Thoughts on ‘getting’ an Aspie.

Hi folks!  Again, apologies for lack of movement (ahem) on this blog.  I will endeavor to find more time for writing and posting!

Today I wanted to try and concentrate on the issue of Aspergers Syndrome.  My eldest Micheal was diagnosed at 7 and we have all come a long way since those early days of trying to penetrate the insular world of this eccentric and difficult child who didn’t speak til he was 3.  However, lately (especially this year) we have found ourselves once again having to overcome the obstacles that this syndrome deems to throw our way.

Namely that it steals away my funny, intelligent and communicative child and replaces him with a monosyllabic robot I barely recognise.  We are in the midst of such a phase.

In line with recent studies about Aspergers and puberty/sexuality (about which there has been woefully inadequate information for many years, however now there is a short article here and an excellent book, written for parents and teens, can be bought at Amazon ) we are having to deal with aggressive tendencies, tantrums, resentful feelings towards what he terms as NPs (neural perfects i.e us and his siblings), the frustrations of a sexual awakening that lacks the social acuity to find a context, and the beginnings of what looks like teen depression.  As with all other phases that we have gone through on this journey this is most likely a temporary, albeit stormy, transition into young adulthood.

I tell you this to ensure that you understand that this syndrome, even when sensitively accounted for, will be there at all times. It will always and forever need management; but there is fun, understanding and reciprocated love in the eye of the storm and this is something that is fundamental to the early management.  I know that my son’s recent behaviour is a transitional phase because I ‘got’ him in childhood, because I interacted with him, owing to the connection we forged then, I know that I’ll ‘get’ him again.

I am no expert on this so the best I can do is recommend ideas for you to try (3 of our old favourites below). One thing I do know though is that a close 1-2-1 relationship with your young Aspie child is rewarding to the point that it far outweighs the frustration.  Crucially, it is the very thing that will protect and conserve your Parent/Child relationship against the later ravages of your child’s Apsergers blighted puberty.

Face Flash Cards. An example of these can be seen and purchased using the following link. These weren’t around when Micheal was little, we did do something similar together though.  I would draw lots of circles on paper and we would draw different faces in them, then make the faces at each other.  Once he was receptive enough to this activity I would match the appropriate face to the emotion it conveyed, e.g I would draw a child with a broken toy and match it with an unhappy face (I am useless at drawing, so when I say draw, read stick figures!).  Eventually this progressed into a full on matching game with laminated pictures and was a huge help in facial language recognition and development.  It was also an activity we could do together without the added pressure of verbal communication skills.

Sticky Tweezers. I couldn’t think of anything else to call this!  Many kids with Asperger’s also experience fine motor deficiencies (often this is due to hypermobility, as it is in Micheal’s case) and this activity was originally suggested by his Occupational Therapist to strengthen his fingers.  Basically it’s making sticky pictures (dried pasta shapes/lentils, beads, matchsticks etc) but using an oversized pair of tweezers to pick the pieces up and put them onto the paper.  I expanded on this by drawing letter shapes for micheal to follow.  As the hypermobility made the pencil holding tripod grip a tricky thing to master, I was worried about his writing development; it was clear that Micheal wasn’t going to go through the standard stages of mark-making and emergent writing so, using the tongs to strengthen his grip and letter shapes to encourage him to recognise and copy them, we were able to do some work in this area that I would’ve struggled to get him to understand before.  Another 1-2-1 activity that doesn’t prioritise verbal communication skills.

Hard or Soft? This is a game that arose one day when I was going through a phase of narrating everything!  It was before anyone had mentioned AS as a possible diagnosis and we were desperately trying to get verbal utterances going.  Micheal was about 2 and hearing difficulties had been ruled out so I decided to talk to him constantly!  I was trying to get him engaged in a jigsaw but he was just throwing things around so I rapped on the hard floor and repeated “hard, hard, hard” and then on the carpeted section and said “soft, soft, soft”. I just didn’t want him to throw breakable things on the hard floor anymore!  But he took to it.  So from then on we would play hard or soft virtually anywhere, the park, the beach, on the bus, at the supermarket….  He eventually learned to verbalise the words and he gained an appreciation of texture differences and the natural world.  I later learned that many kids with AS can also have sensory function impairments whereby the sense of touch is heightened or decreased (the same can happen for hearing, taste, smell, temperature perception and even eyesight in the case of colours and light) so maybe this was why the game had meant so much to him, all I know for me is that we were communicating a mutual understanding and that meant the world!

Whether you choose to try these 3 games, or others that you may have been shown by your Doctor, Health Visitor or Educational Psychologist, please remember that it is the interaction that counts.  Try not to have distractions in the background and don’t worry if it seems that they aren’t acknowledging you; it may take time to bring them out of the haze.  Use this time as an opportunity for you to connect with your child and forge an enduring relationship that will eventually go beyond words.

Advertisement