Iv'e got questions do you have answers???????

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hello. I am here to get information. My son is seven years old and i think but am not sure buthe may have a mild case of AS. I do not want to go get hm diagnosed yet without getting more info first. I was wondering if any of you could help. First of all i am reading many websites and books on AS. I have always known my son was differnt but i just hough the was super smart. For instance he knew his alphabet when he was one, he could count over 200 when he was two and by time he was in kindergarten he knew all his division and multiplication facts and knew how to apply them to life not just memorization. Now i thought he was just smarter than the rest, but nothing abnormal. He is very literal, clumsy, he loves rules and I knew certain things about him but i guess i just hought was him, that thats just he way he is i never imagined that this wasa syndrome. He is senitive to sounds and sometimes touch but akward when it comes to hugging, when he was smaller he was ot his way it only recently in the last few years has been akward with hugging. I don't know if that means anythingor not. The sounds i mean it used to be if the smoke alarm went off he would get real upset or school fire alarm or car alarms. When he was younger he would always say in a quiet voice out of nowhere "what's that sound?" and we couldn't hear anything. Well anyway i guess i should explain better. I am sorry i am nervous and feel strange about it all. Okay, he is very smart smarter than his peers. He reads way above average, great with numbers, math he is in 1st grade can carry over long numbers, borrowing, multiplication long numbers, division, fractions etc., he is good at spelling, well what i am trying to say is he does not have a learning disability like i have read that many AS do or maybe they don't, he loves rules he is great for friends visits and school can be defiant for me at home, he has friends and likes people i thought people with As have a hard time with making friends. He doesnt like to play with toys unless someone else is playing with them or he has a few select oys he will play with, at age 5 he became a master a monopoly among many other games he beat all of us adults upa nd down the block, he doesnt pay attention good if given instruction to do something, and he can only do one instruction at a time can't give him instructions to put shoes away then hang your back pack up he wont do the last one said does any of this sound like AS traits or is he NT and quirky i have ot go for a moment I will write back more in the mean time can any one help! Thanks

Unable to read monoparagraph monologues !

soooo do you have any information to help with or were you kidding??? I am unsure

No, we're serious. A long entry which just has one paragraph is very cumbersome and difficult to read.

ohh i did not this would be difficult

should i re-write or can someone just read through it and help? let me know

This:

hello. I am here to get information.

My son is seven years old and i think but am not sure buthe may have a mild case of AS. I do not want to go get hm diagnosed yet without getting more info first. I was wondering if any of you could help.

First of all i am reading many websites and books on AS. I have always known my son was differnt but i just hough the was super smart. For instance he knew his alphabet when he was one, he could count over 200 when he was two and by time he was in kindergarten he knew all his division and multiplication facts and knew how to apply them to life not just memorization.

Now i thought he was just smarter than the rest, but nothing abnormal. He is very literal, clumsy, he loves rules and I knew certain things about him but i guess i just hought was him, that thats just he way he is. I never imagined that this wasa syndrome. He is senitive to sounds and sometimes touch but akward when it comes to hugging, when he was smaller he was ot his way it only recently in the last few years has been akward with hugging. I don't know if that means anything or not.

The sounds i mean it used to be if the smoke alarm went off he would get real upset or school fire alarm or car alarms. When he was younger he would always say in a quiet voice out of nowhere "what's that sound?" and we couldn't hear anything. Well anyway i guess i should explain better. I am sorry i am nervous and feel strange about it all.

Okay, he is very smart smarter than his peers. He reads way above average, great with numbers, math he is in 1st grade can carry over long numbers, borrowing, multiplication long numbers, division, fractions etc., he is good at spelling, well what i am trying to say is he does not have a learning disability like i have read that many AS do or maybe they don't, he loves rules he is great for friends visits and school can be defiant for me at home, he has friends and likes people i thought people with As have a hard time with making friends.

He doesnt like to play with toys unless someone else is playing with them or he has a few select oys he will play with, at age 5 he became a master a monopoly among many other games he beat all of us adults upa nd down the block. He doesnt pay attention good if given instruction to do something, and he can only do one instruction at a time can't give him instructions to put shoes away then hang your back pack up he wont do the last one said.

Does any of this sound like AS traits or is he NT and quirky i have ot go for a moment I will write back more in the mean time can any one help! Thanks.

Click 'edit' on your first post, remove all the text that was originally there and paste that in. I've tidied it up a bit.

this is frustrating me now. I just wanted help now i am being told to write it different.

but thanks for the info on editing i didnt see that.

