first visit appears to be ASP

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Hi there...

I came hear to learn about Aspergers since my son had been tentatively diagnosed (just got back from the referal visit-an ASP specialist by our local Psychiatrist) with Aspergers. From the inital consultation and observation with the psychologist that evaluates the children prior to seeing the physician, this lady feels that my son is definitely in the spectrum.

I am actually relieved to know what's going on with my little one. We've had notes and discussions from past 3 teachers, all who swore he probably had ADD. Once we received the final paperwork from the doctor who will see him next month, I just want to shove those papers in the past teachers faces and say, "na-nanna-na-na" you were WRONG in judging my child.

My husband and I are medically trained and we both knew he was not ADD. He's not bad at home. In fact, he never wants to leave home! LOL....he just likes doing his own thing (like me!). School makes him white knuckled all day long. No wonder the boy cannot focus.

I cannot wait to learn more about what's going on inside that precious little head of his and make him feel at ease. I also have learned that I have a LOT of ASP characteristics. Probably where my son gets it from!

Now, I have a question with how to deal with my parents (grandparents) who do not believe in these "labels" of children these days. My dad is a high school principal and just thinks ADD doesn't exist and that it's a product of both parents not being at home. I think my dad's generation just didn't have those diagnoses when they were growing up and also as a teacher/educator they didn't start with the labeling until the last 10-12 years.

It's frustrating listening to them go on and on about how aspergers is the latest "toy" with psychologists. How have you guys dealt with family like this that are not understanding?

TIA! THIS SITE IS REALLY GREAT!

A lot of kids will have an initial diagnosis (or suggestion) of ADD, ADHD and/or ODD. It's very common.

One of the things that happens to us parents when we reach this point is that we are so relieved to finally have answers that we often share it with family members and find they aren't very receptive. Grandparents are often a hard sell--partly because of the generational aspect you mentioned, along with what I call Gene Pool Pride. (There are exceptions to this of course).

What many parents have found is that it's best to lay low for awhile--give them the basics but don't expect them to buy into it. In time something (no telling what) usually happens that does the convincing so you don't have to. I had an older relative who was going on and on about how things like this were overdiagnosed and what these kids (speaking in general) really needed was a good swift kick in the pants like back in his day. Not long after those words were out of his mouth my son displayed some behaviors that spoke more than I could have if I'd talked all night. That was the last I ever heard of that kind of talk--from then on it's been concern and encouragement. On the other side of the family the He Just Needs Time Camp came around after another grandchild was diagnosed with neurological issues (Tourette's) having overlapping symptoms. Not long after that they started asking *me* questions.

Good luck with those white knuckles. BTDT and was happy when we were able to find roads to relief.

We had a reverse reaction in my family. Before we were referred to a specialist, my son exhibited slow development but I wasn't alarmed or aware of any possible "disorder" (because he was just like my husband and I). So, any mention of not talking, not eating, tantrums, et al, were met with "of course he's like that, you don't make him ______!"
Everything was met with, "Why don't you make him eat ______?"
"of course he's not potty trained, stop putting him in diapers!"
"don't give him food until he asks for it!"
But the second we went to a neurologist, everything reversed and I was suddenly not doing enough medically to cure him. It was nuts.


I think the grandparents' reaction is also a defensiveness, not just about the Gene pool pride, but on their own parenting and observational skills. My husband and I definitely have autistic traits, some that debillitated us in many areas. Now, 30 years later, they are having to see those traits as being organic rather than us being "difficult" or "rebellious" "inconsiderate" kids.

Thanks so much for the encouragement! I think I will just keep it on the down-low for now with the family. Most of them wouldn't understand it anyway. After a long talk with my mom, she understands a bit more now of where we are coming from. My dad on the other hand will be a long story.

Another concern...my husband and I will be relocating to the other end of the state very soon for his job. My little one is now understands what "moving" is about. We've taken him with us to visit the new town and workplace for my husband. How is the best method for introducing a move to him? When we've moved before, he was a little guy (3 yo).

How old is he?

One idea would be to write your own personalized book about the move for him--we call them social stories. Take pictures of him and his room and your current house plus the new town and the new house and in between show him something about the move (trucks being loaded, a map to the new place etc). If he's young and struggling with speech you won't want to load up with lots of text but rely on visuals.

Another possible way to organize it: Once we took a vacation and knowing we were going to be in a number of different locations I made a vacation book. My son was reading well so I included a calendar to check off days. I made a page for each day of the trip and included the following information for each day: where you will wake up, what we will do, who we will see, where we will go to sleep at night. I included pictures of relatives he never met, a picture of a hotel I printed from online, etc.

another thing you can do to get him used to the idea of a new town is to find similiarties between the 2 towns & share them with him. ie; the town we live in now has a McDonalds, and so does our new town....this is what our town's library looks like....this is what the new town's library looks like...etc.
i think understanding that there are similiarities might make transitioning easier....of course, it it's not too prohibitive, you could also mention that you can always visit the old town...

