introducing myself

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Hi everyone,

I'm new here and newly diagnosed with Asperger's, just in time for my 40th birthday.
I have two sons, one of whom has PDD-NOS. We live in a small town in Spain and
there's no one else on the spectrum within 80 km that know of so I'm looking for
advice and friends.

My son's language is a bit wobbly and he has the added problem of being in a bilingual
school. He's getting help but I'm worried that I'm doing the wrong thing keeping him here. Perhaps he'd be better long term in England, only having to wrestle with one language?
The psychologist who diagnosed him thinks he'll get them both in the end but he starts primary school next year with nothing but a few Spanish phrases. I'm applying for some help but I'm not sure whether it'll arrive in time for September. I'd be glad of advice from any parents!

I'm glad I got diagnosed - it makes it much easier to think about my childhood. The first chapter of 'Asperger's and Girls' might have been written for me. But people's reactions have been weird, varying from 'Oh great I can talk to you about world of warcraft for hours' , 'what a pity you're not a savant' , 'Just because you're shy you think you're as aspie'.

Looking forward to meeting you all...

Hi and welcome.

Can't give you any advice about your kids, since I don't know enough about PDD-NOS.

Don't expect people to understand, just be happy when they do.
Here you are amongs friends.

Bienvenudo, dobro došli and welcome from the newly diagnosed expatriate women in their 40s in Europe wing of WrongPlanet.

My advice regarding language is that if Spain, or Spanish-speaking people, are a major part of you and your son's life, or can be anticipated to be important, then he will be handicapped not knowing the language. Even if this is untrue, raising a child to be bilingual will make it far easier for him to learn other languages later should the need arise.

I know many ex-pats who have raised bilingual children. There is one constant success formula - if you are living (for example) in Spain, and your mother tongue is English, then speak only English at home, but allow - no, require - him to totally immerse in Spanish everywhere else. He should have enough immersion in Spanish to have at least a basic ability to understand it. For a child of just-starting-school age, usually three months of daily immersion, as school will provide, will be sufficient for him to function confidently. In the earliest days, you can supplement his teacher if he needs help understanding lessons. Other than language-specific activity such as reading and writing, early school concepts such as maths tend to be universal.

My first non-English experiences occurred at age 11, when I started learning Spanish. I've done fine, and have since taught myself other languages to varying degrees of proficiency, but I have noticed that many people first learning a new language at 11 or 12 struggle and sometimes never completely catch on to the new language.

Wow! Are there many of us? It's great to find a clique!

Thanks for the advice. My eldest is happily bilingual using just that method but my younger autistic child seems to be finding it a burden, partly because his teacher's aren't used to bilinguals or autism and spent a lot of time trying to help him in English. I can see why - he used to just clam up and freeze over when spoken to in Spanish, but bless them their English accents are not easy to understand even for me and I'm sure it set him back.

Now, with the backing of an autism expert in Seville, I've persuaded them to stick to Spanish, but maybe he'll just never be able to keep up in a second language, given his difficulties with pronouns etc in English.

are you an expatriate too? where do you hail from?

Hi Silvervarg, great to meet you.

hola!

I'm not a parent but English is the more difficult language, Spanish is regarded as an 'easy' language to pick up. I can see why an autistic might prefer to stick to Spanish, it's much simpler and there's less misunderstanding, it's mainly voice/facial expression. With English there are almost too many choices of words, too many 'irregular' expressions, too easy to be misinterpreted. I always had a fascination with languages, because I realised it was where all my problems lay, so perhaps he will pick up English at a later stage, like transfer the concepts across.

Nice to meet you, skybluepink.

I'm originally from the US, now in the UK. I haven't yet lived in a place where the prevailing language is not my native English, although I frequently visit non-Anglophone countries and prefer to converse in the native language whenever I can.

You will find a number of us in our 40s to early 50s, diagnosed within the last couple of years (or, for some us, last couple of weeks). There are quite a few excellent exchanges within this group. I find the variety of our experiences quite astounding as well as fascinating.

Regarding your autistic son, in the grand scheme, being able to communicate at all is more important than being able to communicate in a particular language different from the family's lingua franca, so if Spanish proves to be too much, I wouldn't get hung up on it. We make plans, and then life intervenes...

I am confident that you will find much support and understanding here, as well as advice from a wide range of perspectives.

Happy Birthday!

Welcome to WP!

Welcome to the Wrong Planet neighborhood, fellow-traveler skybluepink.

Welcome skybluepink. I like your Avatar picture!

His psychologist seems to think that since his problem was with language rather than any particular language he would be able to improve in both together, learning from each, but it will certainly be harder for him than for autistic Spanish kids. But yes, I find Spanish much easier than English - I learned it as an adult so it can't be too hard! I'm just hoping he won't be overwhelmed - I know of a boy in England who just seemed to give up language completely in the same circumstances because the distance between him and his peers was just too great.

Thanks for the advice - do you speak many languages? Sometimes I find it a lot easier to communicate in my second language - my oddness is forgiven because I'm a foreigner

To WrongPlanet!! !


Come on over to the Dino-Aspie Cafe and you will find that being Aspie is not all about World of Warcraft or
being a savant....

A lot of aspies have said they like living in foreign countries as most of one's errors are attributed to 'foreigness'.

I just did some units of Spanish at uni which was years ago, so I'd have like 'baby talk' Spanish. I loved the simplicity of it (compared to English). I just like hispanics anyway. I know the apparent wisdom is to make kids speak both languages, but with an aspie that may just be even more confusing. What does your son think about it? Does he have a preference?

Hello fellow female!

Until recently it was english or nothing but he's just got to the stage (at nearly 6) of telling me off for speaking Spanish and being disturbed by Spanish people speaking English. This gives me a lot of hope as all the bilingual kids I know did the same thing - insisting people speak in their mother tongue - though they were usually over it by 3.