Aspergers/ASD support thread

seven-day-weekend

Snaggles wrote: »

Hi Seven-day-weekend! Yes, it really does make me wonder. I can't help thinking there must be more to it than just 'a wiring problem', which is what I keep getting told.

There are a lot of positive things about having Aspergers though from what I've seen - Ryan is an amazing little boy and I admire him so much for coping so well. He can be so unintentionally funny with the things that he says, and although he doesn't really empathise with emotions in others, in many ways he's affectionate, loving and kind.

Aspergers was not recognised as a condition when my son was small but I can remember some wonderful things he said :

At fourteen months (VERY forward in speech), he didn't know the word for 'chest' and he was bouncing up and down on his dad's chest and shouted 'Dad! I'm on the front of your back!'

Now if only I'd realised that this is no way normal speech for a fourteen-month-old......the concept of front and back as well as the vocabulary...but I was just pleased he was so 'forward'...however this really needed checking out just as much as if he was a late developer.

At two and a half, with another little boy the same age, both playing with dinosaurs. Adult says to friend 'do you know what this is?' He replied 'a monster'. Ben replied 'actually it's a diplodocus'.

On a visit to London at five, a friend pointed to the Houses of Parliament and asked Ben if he knew what it was . Ben replied 'Sandstone' (Dad was teaching geology at the time).

Same visit to London, Ben saw some beautiful decorative brickwork. Not knowing the word for brickwork , he called it 'brickage'.

Now he's grown up he is an intelligent and likeable young man who would not ever knowingly do anyone a bad turn and qute often does good ones.

However, he has terrible problems with organistion, following directions and still when he's tired has problems tying a tie. He can bore for England about Warhammer models and still buys himself Lego.

I've only just realised a few months ago that he's like me. I was very much like this when I was young. I never understood people who were catty or told lies. I can also bore for England about my particular things and be obsessive about them.

So I don't know....maybe I'm on the spectrum too.

Whoops....sorry for the long post. Boring for England again!

D&DD

Dear Snaggles that exactly the right attitude hun you'll be fine and so will he!
You are so right how you put it about the understanding thing..as our boy has got older (he's 9 now) we have started to understand why he does things etc and it does indeed make life that bit easier I too would never change my little soldier as his 'bits and bobs' are a fundemental part of who he is..am I gushing now :rolleyes: sorry...
Have they done the two way mirror thingy yet?They may not as all CAMHS are different ours did the paper stuff first..5 different ones :eek: ,then we had 4 school visits with feedback..then we had 3 different pschycologists see him THEN we got his DX..


Seven day weekend I have often read your posts about your dear son and growing up They are a great source of info for me thankyou so much for posting your experiences they are MUCH appreciated by myself and no doubt a lot of other parents XX

Snaggles

Lol.....it wasn't boring at all - you have just described Ryan to a 'T'.

The front of your back - that's so funny! Ryan came up with 'legpit' (the back of your knee), 'Waleish' (the Welsh language.....England ~ English, Wales ~ Waleish), and just the other day asked when the telephone was getting married (it was engaged...:)).

Oh, and you know when a TV programme is 'to be continued...' - he calls that a terraced episode (it joins onto the next one, like a terraced house!!). :T

Snaggles

D&DD wrote: »

Dear Snaggles that exactly the right attitude hun you'll be fine and so will he!

Thank you! That means such a lot coming from another Aspergers Mum.

D&DD wrote: »

I too would never change my little soldier as his 'bits and bobs' are a fundemental part of who he is..am I gushing now :rolleyes: sorry...

Don't be sorry, I feel exactly the same.

D&DD wrote: »

Seven day weekend I have often read your posts about your dear son and growing up They are a great source of info for me thankyou so much for posting your experiences they are MUCH appreciated by myself and no doubt a lot of other parents XX

Seconded!

anewman

I am 27 and erm, maybe Asperger-like, definitely different to everyone else, but no formal diagnosis. I had a difficult birth, forceps, fractured colar bone.

I wouldn't read too much into the difficult birth - Asperger's link though. When you start looking for links between things occurring you can sometimes lose track of why the things really co-occur.

