Hello! getting a diagnosis

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Does he comprehend what he is reading or is he just saying the words correctly? I had a short term memory problem and that affected my reading/writing but it manifest itself mostly in comprehension.

He seems to be mainly comprehending though he has always been unable to summarize things, he can go on forever telling you about the story most of the time. Moore so if he really enjoyed the story than if he was just reading it to kill time.

Update: I contacted the Autism Society as suggested and have a list of people to talk to, I also took a couple online quizes posted in the stickies section:

Aspie Quiz:
neurodiverse (Aspie) score: 160 of 200
neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 47 of 200

The Autism Test: 41/50

Next, to give the quizzes to my son, though I have fewer doubts with him. Likely because it's easier to see things in him than myself. I'm always daunted by "What would your friends say about you?" questions in fun or these quizzes.

According to Aspie Quiz website:

You are very likely Aspie (neurodiverse) if your Aspie score was at least 35 points higher than your neurotypical score. In your case it was 113 points higher.

Aspies are plagued with a wide spectrum of hypersensitivities/hyposensitivities. These oddities can produce great stress in Aspies when functioning in the day-to-day activities. As humans, we are born with seven senses. These are the five senses traditionally ascribed to humans, which are vision, hearing, taste, smell and touch. The sixth sense is called proprioception, the perception of body position, which is important for balance and agility in movement. The seventh sense is vestibular, which is the perception of our body in relation to gravitational force and acceleration.

Proprioception is the sense of the relative position of neighboring parts of the body and strength of effort being employed in movement. This sense is very important as it lets us know exactly where our body parts are, how we are positioned in space and to plan our movements. This sense encompasses fine and gross motor skills. Examples of our proprioception in practice include being able to clap our hands together with our eyes closed, write with a pencil and apply with correct pressure, and navigate through a narrow space.

The vestibular system explains the perception of our body in relation to gravity, movement and balance. The vestibular system measures acceleration, g-force, body movements and head position. The vestibular system includes the parts of the inner ear and brain that help control balance and eye movements. Examples of the vestibular system in practice include knowing that you are moving when you are in an elevator, knowing whether you are lying down or sitting up, and being able to walk along a balance beam.

Since you mentioned that he has problems with using a pen or pencil, he may be experiencing problems with proprioception.

My first suggestion is that you have him take gymnastic classes. Three of my grandchildren have taken several years of classes now and it has done them wonders with their proprioception and vestibular systems.

There are some Aspies that are visual thinkers. This is probably one of the reasons why we are so attracted to comic books. In my younger school years, I was addicted to them and they were my first form of reading. So my second suggestion is that you encourage his reading by providing him this avenue to improve his reading skills and by default his writing skills. But comic books today are not the ones I grew up with 6 decades ago. Many are dark comics. So choose wisely.

Now I did not become a good reader until high school. It was due to limitations in short term memory. I was a very poor reader during elementary and junior high school. But when reading caught my interest, I made up the deficit in around a years time.

This recalls another type of special education that I received. When I was growing up, I never enjoyed reading for reading sake. I only associated reading with schoolwork. The only exception to the rule was comic books. But when I entered high school, the requirement to read efficiently became extremely important. My school must have recognized my limitation and placed me in a strange type of special class during my freshman high school year. The training was a type of reading comprehension training. The closest I could describe this approach was a class in Speed Reading. They would flash a paragraph or two of information for a very brief period of time and then measure my comprehension. They tried to teach me tricks on absorbing written material quickly and effectively.

My ability to learn was hindered by my lack of short-term memory. I would read the first sentence of a paragraph and then I would read the next. But by the time I finished the second sentence I forgot what the first sentence was about; so I would reread it. Then off to the third sentence but part way through that I forgot what the first two sentences were about, so I reread them. So it might take me an hour to read one paragraph - a single paragraph. What speed- reading taught me is to quickly identify one or two key words in a paragraph. This was the essence of the paragraph. Once I found them, they would anchor the entire paragraph around those couple words. So instead of reading linearly, I would read information from the inside out. I learned to comprehend meaning by drilling down from those key words to frame the entire paragraph.

So my third suggestion is to enroll him in a speed reading class, if they even exist today. I remember that I hated this class. But I think in hindsight it did me a lot of good.

Luke Jackson [in The Complete Guide to Asperger’s Syndrome by Tony Attwood] described a trick he used to learn how to read proficiently. The trick was to read the material aloud. Most normal people learn to read silently whereas an Aspie learns to read by reading aloud. Attwood theorized that, “Saying what you are reading can facilitate comprehension.” I believe this to be true. Many times even today when I am reading something that I really want to understand and to remember, I will either read it aloud or read it silently just moving my lips.

So my fourth suggestion is to have him read aloud.

(I hope I did that right.)
Wow!! This really speaks to me! I just gave my son the Aspie Quiz and his scores were 131 and 73, I just left the sex/romance questions at "?". I was going to ask if depth perception is a common problem. I have troubles all the time. Most recently in killing gnats that we have been unable, as of yet, to get rid of. I'll go to clap my hands around one and my hands only connect with each other at about 2 fingers. I have always been clumsy, I can't tell how big of a container to put the leftovers in and often have to get a second small one out. I was going to ask the optometrist about it at my next eye exam, but it sounds like there'd be no point and that the ballet classes my mom put me in weren't so pointless afterall.

