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nostromo
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31 Oct 2010, 12:21 am

I went to a seminar a few days back by a social services agency that among other things provides some services for ASD individuals. The presenter was talking about his work in the area of behavioral modification with individuals across a range of ages and level of capabilities, and one of the case studies was a 30yr Aspie who really wanted to have a girlfriend, and had been unable to.

So they sat down with him, assessed his skills and challenges, worked out a plan involving him and put together a program to teach him social skills, 'scripts' to use a simplistic term (greetings, conversations starters), strategies to repair relationships with others, i.e. what to do when things go wrong and anxiety coping methods amongst other things. He was very motivated towards his goal.
They then went out and put that into practice with him in situations mainly cafes where he would be able to develop his interaction skills with women with the ultimate aim that he would be able to get a girlfriend. They did it fairly scientifically in that they observed him and got him to self-observe and they would later assess the results of the encounters and measure it deterministically, then feed that back into what they were doing to refine or change the approach.
I thought it was a refreshing and ultimately pragmatic approach, and goes with my personal view anybody can be taught anything - with the right support from others, hell I coulda done with help like this when I was a lad.

Anyway he got a girlfriend and she's moving in with him (yeah; a new set of challenges), the story made my day and I hope to see and hear of this type of thing happening in the future in my community.



Chronos
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31 Oct 2010, 12:54 am

How nice to know that someone is finally starting to understand the type of training people with AS need.

If it were not for the scientific method I'd have very poor social skills.



Nagy
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31 Oct 2010, 1:03 am

We can all have girlfriends/boyfriends, but it depends on the other party.
As most of us (I hope I'm taking a steep in generalization here) leaning toward settling down. Which is hard for most NT to do when they have the freedom of "moving on".
So choosing girlfriend/boyfriend depends on how intellectual they are, their ability to settle down in this relationship, and their understanding of what Asperger's Syndrome means.


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Sparrowrose
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31 Oct 2010, 4:08 am

I'm thrilled to see someone willig to work with a 30 year old. As an older person on the spectrum who never got the help I needed, I get so tired of seeing everything aimed at helping children and nearly nothing aimed at helping adults.


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Nagy
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31 Oct 2010, 4:20 am

Sparrowrose, same here. The more I read about Asperger's Syndrome the more I get the idea those writers think that it's only for children and they won't be aspie anymore when they grow up!


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nostromo
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31 Oct 2010, 4:37 am

Sparrowrose wrote:
I'm thrilled to see someone willig to work with a 30 year old. As an older person on the spectrum who never got the help I needed, I get so tired of seeing everything aimed at helping children and nearly nothing aimed at helping adults.

Exactly, and there were plenty of other case examples, several with people in their 50s some of who had been institutionalised since young. Gave me cause for optimism.