My friend's son

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I'm not a parent, but I think this forum is where I might get the most useful suggestions.

I have a friend who is definitely Asperger's (like me), but has never received a diagnosis. I don't want to get into the whole thing of trying to explain that he has this - it's not worth it and he doesn't need the label.

The problem is that his 5-year-old son also definitely has AS or HFA (he is speech-delayed). I understand not telling an adult that he has this, but I've been told that I should tell him about his son so that he can receive support in school (he already receives speech therapy, but nothing else).
The boy does things like having specialized interests, monologuing about them to the other kids at school, interrupt seemingly unaware of other people's conversations, fixate on doing one activity, and seem unaware of social conventions. He is extremely intelligent. He seems well-adapted now, but I don't know if that will continue as he gets older.

Any advice? Should I tell my friend or not? If so, how should I do it? Can I do it without mentioning the genetic link?

I don't recommend it. I participated in a very extended discussion with other autism parents about noticing other children and whether or not to suggest autism to their parents. Some people have had experience with telling parents their suspicions, some had experience being a parent that was approached. All agreed (with one exception) that telling the parent isn't helpful and might be dangerous. Regardless of the tactic or apparent close relationship they might have had, once they spoke about autism and the other person's child, they were met with anger, defensiveness, incredulity and often stopped speaking to that person. So, whatever good they might have done was overruled by the loss of that contact.
I have a neighbor whose son is autistic (speech delay and all) and he is only receiving speech therapy at school too. She "wonders" if it's more but he attends our neighborhood school which doesn't have a special ed teacher and doesn't provide services for autistic students. I answered her questions about autism once and she hasn't asked me any more. I suspect because of her large family and bilingual household, that boy will do just fine.

I believe that speech therapy is the most valuable program a school can offer anyhow. So, if he's receiving that then he's already getting the help he needs. I'm not convinced that the other accomodations are that helpful or worth the fight to get them.

Being a good friend is the best thing you can do.

I believe that speech therapy is the most valuable program a school can offer anyhow. So, if he's receiving that then he's already getting the help he needs. I'm not convinced that the other accomodations are that helpful or worth the fight to get them.


That's a pretty remarkable blanket statement, isn't it, Kim? One of my sons does not need any speech therapy but does need accomodations for his slow handwriting. He also benefits from social skills training and in the past from minor accomodations concerning sensory issues.

But back to the main point: I agree with Kim, mostly because I think your friend will probably (and wrongly) assume that you think his kid has ASD because you are predisposed to see it everywhere. You could probably get away with pointing out specific things that you and his son have in common; maybe it will start him thinking in that direction.

I don't know about blanket statement. My son could use accomodations in other areas too but he either doesn't get them or they're substandard. My point is that speech therapy has been the most valuable therapy he's ever received over the course of 5 years in the public school system in three different states. I'm addressing the topic of the thread, which is about a boy with a speech delay who is receiving speech therapy. Your child has different needs.

if there's one thing school systems are good at, it's noticing that your child is a problem in the classroom....very often, they will reccomend that your child be seen by a mental health professional to assess what the difficulties are and whether or not a dx is given.....i wouldn't say anything to the parent at this point. definitely offer help and support,though, when and if thye ever get a dx.

I was going to say, yeah, you should give him a good book about asperger's, but I see I'm overruled by experience.
Some years ago, an in-law on the other side of the family told us that one of our great-nephews was autistic. I was disturbed and asked why the parents we got along with well never mentioned it to us. I was more than willing to help them along the first steps of acclimating to the knowledge that one's child has autism. He said that maybe they were afraid to talk to us. It took time for me to remember that most people find our daughter with autism plus absolutely frightening.
But this verbal child has such mild autism that unless you watch him for a while, you can't even tell he has it. To this day they have not talked to us about it even thought we meet about twice a year and talk about everything else.

