Asperger's/developmental issues and large families

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How does this tend to play out? Just curious, as I was the oldest of 9 kids.

I was the worst developmentally as a child, although at least one has reached a worse outcome as an adult. Growing up, I felt like it was kind of irresponsible for them to keep having kids. They should have either aborted me, or stopped after 1-2 more, if that.

What are some other experiences with Asperger's or other developmental disabilities and large families?

I'd say it depends on the family.

I think autistics, at least those that have families at all, are probably more likely to have large families in the first place, due to being less susceptible to social norm pressures to limit children to 1 or 2.

I know I, personally-- at least if left to raise them in the way I think right rather than tracking their development with a stopwatch and pressuring them to conform to the societal mode-- would be content to raise a dozen. When I am allowing them to be children (within reason-- obviously they can't be allowed to run about the yard stark naked, crap on the floor, play in the cat pan, climb furniture, "play" by smacking each other over the head with toys, et cetera and similar) and to develop at something approximating their own pace, I thoroughly enjoy kids and kids throughly enjoy me.

Outcomes for children?? Just as in small families, it depends on the family, and on the definition of good outcomes.

If we define a good outcome as a self-confident, self-directed, independently functioning individual who drops a ball now and then and displays some autistic traits (say a poor working memory, weak polite small talk skills, a reduced ability to maintain the socially desired moderately positive affect in all situations)...

...I'd say a child in a loving and supportive large family has as good a chance as a child from a loving and supportive small family, if not better. Better because s/he is going to have more opportunites to interact with more different personalities in a more natural environment, and better because (again presuming a loving and supportive family) s/he is likely to have more people who can be turned to for input and/or support as s/he grows older.

If we are defining a good outcome as the ability to appear NT/mask autistic traits, I think the smaller the family, the better. I know with 4 kids, I don't have the time or the energy to micromanage every aspect of my own presentation (maintain a perfect tone of voice, make sure I am never pedantic in speech, make sure I never lose my temper or engage in black-and-white thinking, et cetera). The time and energy it takes to do that simply takes too much away from what's available to give housekeeping, spouse, family, and children. I don't have the time to make a list and check it thrice. If bills don't get paid immediately (hint: I have Hubby's checks autodeposited, and every bill that offers it direct debited) they tend to get lost in the shuffle.

Balls get dropped left and right around here. There are dishes in the sink, there is laundry in the washer, there are toys all over the floor in the playroom. Beds get made two or three days a week. Toilets get brushed about every 10 days or so, both bathrooms need painted, the floor gets mopped about once a week, the counter is covered in school papers, clean dishes, and mail. YThere is clean, unfolded laundry on the love seat and clean, folded laundry that hasn't been put away on the back of the love seat because for the last two days I have put my special interest-- my garden, which is time-sensitive in the sense that seeds have to be planted and plants set out when the weather is right-- ahead of menial household chores. I have been in PA for eight months and still have an Arkansas driver's license and Arkansas plates on my van (I finally found the title on Monday; I'm going to have the registration changed today if the girls and I have the patience after therapy and grocery shopping). It's going to be a miracle if I manage to slide our taxes in under the wire instead of having to file for an extension this year, because the last time I cleaned the counter I misplaced the local tax form, the mortgage interest deduction form from the last year of paying on our previous home, and Hubby's W2.

The kids fight. They run through the house. They are not always pleasant and well-behaved, though everyone but my in-laws seem to think they are good kids. DD11 got a C and a D on her last two reading homework assignments, because she's slopjobbing through them to get them done before soccer practice while watching SpongeBob; she refuses to let me check them because she knows I'm going to make her redo them to something approximating a 5th grade version of my Aspie English major standards and she doesn't want to invest the time. I don't push it because I'm tired of arguing. Speaking of soccer, I failed to prevent her from losing her shin guards, and she took a swing at me yesterday when I told her that she'll have to quit the team if her midterm GPA drops below 3.5. And we were 15 minutes late to practice yesterday.

My 5-year-old thinks it's cute and funny to screech and crawl under his chair every time lightning strikes close enough to make a loud thunderclap.

uMy 3-year-old still lisps all her fricatives to labial stops (turning soft c, f, s, v, and z into p or d) or simply omits them entirely. The speech pathologist says this is a serious problem that will lead to her being marginalized in class and rejected by peers if I don't get her in intensive speech therapy posthaste; my stack of child development books say it is a normal function of immature muscle development and fine motor skills that no amount of speech therapy will correct until her throat and soft palate mature enough to produce those sounds.

My 10-month-old flatly refuses to sleep through the night unless she does so snuggled against my chest. She wants to eat meat that has been cooked soft and mashed with my fingers rather than pureed. She prefers fruit and rejects all green veggies with the exception of peas, probably because I started making her cereal with applesauce or peach or pear puree in the interest of getting her to accept something other then milk direct from the source at 7 months. She gets Saltines (though in my defense they are whole-grain unsalted Saltines) instead of rice biscuits or arrowroot cookies, because my 3-year-old goes through rice biscuits and arrowroot cookies like a buzzsaw, and Saltines are at least cheap and plentiful enough that I can keep large quantites of them in the house at all times.

If the goal is to function, we're doing OK. Hey-- I've got 20 days left before my registration expires. The kids will probably turn out eccentric with some bad habits, but they'll function.

If the goal is to have everything run with the perfect smoothness that I imagine exists in NT households (magazine articles and the self-promotion of others leads me to think my imaginings are correct and accurate), we're failing miserably.

If the closest possible approximation of neurotypicality as early as possible is the definion of "good outcome," kids in large families are at a distinct disadvantage. Intensive micromanagement just isn't a realistic possibility.

In unloving and unsuppotive families?? Spectrum kids are screwed regardless of family size. NT kids are going to struggle whether there is 1 or 11. But at least there will be fewer kids with that paradigmatic experience and/or the genotype that contributed to the phenotypic expression of dysfunction.

I was an only child but my mom was the youngest of 10, born in 1931. She was undiagnosed but I think she might have been on the spectrum. She was a single mom by accident, had only one or two friends, and did almost nothing but read Victorian and South American novels and listen to opera. She had a thing about Brazil and King Charles II of England (I'm named after one of his mistresses). She had dreadful executive functioning and our apartment was such a filth-hole I'm surprised I wasn't put in foster care. But she was kind and gentle, and I think her neglect of me sprang more from her neurology than from some character flaw.

All of her brothers and sisters managed to do very well for themselves. They were all quite a bit older than she was. I think her next youngest sibling was 7 or 8 years older. Her parents were both very far along in years when she came along.