How are adults with "mild" Aspergers faring?

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Hi everyone

My 5 year old has been diagnosed with mild aspergers. He is Not currently routine oriented and he doesn't speak in a monotone voice at this time. He has sensory issues (Gags easily and is sensitive to some loud sounds) He also toe walks and doesn't always make eye contact. He also has trouble with controlling his emotions.

Based on what I read here, some sensory issues change over time (few go away and new ones take their place)

My question to folks here is if you have a similar profile to what I wrote above or had only the symptoms above when you were a kid and things have changed, I'd like to know how you are doing as an adult? For folks who have mild aspergers, what are the prospects for getting and keeping a job? What was school like for you? I am asking because I need to plan for my kid (college fund vs trade school), where to live (close to support groups vs close to extended Family) etc

Thanks!

I'm an adult with mild asperger's, and I'm doing fine at the moment, but there were many points in my life where I wasn't, and if just a few things had gone differently, I might have been living with my mother on SSI instead of on my own with a good job. I guess my only advice here is to never tell him he can't do anything and don't let him give anything up too easily. My biggest successes tended to come where I wasn't allowed to quit when frustrated, and my biggest failures came when I was.

Diagnosed early and with appropriate support, Asperger's is not necessarily a sentence to a life of misery.

Don't worry about what he will be in 20 years (Yeah. I know. You're a parent and parent DO that). Focus on what he needs now. Create a positive, nurturing environment. Learn what you can and do your best. He will love you for that. And isn't that what really matters?

I agree.

I think I was much like your son at that age. I know I irritated my parents with excessive anxiety about food.

Aspergers is such a broad spectrum that it is very hard to know where the problems may lie for your son. In my case, I have never had much of a problem getting or keeping jobs. In fact, I am doing quite well due to my ability to learn and make use of a number of valuable skills.

My issues have always been in the social area and it means that I have lived alone since moving away from my parents and I don't expect to ever have relationships closer than a solid friendship. This is painful at times, but looking at what others deal with, I'll take my circumstances over theirs.

Some Aspies have less trouble in social circumstances but more dealing with work. I think that if you expect your son to do well and do not let him get away with avoiding work (as any kid will from time to time) he will learn good working habits.

It is important that your son not grow up using Aspergers as a crutch to excuse bad behavior. Like any human, he needs to learn responsibility and self sufficiency. Temple Grandin, in "Thinking In Pictures" comments how she was not allowed to behave badly despite the fact that her mother recognized she had serious social problems. Grandin says she feels this was a major influence that helped her become a better adult.

In many ways, I'm glad Aspergers was not a thing people were diagnosed with when I was growing up. Had I been protected from the slings and arrows of life, I never would have learned to deal with them. If I was hurt and I chose to talk to my parents about it, they would listen and offer advice, but they never fought my battles for me. That was something I had to do for myself.

It doesn't help to protect a person too much. If a child falls down and scrapes their knee, they learn not to do that again. If that child is protected from all cuts and bruises, when he goes out into the world as an adult and gets hurt, the pain feels so much greater for never having learned, as a child, that he will survive it.

Thanks to everyone who has replied. I appreciate your insights. It is a challenge to map out a good strategy for the kid because we just don't know how he will turn out.

HA HA! This could be written by any parent for any kid. I agree with the advice to just care for him now and enjoy him. He will grow up and you will have plenty of time to advocate for him as he does so.

I suppose I would ask what you mean by "mild". I am told I can appear quite socially adept at times and am rather good at public speaking and giving presentations, and those who have only had such encounters with me might never suspect I have AS, however, these interactions are learned. In other situations, such as spontaneous social environments, environments in which I haven't had the time to orient myself, multi-person social environments, and deeper levels of social interaction with those I don't know well, I can be quite ill coordinated socially and physically, and on some level it is going to be a bit draining to me. I'm still quite myself at home.

Job interviews and new jobs are uncharted social territory. I'm rather socially awkward in such situations, and I'm afraid I've had more unfavorable experiences than not in the sense that most employers are not familiar with those with AS, and though I never did anything irresponsible, inappropriate, or wrong, in the few instances I did get past the interview process, for the most part, employers did not have the patience to afford me to socially acclimate, and fired me for what I can only speculate is my cumbersome social dynamics in those situations.