Best example of why not to jump to conclusions between associations is the Hormone Replacement Therapy research. Researchers found that women on HRT had lesser incidences of breast cancer, lived longer, and were less likely to commit suicide and a whole load of weird and wonderful things. At first researchers believed HRT was a wonder drug and should be given to all women no matter what. It wasn't until they looked back retrospectively and considered everything they realised the women taking the HRT as part of the research were middle class, and health conscious choosing to take HRT. Being middle class and health concsious in itself is likely to be what made those women less prone to breast cancer, suicide and so on.

Are parents who have children with difficulties more likely to look to "blame" a difficult birth, and more likely to report a difficult birth than children who would be considered "normal"?!

An interesting book to read is the essential difference by Simon Baron-Cohen (interestingly enough he is Sacha Baron-Cohen's Uncle (Ali G, Borat etc). http://www.amazon.co.uk/Essential-Difference-Extreme-Penguin-Science/dp/0141011017/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1195866664&sr=8-1

jamgirl

Snaggles wrote: »

Lol.....it wasn't boring at all - you have just described Ryan to a 'T'.

The front of your back - that's so funny! Ryan came up with 'legpit' (the back of your knee), 'Waleish' (the Welsh language.....England ~ English, Wales ~ Waleish), and just the other day asked when the telephone was getting married (it was engaged...:)).

Oh, and you know when a TV programme is 'to be continued...' - he calls that a terraced episode (it joins onto the next one, like a terraced house!!). :T

oh we have legpits! my 10yr old, recently diagnosed aspie, likes to put deodrant on his legpits :rotfl:

Snaggles

Yes Anewman, you're absolutely right - I'm definitely not jumping to conclusions, and I'm not going to try and single-handedly come up with all the answers. I suppose I'm just curious to find out more, and that was one of the questions that I've been asked several times, but haven't been able to give a clear answer to. Thanks for the book link.

Jamgirl - how funny that they both came up with the same word!

seven-day-weekend

Snaggles wrote: »

Lol.....it wasn't boring at all - you have just described Ryan to a 'T'.

The front of your back - that's so funny! Ryan came up with 'legpit' (the back of your knee), 'Waleish' (the Welsh language.....England ~ English, Wales ~ Waleish), and just the other day asked when the telephone was getting married (it was engaged...:)).

Oh, and you know when a TV programme is 'to be continued...' - he calls that a terraced episode (it joins onto the next one, like a terraced house!!). :T

Oh bless him...!

They are wonderful aren't they, our little Aspies? Seeing the world in a different (and interesting) way? Let's just hope that now it is recognised as a legitimate condition that they can have whatever it is they need and that others will be able to see all their talents instead of just thinking of them as 'wierd'.

I mean...language skills like your son and mine have...that is a TALENT, not a disability!:T

PS...I LOVE the 'terraced episode'....now that makes sense!

littlemissmoney

I haven't read the thread, but you can request a Subject Access Request (SAR) under the Data Protection Act. They have to give you all the information they hold on you and can't charge more than £10. See here:

http://www.ico.gov.uk/Global/faqs/data_protection_for_the_public.aspx#top

DrFluffy

All this is quite interesting. However, I can't help but wonder which is the chicken and which is the egg... Causal or random...

Births are so different... There really isn't such a thing as a 'text book delivery'. Most people with have some issue during their birth - more so now as people are monitered more than they ever have been, and as such 'events' that have no real clinical value are detected, and acted upon... It's no surprise that the incidence of C-sections has increased in line with the use of monitoring...

Personally, I was a breach baby - mum had me without instrumentation (forceps/ventouse) or without surgical intervention. She tore fairly badly, it was difficult to get me out... I don't think I'm Asperger's (who knows ); but if I was, it would be easy to make the link with my birth... I'm sure most people posting on here had issues when born... Aside from the hour you die, the hour you are born is the most dangerous in your life...

Thinking back to all the births I've seen - I can't think of one where there hasn't been at least one deviation away from what is deemed 'text book'... I'm sure that stats and the fact that we now actively seek out Asperger's and Autism (which HAS to partially explain the rise in cases), means that at least one of these babies will be diagonised with ASD...