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I'm sort of new to all this. I am mostly concerned with a question I want to ask regarding my son. I did not exactly know where to post this. I was thinking of the parents section but I want advice not from only parents but more or less from those who have this disorder and know what it's like living with it.

My son, he's ten years old, turning eleven in just a month. He has just been diagnosed with asperger syndrome. The thing is, with due respect to all of you, I believe he was misdiagnosed after reading two books I was given on this disorder. Though he has had slight learning problems for which I will detail, I do not believe he is autistic. I do know that I might be worried about an autistic DX because I am, and that's why I'm coming to you. I have also posted on a few other boards like this. I believe that the school may have pushed him into getting a diagnosis due to wanting to medicate him to make him calmer. This is what bothers me.

The school started having concerns when my son had trouble comprehending what he read, stating that he was reading way too fast and that he couldn't understand inferences appropriately. He couldn't seem to get the gist of fictional stories, as an aspergers book I read stated. He was told to read a bit slower but that didn't seem to help. He talked about liking to read the questions first and then reading the story to answer them. He wanted to search for the answers as he read, or he was lost.

I believe the school wanted this aspergers diagnosis because my son has deep obsessions that he does not want to let go of. He likes to collect things and becomes, how should I say this, intimate with his collections. He likes to study things. I know this is supposed to be aspergers criteria, though my son does not overly talk about his own interests like I have read about in the aspergers books. He can hold a conversation on a lot of things and is said to have a flight of ideas. He changes topics in conversation quite frequently, making his discussions hard to follow at times. He does however engage himself in solitary obsessive interests that seem to take up most of his time.

My son is also asocial and refuses to participate in social groups. I know this is also aspergers criteria, but he does not appear to have a problem reading faces. I have read that reading faces is critical to defining aspergers. My son has appropriate eye contact. He can start conversations quite easily and can engage in small talk. There is a reason why I think the school was pushing for a diagnosis. I was not happy with the manner he was tested in his ability to read faces.

The doc my son saw showed him pictures of faces. He was able to identify all but two or three out of eight or nine. The doc then uses a rather unusual technique, at least it was unusual to me, cause it seemed sort of deceptive. He told my son to study his face for two to three minutes. The doc then walks out of the room and someone else, I'm assuming another doc or associate, walks in. He asks him to sketch his doc's face as best to his ability. My son can't draw well, so this second doc does the sketching. It was almost like something I've seen in crime stories. My son couldn't really tell the lines and stuff in people's faces, and this, the doc explained, was assurance of asperger.

I was not happy at all with this method of testing. Has any of you been tested in a similar manner?

Any info greatly appreciated, Sharon

Sharon, being an aspie is not the same as being autistic! They are both under the same spectrum, sure, but they definitely do vary. He doesn't have to fit under the exact criteria of having asperger's in order to be diagnosed with it. He actually sounds a lot like me when I was diagnosed- i didn't have trouble reading faces but I didn't want to talk to people, i didn't talk a lot about my obsessions (i barely talked at all, for that matter), and i also had trouble understanding stories.

I do think your son has asperger's. However, I don't think he's autistic. Besides, these conditions vary from person to person. My friend's brother is severely autistic, and he barely can speak, yet I know some other people who are autistic who can just do fine. It sounds like your son will be okay though. The thing is, do you want the diagnosis? It will definitely help a lot in understanding your son, and furthermore, in him understanding himself. Good luck!

I don't care about the dx so long it fits him. I am no doc, so I have no idea what to check for. That all stated, I do say that I was not happy with this current doc regardless. My son and I were in his office, and this doc told me in front of my son that he was diagnosing him with aspergers syndrome. I was not happy at all with the way that this doc approached both of us with the dx. I wanted to be the one telling him, and I made myself very clear as I told my son to wait out in the waiting room for two minutes. I felt as if this doc was aligned with the school, well, he was, but I don't have the resources to go private.