I do not think depth perception is an Aspie trait. I knew someone who had a severe depth perception problem. It prevented him from driving at night. He had lost one eye in an accident.

We have small fruit flies indoors during the summer months. We use a small finger bowl and fill it with water and a little dishwasher soap and a couple drops of apple cider vinegar. That generally controls them.

One rare occasions we have swamps of gnats outside so thick that you almost need to wear a mask to be able to breathe. A few drops of lavender oil repels them.

Welcome to WP!

Thank you!

They might not be qualified to test for ASD, and/or they might be clinging to stick-in-the-mud old-fashioned narrow definitions of autism. There might still be some psychologists out there who don't "believe in" the very concept of ASD, or who think that the label "autism" should be reserved for the most extreme cases. Back in 2008, my boyfriend had a run-in with some therapists who didn't "believe in" what was then called "Asperger's syndrome" or "high-functioning autism."

Hello and welcome. I'm uncertain how much a diagnosis would help, as the reaction of people that know it varies from organisation to organisation.

I was quite happy with knowing the fact that I had some quirks that could imply autism until there was a lets say conflict at work. Then I started to get the feeling that people thought I was just making it up to get away with bad behaviour.
So I had the assesment and sure enough got diagnosed. My son was already diagnosed.
I have since then started with therapy and I think it helps in that regard to have a diagnosis, it's easier for the doc to find out what my mind is all about.

I have no advice to give, but that is my experience.

/Mats

Thank you so much for sharing! That is exactly what I'm thinking is the case for me. It will also silence those who argue with me because "obviously the professional didn't agree with your layman's assessment." and does more than open up the chance for me to explain that autism isn't a "bad" thing, it's just different.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! That is my experience, as well. But I feel I should mention that your and my experiences aren't universal, as I have learned chatting with the nice folk here on WP. Some folk here landed on different, more difficult colors on the spectrum than you and I did. (They're still nice company, though. And I am slowly learning from them.)

First of all I was reading the original post bc i was going to greet a newcomer as myself, but ofc
I realized i was some years to late to the gate. But i did read on as I myself has a son with ADHD and aspie diagnosis for 10 years (I got mine a few days ago).

What mostly triggered me to respond is your distress that he deteriorated with his spelling and started to struggle handling the pen.

The trouble with spelling is understandable for me bc I'm dyslectic too as my son, and maybe your son has saturated on failing to much and cant anymore muster the needed mental power for it. Have he played with words in a Word prosessor that highlight errors but not correct them? Let him have a break from fighting his problem for a few weeks, then see if he has more guts for it. Never reprimand him for trying and failing, reward that he try.
Also he has come to an age where he understand he is different. Its tough. dont push to hard.

Try to figure out, is his motoric skill deteriorating or is it only his ability to write with a pen?
If its only his writing that is problematic, its cause I guess is the same as with the spelling.
It can be that its only ADHD, or something more. I've no clue.

For the part of testing yourself, yes you should, and the reasons from the other nice people here I agree with.

Traits: one of my aspie traits is to go into 'problem solving mode' whenever people talk about something that is solvable or possibly understandable.
Another is quite annoying for lots of people, I struggle to hold back what i consider the truth. This is maybe the most forceful trait. If you ask me 'how do you do' whiteout me focusing on not to tell, I will start to tell you how I am, not respond with 'fine, how are you'.
Another quite strong trait is to pay attention always when facts are discussed or presented, this kept me surviving school, I can tell you.

I did write about the traits both bc they are not 'powers' but traits as all humans have traits, and to explain why i did engage. It's more easy to engage than not. And I'm a human as you, so check anything I've said you think may be useful before you act.

Love and hope for you and fam.
Regards
Gaffer Gragz (you know: old goofy silly man '')

Thank you so much for sharing! I have been homeschooling my son for the last 8 years, I don't speak harshly to him about his writing and only encourage him. When he writes and misspells things I only give gentle correction. I try and get him to write things in more phases than normal. First getting the thoughts on to the page, then organizing it and looking for gaps where more info is needed, then spelling, then punctuation and grammar, and lastly the final copy. I've been told that he likely didn't show signs of struggle when he was younger because he was just spelling words, not trying to put thoughts together and spelling words at the same time. So, I try to split the two. I've also allowed him to use talk-to-text features on the iPad, which has helped some but his writing, even with the helps, is far below his reading level. He doesn't seem to struggle building legos or tying his shoes or cutting up an apple. So, you may be right about it being a mentally draining thing for him. I've tried making his writing projects as interesting to him as possible, so he could get caught up in the words, not the writing of the words. I have a list from the Autism Society of people they would suggest to test us both and a list of places that offer funds to assist, I'm hopeful that we will qualify and both can be tested. I was "looked at" (my mom's words) for autism when I was a kid, in the late 70's and they decided at the time that I didn't qualify. The fact that they even considered me for autism makes me more sure that I'm autistic because autism, like ADHD was rarely diagnosed in females. Mainly, I just want my son to have all the considerations and helps he needs to succeed in life and avoid the PTSD that I have, and for me to be able to not just be treated like a rude NT, perhaps there would be some helps for me in my business, but I wouldn't know if that's available.