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Lynz
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Joined: 5 Apr 2009
Gender: Female
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06 Apr 2009, 11:58 am

He hasn't been diagnosed yet, but after looking at all of the info on AS, it seems pretty clear to both of us that he has it. I'm not sure that I'm welcome on this board, so if I'm not please tell me and I'll go to a different one to ask about this.
We were married 3 years ago, and we have a 2 year old son (who seems to be a pretty normal, non-AS kid, or so it seems atm). I love my husband and everything, but he had a really rough time in school growing up and I'm wondering if my son, or any other children we will have in the future, has AS and what should I do to ensure that they don't have as much trouble with bullies or other kids who see them as different and want to pick on them?


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Willard
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Joined: 23 Mar 2008
Age: 65
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06 Apr 2009, 2:49 pm

Welcome, I don't know of any better or more appropriate place to come for advice and information on AS and autism in general (in fact, there are a lot of 'official sounding' organizations who claim the authority to speak for the autistic, that do little but spread misinformation about and encourage discrimination against those on the spectrum.

You'll probably get a great many conflicting opinions on the bullying question, but I turn 50 in a few weeks and still have problems with bullies on a regular basis. I'm currently in the middle of litigation against one who has attempted to steal money from an organization that helps the disabled and who stood in a crowded parking lot mocking my autistic stim movements and screamed at me "Why can't you just be like everybody else?" The best friend an American autistic has is the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Bullies are alpha-type personalities who look for weaknesses in others that they can attack and exploit. The problem for someone with AS is that our brains, while they may process more accurately than most, do not process incoming stimuli as fast as the neurotypical brain. So when people start yelling at us, or threatening us, it's much more difficult to know how to respond appropriately and we tend to shut down and cease communicating at all. This gives a bully the impression he/she has intimidated their victim and generally causes them to behave even more aggressively. There's no cure for that processing handicap, and the only alternative is to lash out violently and that's almost always a bad idea. Better to use superior intellect and pursue the issue aggressively with a higher authority (and I do not mean prayer).

Upside: You may never have a child with AS. While I do believe it's genetic and thus inherited, when it occurs, it's not handed down automatically to every offspring. I have it, neither of my parents do - a (female)cousin on my Dad's side has it, and I'm virtually certain my grandmother (Dad's mom) had it (which gives the lie to the vaccination myth, as she went to school in a one-room schoolhouse in the 1910s). On the other hand, my 17yo daughter is as neurotypical as the day is long, and a regular social butterfly. Go figure.