HELP!! !

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My wife and I are both college students and Parents of two boys, age 3 and 5. I've always been concerned with my oldest boy being shy, but never considered coming across a term during my studies that almost gave me cardiac arrest... Asperger. I know, you guys are all pros at this and this all seems old hat I'm sure, but to me it came as a shock. More that I wasn't expecting it than I'm afraid to deal with it. As a matter of fact my education choices, (a duel major in nursing and early childhood education), are practically made for something like this. My question is was there any clues or anything that caught your attention and made you approach someone about it, or did your Pediatrician catch it? What age did you find out about it as well? I mean my boy is 5 and I noticed some issues with shyness, and the fact that he memorizes everything he sees, but I never expected to piece together the DSM VI that I was studying to him. My next planned step is going to his preschool teacher to see if she had noticed anything to go along with my concerns. I was just looking for feedback to someone who deals with this day to day...

It is a shock no matter what your background. It may be harder for professionals to work this through. Because of my experience with my own child, I can handle other special needs children seemingly like magic, then go home and blow up with my own. My therapist explained it that I'm much more invested in my own, and I have the whole responsibility of their lives in mind, whereas with another child, I'm focused only on a limited situation.
Back to your question, I first noticed that, as a baby, my son demanded care but not interaction. As a toddler, he seemed shy; as a three year old, he was selectively mute; as a four year old he was a perfectionist and also covered up conversations with noises. He didn't understand correction. If I gave him a timeout, he would argue tooth and nail that it was unjust. He was highly sensitive. So I always knew I was going to have to take him to a therapist of some sort but waited until I couldn't handle figure out how to handle him anymore. That was about 8yo and he was dianosed at age 9. I found that to be the average age kids get diagnosed. The diagnosis came as a shock because his problems seem so situational. He could be so delightful at times and then turn on a dime. But it was a relief to begin to learn from others, not just figure things out on my own.
For you, don't be too alarmed. There was a recent thread here about the positives traits of Aspergers. Sense of humor, loyalty, inteligence, a different way of looking at things, etc. Look that up and keep learning about Aspergers. But also keep in mind that he is what he is. Each person is different. He'll have his own mix of positive and negative traits. Only deal with what you have in front of you. I hope this helps.

Dont be afraid.

Everyone's story is different. Some people make it to adulthood without a diagnosis, im sure some people live any die, knowing they are different, but not knowing why. Of coarse this sort of thing only really occurs with the 'higher functioning' spectrum disorders. higher functioning in quotes because this is quite a loaded term in several ways, it can be used to identify the specific disorders which fall under that category, but you have to be careful with the connotations of 'higher'.

As for me, I was informally diagnosed at least as early as 4th grade, by my teacher, who himself an aspergian. There may have been others who suspected this earlier even, but it is difficult for me to try to get information from my parents. My parents basically ignored this idea, the possible reasons why are complicated, my personal theory is that my mother was connecting my diagnosis with a neurological condition, with her experience of her brother who was diagnosed schizophrenic. He died homeless on the streets when i was young. If you have seen The Soloist, i think that sheds light on his possible state of mind, and why he desired to be homeless.

So anyway my parents avoided this idea. I began to struggle with school in middle school, when school work started to require a lot of independence, for which my executive functioning was not well equipped. I could provide further details, but i believe i have already gotten too long-winded as is my tendancy.

In short I struggled with what i believed where attentional issues, up until 2009, i started to self-medicate with psuedo-ephedrine. I noticed its stimulant effect, and that this helped me focus and follow through. This was primarily motivated by my struggle to be successful at work. This worked very well for about 6 months, at which point i was taking 12 pills every morning (6 times the dosage recommended for nasal decongestion), but I had become tolerant and this was having little or no effect, and i was starting to get worried about popping this many pills regularly. My performance at my job plummetted, and three months later i quit, basically because i was going to be terminated sooner or later, so i figured it would be better to leave voluntarily. During my time of unemployment i began to study Adult ADD, what i believed to be the cause of my struggles. I saw a physician for this, and tried several drugs to treat Attention Deficit, none caused a significant improvement. In my researching ADD i came across the differential diagnosis that is sometimes mistaken for ADD, Asperger Syndrome.

Long story short, Aspergers described all of my cognitive and communicative issues to a T. And what i perceived as as Attention Deficit is actually more a result of over-stimulation, essentially the inability to choose which sensory stimulus to focus on. A few months later i discovered that i also had this informal diagnosis of an ASD during my childhood.

There is a great range between everyone i have come across here as to when they were identified to have an autism spectrum disorder. Ranges from preschool years, childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, even some who did not realize until they were middle aged.

I would count yourself very lucky you were able to be told what your son will be dealing with at such a young age. asperger syndrome is by no means a negative attribute, it is simply a different wiring of the brain. Of coarse you could get more technical with this by exploring the implications and ramifications of hyper-myelination

there seems to be some truth to this. i was 10 when i was 'diagnosed' (not to my knowledge until more than a decade later, and it has yet been clinically 'confirmed'). If i recall accurately, I think Alex (the founder of this site) was officially diagnosed at 8 or 9.