I actually agree with KimJ that speech therapy, in our experience, was the most important, or maybe the most effective accomodation. We've had other accomodations over the years, but we still feel as if speech therapy was THE most important. Other accomodations, that we agreed with initially (such as extended time for tests, seating in the front of the classroom, etc.) have ended up not being beneficial for our son, or they ended up harming him in the long run, giving too much "support" when it wasn't actually necessary OR supporting so much that our son began to RELY on that support.

Speech therapy really helped our son socially and academically.

I have been in the same situation as the initial question here, wondering if I should tell a parent that I think her son has Asperger's. I received the same answer from this forum, that I should just leave well enough alone. It's puzzling, though. I continually worry about the boy, and see the parent's frustration and confusion.

Kris

The approach I've taken has not been to mention any specific ideas on diagnosis, but simply to ask a parent if they have ever considered an evaluation for special education. Only when prompted by something said by the parent, of course. I am generally very open about my son receiving extra support through special education and how great it has been for him. Given that he is clearly a smart and creative child, he makes a good advertisement, lol.

However, if the son is already receiving speech, he must already be qualified for special education. In which case, I would assume that there are enough experts involved that they would be able to suggest AS if it applied. Not that everyone sees everything, of course, but the parent is likely to believe he has already taken the required steps, and view any additional suggestions (unless prompted by him) as intrusion.

As for some of the other discussion in this thread, I had never thought much about which services helped the most. But, it was the speech teacher who started the lunch bunch, which certainly is my son's favorite service. That is now being offered through resource, because my son "graduated" from speech last year. He doesn't really take advantage of most of the accomodations, except when it comes to writing, and the specific skills he works on in resource and OT seem necessary. Currently, counseling is the service that is showing the most results, but that has a lot to do with timing and what is going on in my son's development. In the end, everything is fluid, and being an involved and observant parent is probably the best intervention that exists.

Hi! I don't know if this helps, but when J (my 9yr old as son) was going threw the evaluation process I was discussing all the checklist signs of autism/asperger's with my best friend.
We have been friends now for 33 years (I'm only 37) but we had a major falling out about it. However I don't regret it at all. My friend has a younger daughter who I believe is autistic, and has bigger issues than J, but at the same time display similar behaviours only hers are more pronounced.
Our falling out was because my friend said to me "I don't think there is anything wrong with J he does alright, Danielle is much worse than J and she doesn't have a diagnoses!". She gave me an opening I said well I didn't say he was worse than Danielle but he is struggling and he is very unhappy, and perhaps Danielle needs to be looked at to.
As you could understand we didn't speak again for a long time. When we did finally start talking she asked for the checklist and told me she has made an appointment for Danielle with a peadiatrician. Yay.
So I don't regret it at all, Danielle may now get all the help she needs. Go with your gut. Getting a dx doesn't just mean getting school accomadations, it should mean that now you can fully educate yourself to help your child achieve his/her personal best.

Aurea, funny you should mention a friend feeling there is "nothing wrong with your child" because we got that quite a bit from family and friends when our son was being evaluated for special education (his AS diagnosis came as part of that process). As I explained it to them then, it wasn't so much that something was "wrong," but there was a gap between perceived ability and actual ability that was frustrating our son, his teachers, and us. If we could resolve that gap, things would be easier on everyone. To me, it was never about "wrong," but about easing a path that seemed rockier than it needed to be. Why wouldn't someone want a key if they felt it was available? That was all we were looking for: is there a key, or isn't there? I am glad that your friend was able to get over her anger at your suggestion, and is now on a path to make sure she knows whatever there is - or is not - to know about her child.

In general, I think autism is still a very scary word to people. They associate it with old images, like Rainman, without understanding how far modern autistics have come. Today's children are not receiving the same prognosis that yesterday's were. I remember that what took me aback the most, the first time I heard that my son might be on the spectrum, was the image I had of spectrum disorders involving less emotion. Well, I knew my son had MORE. In fact, I've come to wonder over the years if many older autistics actually learned very young to turn off their over-hyped emotional system in order to cope in the world, because the autistics I know today exhibit clear and deep emotion. Point being, it is a difficult term to digest, still, because of misconceptions.