It's not easy for anyone to say if it's AS or not.
It is a spectrum, and there is a lot of variation.
Some of the characteristics sound right, what would a diagnosis do for you ?
The monoparagraph thing is kind of like having a list of instructions rattled off.
It's too much, and it can all run together, makes it hard for some people to process.

spacemonkey, i see that you have undiagnosed AS but state thqat you have it, so how can you be certain that you are? i want to know so i can help my son. i read the books and say ohh that sounds like my kid and i take (try to base it off what i know about him to my best ability) the tests and stuff and he mostly gets a mild to moderate score does thismean anything? how are you diagnosing yourself with out a pro? I dont mind going to a pro but i don't want to cause more anxiety for my son if there is nothing to worry about. Hope you know what i mean.

Well in my case I have twenty some years of personal history, that I have taken into consideration.
I have also gathered a lot of information from these forums, and there is very little doubt in my mind anymore. For many years I thought, I was just "gifted". But there are plenty of people smarter than me who do not have the social struggles I do.
I don't feel a diagnosis would really do me any good at this point.

There is no sure test, positive or negative, because as I said, it is a spectrum. Some people may have a few odd traits and yet be considered only a little odd.

Would a diagnosis help your son at this point ?
It sounds like he has a lot going for him, and twenty years ago, he probably would have just been called a prodigy.

Spacemonkey, thank you for talking ot me- i like the way you think. You are right my son is very smart and for a long time i thought he was gifted, then i happen to stubble upon an article one Sunday and thought "oh my gosh that sounds like miy kid" so i rean to the computer reading up on it like crazy, i couldn't stop gathering info. I have so many questions and like you i am not sure if it is beneficial to get a diagnosis as long as he is functional which he is he just has a few things that i know alot of other kids no not. But actually he has come around alot. He can joke with us now which is fantastic there used tobe a time he would get mad at us for kidding around.

I asked his doc and he said if he is functioning well then there is no need for a diagnosis at this point, no need to label he said (wonderful doctor). BUt now i feel in limbo like does he has hvae it or is this what all other kids go through?

Can you have aspergers and still get along socially or is there one thing or another that rules you out as having AS? or is it like you said a spectrum you will fall in at different points and degrees of it? he gets along with peers and has friends. but i notice when his friends are talking he sometimes just doesnt get the jist or doesn't read between the lines of what they are saying. If they aren't following the rules he doesn't play with them. I can't tell him to clean up a cup of spilled water on the floor if it hit part of the wall becasue if I don't say "clean up the water on the floor and wall" he won't do it i have to say and wall i can't generalize with him i have to very specific....does any of this sound familiar to you?

I am sorry if I am rambling I really do not have anyone to talk about this with, my husband thinks he is who he is and thats fine and i agree but i guess i want to know more so i can help him prepare for life. and make life easier the best way i can, does that make sense?

AS is a spectrum disorder. There are like fifteen different symptoms to classify someone with an autistic spectrum disorder, and one only needs like six of those, out of two or three categories, to be diagnosed.

Probably, if you're thinking about AS ... Does he have any problems socializing? Relating to his peers? Does he have any communication deficits? Does he think literally or in black-and-white terms? Can he empathize? Can he understand the give and take of a social communication? If he has problems with two or more of those, then he fits the first category.

Secondly, does he have a narrow interest? Such as computers, scientific topics, transportation, collecting items, or anything similar? Does this interest take up much of his time? Does he engage in routinized behavior, such as a desire for schedules, lists, or other organizational matters? Does he stim, such as flapping hands, twisting string, or other odd physical behaviors, especially when stressed? If he has one or more of these, then he fits the second category as well.

AS is a learning disability, per se ... but it is not always easily visible at school. Many, but not all, people with AS do have a nonverbal learning disability, which is easily recognizable when he reads novels, not fact-based info. If he has this sort of disability, then he may be able to read exceptionally well but not able to comprehend motives of characters in novels or understand inferences, metaphors, or other figures of speech easily. I have a slight NVLD, which is somewhat annoying at times. I can do arithmetic quite well, but have problems keeping track of things in my head when in a social situation. If someone asks me what 100 x 10 is out loud, I sometimes have to think about it when asked by someone else. I have been known to black out in social situations, like lose all my inhibitions when trying to solve a problem, especially if I have to think the problem through to begin with.

Hope this helps.