In my experience, those with AS who are successful are successful because they have managed to profit from their "special interest", and have gone into fields of that interests in which they have a fair degree of autonomy. They are usually professors, scientists, doctors, and artists.

As for everyday situations, people with AS do not have more stressors than NT's, we just have a different set of stressors. Myself, I think I stress about less things than most individuals, however I stressed horribly at the thought of moving in with roommates and having to accommodate them should our schedules be in such conflict....for example, having to be excessively quite at night should they be very light sleepers, or having to deal with them should they not find me sufficiently organized for their liking. Mind you, most of my roommate experiences have been positive, yet I still stress considerably over the thought of new ones.

That being said, I'm not particularly rigid in my routines as you might expect someone with AS to be, but I'm rigid in the sense that I do not do well with those who have "normal" schedules, or who like to micromanage. I do best on my own.

I'm fine. I had trouble as a teen, though. Nobody in my family knew what Asperger's really was (or looked like) until my son started showing signs of autism. I think I would be even better off if it had been recognized when I was younger. I agree that these interactions are learned. I have a friend with a 17 year old daughter. She tells me her daughter grew out of Asperger's. I finally got the guts to tell her one day that her daughter will have it for the rest of her life... she has simply learned to act like neurotypical people. It's important that people recognize this, otherwise a child can be left feeling an outsider, misunderstood, and lonely. That's what you want to avoid. With support and understanding, all is well and you can embrace the likely fact that you've got one highly intelligent child who can do amazing things!

I agree. External symptoms have little to do with the more subtle social problems AS causes. The things that cause the real problems are the ones that are not immediately obvious, but that others begin to 'sense' after being around you for a while, which is to say noticing that you think differently, have different interests, obsess over details that other people think are irrelevant, and so on. These are the things that become problems at work, where its easy to be perceived as antisocial and difficult, or just plain odd. So you can look pretty normal at first glance and AS can still make it difficult to keep a job. It helps if you can find a niche career that dovetails with a special interest, but that doesn't happen for everybody.

My biggest problem is work-related. I wish I knew more about my strengths and weaknesses when I was younger. I would have chosen a career with less social interaction, much less multi-tasking and more structure and predictability. A job that doesn't involve quick decision-making and a good working memory would have also made my life much easier.

Well, I consider myself to be mild AS. It sounds like I am a little like your boy is. As for controlling emotions, I made it clear if I didn't like something, at least within the confines of what people understood. I tried, and STILL try, to explain sensory issues, but nobody understands.

I was quiet until my interests came up, and THEN I was talkative. I've always been shy. I came across as rude, arrogant, etc... Of course I wasn't rude, I just couldn't otherwise break into a conversation. As for arrogant? Well, I once saw some guys mounting a ballast, and told them how to do it right. The pictoral was on the ballast, but they maybe never even bothered to look.

Keeping a job? Well, I've only been at two main jobs. The first one was about 20 years. The second is past the decade mark. At both I made/make over the national average. At the current job, I make several times the national average. School was OK. Hey, your kid is only 5. When he is six, if he is ready for first grade, TRY IT! It can't hurt. As for saving for your child, what is the difference? Most of the college savings plans are SCAMS! You could find them essentially worthless, etc... You would likely be better off just investing. As for where to live, that depends on HIM and your family.

BTW today I wait longer, and still have trouble getting into conversations. Most now just consider me confident! That was surprising. I look at people when they are talking. I look to the audience if I am talking. My hearing has degraded somewhat so flourescent light and electric sounds don't bug me as much. Various sounds, even ones others don't hear, still hurt me. I am more tolerant of some textures. I'm told the customers generally like me, and they seem to.

The point? Things are FAR from hopeless. Nobody here can tell you EXACTLY what to do. The WORST thing you can do is treat your child like he is ret*d, etc...

