Hi all, I am a sibling of someone diagnosed with ASD

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Hi all,

I am in my mid 20s, and I have a younger brother diagnosed with Autism. He was diagnosed between 4-5 years old (I was young myself, so I can't remember it). He currently is 21, verbal (but not parallel with his age), and semi-independent (knows self-help skills, but needs a 1:1 aide for community outings and for safety precautions due to seizure history).

I am hoping to connect to more siblings who have a loved one with autism or asperger's; my road has been very lonely. I felt like no one understood what I and my family were going through. My best friend's brother was my brother's classmate, BUT he has been less involved in his brother's life as he became a professional himself. SO, I hope to be able to find an online group to talk about conservatorship, the struggles and rewards, and just all my emotional rants.

More about me: I am a newly speech therapist, who loves her job! I work primarily with 2 "populations"- ASD and deaf/hard of hearing populations from ages 3 to 15. I find it very rewarding and enjoyable. I hope that any of you with ASD or Asperger's can HELP ME understand what would have helped you growing up. Any tips would be great, as I am working on developing communication/social skills with two ASD students (just be more specific than "use visuals" ).

I am EXCITED that my principal mentioned this site. I hope to grow with it !

Hi, welcome to to Wrong Planet I have AS and have two son's on the spectrum too

ASD is plural. It covers: Autism, Asperger's and PDD-NOS.
I don't know if there exists a short version of the word "Autism", but I do know that "Asperger's" is sometimes referred to as "AS". Then there's PDD... Well, it's already short.

Just to clear that up.


EDIT: Oh, dang it!.. ....And welcome to WrongPlanet!!

Welcome to Our Group!! !

And you might find some similar experiences in Karl Greenfeld's book BOY ALONE.
http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Alone-Karl-Ta ... 317&sr=8-1

He talks about growing up with his younger brother Noah who has autism. It's both realistic and heartbreaking. A lot of the people and institutions who are supposed to take care of his brother, don't. And be warned, for at the end he talks about his brother going through a growth period, but it is just a flight of fancy. And it then crashes back to earth with the official reports of his brother in an institution as an adult.

It sounds like your brother is doing pretty good. I'm glad his has the community support, and hopefully his aide has the skills to act as a 'bridge person.'

I don't know if you'd be interested in my thoughts or not. I am self-diagnosed with Asperger's, but in fifty one years, that 'diagnosis' is the only thing that has ever fully made sense of all the scattered weirdness in my life. I do have a couple of insights that might be relevant to communication, although for the most part, the problem everyone has always had with me is that I don't shut up.

The first is something that has always made me wonder if I was crazy. I can talk about most subjects, with no problem at all. But there are certain areas where I just cannot express myself. I can recall countless times, knowing exactly what was wrong and what I 'should' say, but being unable to make myself say the words. I would desperately try to 'signal' indirectly what I wanted to say, and hope that the other person would develop a little mild telepathy and 'get it'. I don't just mean I'd think at them - although I did try that, too - but I'd try to skirt around the issue and hint at what I couldn't say. And I would get immensely frustrated, wondering what was wrong with me, that I could talk so much and yet not say what I wanted to say, so I'd tend to grow more incoherent and oblique in what I did say.

The second is not directly related to speech - but might help explain a broader problem that I suspect might influence how others might learn speech. I have always been interested in music and highly affected by it - but I could never learn to play, sing, or anything of the sort. Just a few months before I figured out the AS, I sat down and analysed the reasons for that. Basically, where a musician must learn to hear the particular note, say a "G", I would hear a "G" played on a guitar as one thing, a "G" played on bagpipes as another, a "G" sung in one voice as still another, and a "G" sung in a different voice as another. I could never pick out the common quality from the variations. I mention this especially because of one of the factors which often affects me: if I hear a song sung by someone with a different accent (especially) or even a markedly different voice, I will have trouble recognising it as the same song. To me, a song is that song as it is sung by one particular person.

Although I didn't have a lot of trouble learning to talk (I'm not sure if I had any, since my parents might have glossed that over - my father used to tell a story about how he waited so long to talk his mother and grandmother got worried, but claimed he only did so because he wouldn't open his mouth until he could talk in complete sentences) I can extrapolate what might be happening inside the mind of someone who does - if they are neurologically similar to me. Perhaps they simply have a much stronger tendency towards the sort of thing which keeps me from learning music, and hear a word spoken by one person as different from the same word spoken by another. Perhaps even a different tone might confuse them.

I hope that may help you a little. I can't guess at everything that might, but if you have any inclination to try to pick my brains, feel free to send me a PM on here. I do think it is important for all of us to learn to communicate with others, if possible, and if I can help you help others to do that, I'd be happy to.

Nice to meet you, redvelvetcupcake - and welcome aboard the Wrong Planet.

Welcome!

A very special Welkome to WrongPlanet, with a K.

The WP Kink

Nice to meet you! I also have a brother with Aspergers (I'm 18, he is 24 - recently diagnosed though, in the last year or so).
I'm brand new to this site but I helped my brother set up an account here a few months back.
I'm pretty sure I understand where you're coming from though, it's been hard for myself and my parents over the last few years especially - we always thought my brother was just a little different until he got to about 21, 22, and we realised things weren't quite right. It can be very frustrating when you meet other people or just other family members who don't quite understand your siblings quirks.
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