I used my cartoons. Cartoons of the rental truck, all of us moving, who is in which car. Try to schedule breaks and stop overs and keep that all planned with the book.
Try to stop at familiar stores or restaurants helps too along the way.

ahh....

I know exactly what you mean! These are great ideas. We do this currently when going on long drives. We make a map with the names of all the cities that we will go through and as we reach them he puts check marks next to the names. It's funny my son (who is just shy of being 7) notices every single sign and the mileage remaining to a particular city. As annoying as it can be sometimes, he does come in handy when I miss a sign and can ask him if he saw it by chance! LOL....
My very own interactive "TomTom"! Okay terrible reference! LOL....

My husband left this a.m. to start his commute to the new town. He will be gone 2 weeks of the month. I took a picture of the hotel that he will be staying and have it for my son to check out when he asks where daddy is. I probably need to make another map of the state for him with a star of where my husband is staying along with photo of the hotel.

I have also found that scrapbooking might be an interest to my son. Kind of a guide to where he's been! It's also fun for me!


Oh I meant to mention that prior to our last move when he was younger, we also purchased a new vehicle. This tore up my son completely. New car, new house, new town, etc etc. The effects lingered for over 2 months!


~amy

it would be best, IMO, to limit the number of changes taking place at the same time if youcan at all help it...ie; no new haircuts, no new cars, no new foods etc

totally agree!

If you are going to be arranging for school services, you'll want to get the ball rolling for that in advance. The best route to go is to put that request for a full and complete evaluation in writing (certified letter is best) addressed to the director of special education with a copy to the building principal. The written receipt of the letter sets legal time frames in place. Even if you've already made a telephone request, follow through with a confirmation letter so as not to be surprised.

Even if the evaluation isn't completed and an IEP in place by the time you arrive, you may be able to get him some help transitioning into school based on the fact that you'll have a diagnosis in hand and have already made the request. All districts are different but ours has done a ton of Autism training and I would expect would be very helpful for a situation such as yours. Some ideas of things that might help your son is to have pictures and a map of the school in advance, a written schedule for each day of the week, a list of his classmates along with a class picture to put faces and names together, a letter from his teacher welcoming him, and a visit to the school before or after the school day so he can check it out at a quiet time instead of when it's full and noisy. These kinds of supports can make transitions so much easier on our kids but it's important to find the right balance as too much info can drive up the anxiety.

I just let the teachers know what my son needs and they're always glad to do these things up front to ease his way.

Hi and welcome. I'm a newbie too. My 8 y/o daughter has a speculative diagnosis from a psych- just last week. We've been wondering about AS for about 2 years and some kind of autistic spectrum "disorder" since she was one year old. My daughter seems to be the opposite of your son. She does fine in school(or so the teacher thinks) but, she's a bit socially akward and shy, can't remember her homework, books, etc, forgets to give me school notices, forgets what she's supposed to do for homework unless it's written down. She hates repetitive homework and busy work and it's a battle to get her to do things that she already knows. Her high intelligence fools her teachers into thinking she's paying attention when she's not(her father and I think so at least, considering we did the same thing as kids). School seems to drain her of her ability to function and she's on overload the minute she walks in the door after school. Add a 3 and 4 year-old brother and sister who are super happy and excited to see her and go on hyper overdrive when she walks through the door, and it's a recipe for disaster. our afternoons are a nightmare!

I too have MANY AS traits and so does my hubby. I have talked to my mother about it and she is understanding, but she is more open to things like this due to her experiences raising 2 severely dyslexic sons. My husband can not and will probably not ever tell his parents about his AS traits and the genetic links. His sister at age 23, was just finally asessed and diagnosed with severe learning disabilities- something I've known she had for the past 10 years, but her parents would not hear of it. They are in complete denial that anything is "wrong" with her. She is afraid to tell them. We know that we can not talk to them about this at all.

As far the move, my advice would be to do what we did with our daughter when we moved. We would have her boxes and her furniture at the very back of the moving truck and her room was the first thing to be set up with all her own familiar things. It made her life less chaotic to have her own space to retreat to.

Good luck!

ahhh good point about the moving boxes in the back of the truck.

Thanks for your advice! And dealing with the gparents is rough....am going through that right now....drives me insane!
Glad to meet another newb!

As far as the move, make sure he also knows *all* his stuff is coming. As tempting as it is to "cull the herd" while packing, with a kid on the spectrum this is the worst time to do that. Everything in the toybox comes, whether it's broken or missing pieces. Sorting can happen after he's settled in the new room. It took our son 3 weeks to rearrange his new room so the light didn't hit him wrong in the mornings!