you fine folks, manipulation and malevolence are NT traits and not ASD traits. To get along in the NT world, it is best to at least understand it, even if you aren't totally part of it. Since Hal is capable of these traits, he should have the ability to understand them and hopefully control them as time goes by. I am hopeful that he will learn to cope and become independent as a young man. I really do like the kid.