Now my son is using the dx to get whatever he wants. I was able to get him out of his room to take a breather from his interests to spend time with me and my husband. Now, he tells me that he has AS and he's abnormal and he has a right to his interests and that I'm normal and that I don't understand him. This, I do not like, and I truly believe the doc is responsible for this. My son is a control freak, and both of us are trying to break him out of that.

Our son was about the same age as yours at the time of dx.

I agree that the doc you were sent to sounds a little off, although I wouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater - it doesn't mean the dx is off. If you review all the criteria, you'll see that dxing asperger's is much like dining in a chinese restaurant - one from column A, two from column B. It's not like diagnosing a disease, like diabetes, where there's a black and white line, and once you cross that line there's no question you have it.

Our son doesn't have every single criteria for AS, but he is so clearly a child with AS. He also has control issues, although it isn't really about control, it's more about his need for structure. If you can set up calendars and structure, you'll find probably your son feels less internal need for control as he knows his world won't spiral out of control if he doesn't keep his finger always on its pulse. That said, my son does have seven calendars on his bedroom walls (not counting the one in his closet), a daytimer he carries in his backpack, plus our family wall calendar in the kitchen.

If you get the accomodations your son needs to succeed in school out of this snafu of a diagnostic team, then mission accomplished. You may also find that your child behaves one way at home, and an entirely different way in another environment, like school. I didn't believe it until I saw it myself. He appeared to have Tourrette's in class, which turned out to be from the sensory overload.

I wouldn't get hung up on the label. It's more about what your son needs to succeed, and what you need to do to get it.

keep him medicated?? as far as i know aspergers dont get medicated, as it is not a problem which can be solved, it is the way the brain is set up, so if theyre medicating your son i'd seriously look into it

It's good that you show concern for your child's welfare, and I too would be deeply concerned that the school is simply looking for a way to 'normalise' your child. Regardless of whether he IS AS, autistic or whatever, as long as his behaviours can be managed with a change in his surroundings and the attitudes of the staff, he should NOT be medicated. The behaviours of your child which have been identified as 'problems' by the school do not really seem to be problems at all, but differences which the school is intolerant to.

My advice to you is that if you feel his behaviours are not a problem in themselves, and that they are only made into 'problems' because the staff say they are, then you should stick to your guns and stand by your child's right to not conform.

Hello Sharon.

I must say your son sounds very Asperger-like. If the symptoms are a reasonable match, that may provide a good guidline to interactions and approaches to development and schooling, while waiting to see if a better-fit diagnosis does or does not emerge.

Now that set alarm bells ringing. As I understand it medication is very rarely approriate for AS alone (that is, in the absence of other conditions as well). The attention issues are not the same as with ADD, which is one point where careful diagnosis, and management, matters.



I don't think so. Developmental delays are, which is why it can be difficult to diagnose adults without very good information about early childhood.

I'm not good at faces, and slow to learn names to put them. And a new hairstyle can completely throw me for a while. I'm better at reading moods and expressions.
But as an optometrist I spend a lot of time looking at faces, with special reference to eyeballs!



That's wonderful! Why else tackle a book you wouldn't tend to read for yourself? And if doing so, what's more logical than knowing the questions in advance?

This touches on a big issue. The difference between his framework of seeing the world, and the ones more commonly used, by the school, clearly, and by majority of those around him, who have more interest in social interaction (It's their obsession, often, but more acceptable if it's in the majority!)

On the books, it might be quite possible to explain the approach the school is expecting, providing it can be done logically. (And if it can't, that's the teachers at fault!)
I suspect they consider the "normal" approach is just to read the book and somehow absorb it, and then use the questions to confirm that the reading and a degree of comprehension has taken place. This does assume an awful lot. And avoids teaching "how to read" once beyond a word or a sentence at a time.

In general, (and AS folk vary widely) explanations of the other world, even the social one, be made, and make sense to us, provided they are put in our terms, to our way of thinking.
It's little use to say social interaction is important as a given, when from our perpective it may not be intuitively obvious at all.
But there are phrasings and reasons more likely to communicate, and register.

Regards,

i'm on meds.......

no wonder this hot f****n' chick at work is throwing me dirty looks all day...the pills screw with my eyes??! !