I also have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, besides AS, and I think that has been a bigger reason than AS as to why I don't have a job and am fairly isolated, but looking back, I wish I had known or taken into account that I would have a hard time keeping up with a regular job and had been trained for work I could do on my own time, like freelance writing or freelance graphic design. But I don't think that's anything you need to think about for several years still.

I have at least mild aspergers (never diagnosed). I did ok at school but drifted for a while after I finished. I worked in jobs such as supermarket work, labourer, abattoir worker, laboratory work. I have great difficulty holding a job, I would get bored very quickly and eventually quit. Some of my communication skills are poor also. At 27 I returned to university, and after graduating I found work very difficult and almost had a breakdown. I struggled on and now things are better. I like my work though it is often stressful.

Reading forums like WP should give you a good insight into the wide variety of problems experienced by people with ASDs and provide some solutions to help. Hopefully with this knowledge you can better recognise your son's strengths and weaknesses and help to minimise any negative impact they may have on his life.

Definitely follow and encourage his special interests.
If he can find work in a subject that he loves, it will have a very positive influence on his life.

Personally, I think 5 is a little young to know if someone has AS. Not saying he does but when he gets into high school he will have more problems to deal with. Bigger work load, more demanding social skills and dating. He may start having more symptoms of AS around that time.
I was a moody teen but I have mod/HFA autism.

I am eighteen and doing well in college. My diagnosies have been many and contradictory, but AS is the one that stuck. I have held down a job. For the sake of your son's happiness, tell him what he is as soon as you think he can understand it. If my parents had told me, I might have spent less of my childhood feeling like a freak. On the far neurotypical end of the spectrum, a kid can be socially aware enough to realize he or she is different without knowing why or understanding that there might be other, similar people in the world. Make sure he knows you love him and are proud of his strengths even as you seek to help him improve where he struggles. Your son is an individual, not a diagnosis. His interests, faults, virtues, hopes, and fears are neither more nor less valid than those of a neurotypical. If you can remember that, he will have rough patches especially in middle and high school when social life gets intense, but he will probably get through childhood more-or-less unscathed and secure in the knowledge that he has the full support of his family. He has every chance at a productive, satisfying life.

I was picked on in school and egged and taken advantage of. I also couldn't figure out the rules because kids were always breaking them and getting away with it. The school staff loved singling me out and they ignore what the other kids do and only focus on my behavior even though I be doing the same sort of things they were doing. I realized as an adult the bullying I got wasn't bad and it was mild but in 6th grade it was worse and may have gotten worse if we stayed living there.

In in my teens, I was put in the special ed room again because I wasn't getting along with the other kids and I was getting poor grades and not finishing my school work and I had a hard time going from one class to another class. I also ended up with an aid and then started to be on my own when I was 17. It was their way of having me learn to be independent. I also got extra help with my school work and had my work modified and I was always sent back to the resource room (special ed, my school district didn't use that word) when I start to meltdown.

I struggled finding work but it was due to lack of work experience and then it was because of the economy. I worked two jobs when I was 18 and one was at my school and the other was in a folkshop. But they were very short hours and then when I was almost 20, I got a job at a hotel collecting dirty linen and it was my first job working longer hours. I used to not be able to handle full time and would get all stressed out, same as when there be lot of work. I also used to get upset over change and routine at work but I learned to deal with it. I knew I had to or it effect me having a job in the future and my boss could decide after a while to let me go because it wasn't working out and I wasn't getting over it.
I had one real interview when I first moved and I got a job within three weeks of looking. I think I was just lucky because I wasn't lucky again when I was looking for another job in 2009. But now I have a job through a company that is for people with disabilities. I decided to go to them and not keep on trying to find work the normal way. But now I am on maternity leave.


I never really went to college for a degree because I struggled so much in school.

I think my anxiety and learning difficulties are my main obstacles and are my road blocks. Same as when jobs require references and I have no social contact with people because I don't have any friends. Just acquaintances. I feel society just makes things so hard for me to even get a job but I can keep one, it's finding one that is hard and almost impossible. All I know is it could be how I come off as when I fill out applications and they decide to not call me for an interview.