This is not to attack you, but just so you are aware of this possibility, i always hated it when my mother called me shy. It was almost as if shy was my title, or part of my name, she would use this term to explain my disengaged behavior in most introductions that involved me. It made me feel embarrassed and misunderstood right off the bat being around new people, though i suppose i never sufficiently expressed these feelings, as it was always a part of my introductions as a child. Honestly what does shy mean? That you are disinclined to be outgoing without a specified reason? I always felt it within a context of a sort of weakness, that i was anxious to interact with people. Which was in some cases true, but the majority of the time it was more so that i didn't naturally socialize on the grounds of the desire to talk just to talk. If i didn't see anything to talk about in particular, i didn't talk. Just saying the word shy here invokes negative feelings to the surface

Does he exhibit any signs of selective mutism (acts mute in social situations like preschool but can can talk at home) or other symptoms of social anxiety disorder? I bring this up because you mentioned the shyness thing.

I have a history of selective mutism (and very high functioning/mild AS) and my older son with high functioning classic autism also has a history of selective mutism. His selective mutism was eliminated practically overnight with Prozac (fluoxetine), starting at just under age 4. This med has a 76% effectiveness rate on selective mutism. It is an old med, and I've been told by doctors that it is a very safe choice for children because a lot is known about it.

My own selective mutism went away on its own, but it took years. I was never able to play with other kids in elementary school, other than my brother and cousin, due to social anxiety. I continued to struggle with social anxiety for many years after the selective mutism went away, and public speaking is still a struggle.

Selective mutism and social anxiety disorders often go undiagnosed, and they are over represented in the AS community. Some adults with AS and ASD still have great issues with selective mutism or social anxiety disorder.

For us, it was two preschool teachers who caught it and nudged us toward getting a full evaluation. It was missed at age 2.75 by a developmental psychologist and a speech therapist, and again at age 4.75 by a general child psychologist. We thought DS was just strong willed at age 3-4, and even going into the diagnostic evaluation at age 5.25 I was expecting the result to be ADHD.

I guess my point is that it is tricky to determine what is going on at the preschool stage. Getting input from the preschool teacher, and seeking out a developmental pediatrician (NOT your regular ped) are good next steps.

I'd always known my daughter was more challenging than the other kids on the block. Still, the initial diagnosis was difficult. You can read my full story on my blog. The blog feature here is great for all those times you need to just vent or debrief. Write it down. When things calm down go back and read it over; you'll see the pieces fit together in hindsight.

What helps is just to remember, your child is still your child. The label doesn't change the child. All the label does is give you access to support and a starting point for understanding some of the quirks. "Now I know why all those (regular) parenting books were such a waste of time. I kept telling people the regular rules just didn't apply to my child. Now I can tell them why!"

My son was different from the day he was born, but people kept telling us it meant he was extremely smart, and we were happy to buy into that. He didn't need much sleep, was a sensory seeker, unusually flexible, wanted constant attention, etc. Basically the other extreme of the spectrum (one thing i've seen is that AS kids are uniquely different just as all kids are, but they are rarely in the middle on traits).

In preschool they wanted to claim something was wrong with him, and hinted it was our parenting. That didn't go over so well, but we did call in an external observation that suggested sensory integration issues, and met for a period with a counselor who suggested he was this wonderful "magic" child.

In elementary school I grew concerned. There was a clear gap between what he seemed capable of, and his actual performance in school. He was also exhibiting trouble with the fine motor skills of writing, and starting to shut down rather than practice. To make a long story short, by the end of first grade we were demanding a full IEP evaluation, even though we had no idea what label we were looking for, and the school broached the idea of Aspergers.

He was 7, start of 2nd grade, when the school psychologist concluded that he was qualified for an IEP based on the existence of ASD.

Getting that label changed everything for the better, and my son started down the long road of learning to communicate on paper despite severe hyermobility-hypotonia. Remember that flexibility I mentioned? Turns out it was the loose joints, and more of a hinderance than benefit; this is a frequent co-morbid with AS.

It took me a while to reconcile the false dreams and expectations people had encouraged me to build for my son with the reality of how things actually were for him, but we've gone through it and he is doing great. We're doing great. I have a unique, quirky, creative and intelligent child (now 14) who thinks quite differently than the rest of the world, but who is going to be just fine. Not the further president or gymnast we joked about when he was an infant, but something better for who he actually is.

As has been mentioned in earlier posts, everyone's story is different. My son is 10 and was just officially diagnosed last week. Before that he ran through tentative diagnoses of ADD, ADHD, Bipolar Disorder, and Oppositional Defiant Disorder. My first clue that it might be something else came when he was around 8 and another parent asked me if he was Autistic. Several other people in his life later suggested it might be Asperger. There reasoning was his limited social skills, intense focus on a few specific subjects, significant clumsiness, taking jokes and sarcasm literally, and extreme difficulty in unplanned schedule changes. Not all children with AS will show the exact same characteristics and he severity of those characteristics will vary from child to child as well.

Certainly, I think talking to his teacher would be a good idea as they spend a significant amount of time with your child. In our case, we had to go to a specific hospital to be assessed for it and were on the waiting list for over a year but Tennessee just doesn't have a lot of professionals that specialize in Autism Spectrum Disorders.

I'm not an expert by any means. I've done a fair amount of research while waiting for our assessment but, as a psychology major, I try really hard to avoid "obnoxious grad student disorder" so these are all just my opinions and personal experience. Good luck to you and your family.