- Ray M -

Ray thank you for writing me. What you said makes sense. my son does think litterally and in black in white i often just thought oh thats kids stuff he just doesnt know any better until my second child was born they are very differnt from one another. Then when he went to school the other kids have so much more common sense than he does, his teacher refers to him as her "little professor", he does not think outside the box he only takes what is there and deals with it like it is too no rearranging, as if he is not sure he should do anything to change whatever the thing is, as a youngster there was no stopping him even now, he would suck up information like a sponge at the time though i thought ohh thats what kids do. But then i met some of these kids and I run an in-home day care now i realize they do not to that degree. By the time he was one he already knew his ABC's and could talk very well. He would always say that the yellow light (on a traffic light) meant "Cautious" insted of slow down he was only 2 then.

He has had interest first it was Thomas the train he knew everything about them, then there was the color orange he obbssed over it, then trashtrucks he loved them he would play hours and hours of it, i let him indulge into his stuff because i thought that was just his interests. He has had many more since he got to a math kick, Nascarr, solar system, he reads about it asks lots of questions sucks it dry then moves on to the next thing. The solar system really intrigues him, his whole room is decked out in it. He knows so much about it. Does any of this sound familiar or do NT boys do this too?

He is sensitive to sound and touch but has gotten better. Over time do some of the things like sensory issues get better, or will they always be the same.?

> I asked his doc and he said if he is functioning well then there is no need for a diagnosis at this point, no need
> to label he said (wonderful doctor). BUt now i feel in limbo like does he has hvae it or is this what all other kids
> go through?

> I guess i want to know more so i can help him prepare for life. and make life easier the best way i can, does
> that make sense?

It makes perfect sense.

I think the response about Asperger's being a spectrum contains a second implication besides it being difficult to make a diagnosis, especially remotely. That second implication is that AS is variable enough, it is difficult to make predictions better than the ones you can make already. From your description, my best guess is that within the next five years your son should be able to understand a description of AS well enough that he can make his own decision how much of it applies to him, and what information is useful to him. Do you think you can wait that long?

The main benefits of a diagnosis at this point would seem to be more certainty about what to expect, and being able to predict better what you can offer him as he grows up. It may seem paradoxical, but these two things do not always go together. My possibly biased opinion is that you have already done the best you can do. You spotted some aspie-like traits in your son, and just recognising those traits and collecting the information you have collected and are collecting gives you more knowledge of what could happen. This extra information may widen your range of possible predictions, rather than narrowing them down. This increased uncertainty may feel uncomfortable, but it could be a good thing in so far as knowing of AS gives you access to information that could be relevant. So increased uncertainty is a good thing if your original expectations did not include what eventually will happen, while your broadened expectations include what actually does. You will be prepared for a wider range of things than if you have illusory certainty.

I don't know whether my personal experience is relevant or interesting, but I offer it in case. Several people have independently suggested to me that I am an aspie, most of them with some background in psychology (how else would they know about AS?). My own reading indicated that AS involves some things that seem extremely familiar, others that are well outside my experience. I thought, on balance, it was not a diagnosis that fit. On the grounds that my own judgement might be biased (not seeing the beam in your own eye, kind of thing) I asked an acquaintance, who happens to be an expert (my job puts me in contact with a fair number of psychologists). He said I am definitely not an aspie. I did some more reading, and haven't spotted a recognised category that fits me. I decided some years ago that I don't need one, so long as I know the logic of what is going on, and that a formal diagnosis, if one exists, could be a definite drawback. The one thing I would have liked to have about 20 years ago is some explanation of why, from my point of view, normal peole are so wildly irrational. I needed something like a translation protocol from someone who had a point of view more compatible with mine than the average, and could give me an explanation. That would have improved my social life a lot.

Knowing of AS puts you in a position to understand your son better if he has aspie traits, and you will be able to point him in the direction of useful information if you judge he needs it and can use it. At this moment, you are probably the best judge of the extent to which your son has aspie traits. I expect that is far better for prediction of what to expect than a formal yes/no diagnosis, which is really the application of a semi-arbitrary cutoff point to a number of separate traits. What you already know of your son is likely more useful than that. Here you can also meet the parents of other aspie kids, exchange information, and see whether it helps you and your son.

A formal diagnosis would be useful primarily if you think he needs specific support from organisations or people that do require a formal diagnosis. For example if he should have trouble at school, would his teachers need a label to justify doing something special for him? Seeing that he already knows multiplication when other kids his age are just learning to add, you might have the dilemma that he is bored by lessons too basic for him, but letting him skip a class may not be good for social reasons, or he might be that good in only some subjects. Would the school then need a formal label to justify giving him more demanding things to do in some classes, or can they just do something informally?

Executive summary: I think you are doing just fine.

Regards

Gromit