What behaviors should change...if any...

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I'm new to writing on these forums, but have known for yrs that DS is an aspie. Are there certain behaviors that should be encouraged to improve on? Affection, certain social skills, specific fears?

For instance, giving affection. He's always backed into me for hugs and I've taught him to face me. He's totally uncomfortable, but he does it. He just doesn't give affection and I know it bothers him that his siblings do that so easily. I think he wants to, but can't figure out how to initiate it. Should I encourage him (or is it even possible) in this area? Meaning, one day he'll date or have a wife and I'm wondering how all of that will work. She will need a hug and kind words and without that, a marriage would be difficult. Am I making sense at all?

He also has sensory issues. Through much struggle, we got him to work through his fear of escalators. I dont' know why that one was so important to us, but it was (but maybe really shouldn't be). We don't go on certain rides at an amusement park not because of speed or heights necessarily, but because of sound. He does little yard work because of his fear of bugs, so one day he'll either have to work through it, get a really good job to pay for landscapers or live in the city. We look the other way when he casually covers his ears for certain loud sounds.

His social skills with friends are awkward, of course. They'll say hello and he'll sometimes say "what", as in "what do you want". He rarely smiles when they greet him and they often do a double take and walk away. I do encourage him to smile and explain how important that is and I try to give him ways to greet friends and initiate conversation.....but like affection, even though I model it, he either refuses or just has some mental block and can't smile and say hi.

Organization/multi-tasking: Lord help us all...this is a very difficult area that does need help and I don't know where to begin. He's middle school age, it's summer and I still think his pe clothes are sitting in his locker. He's even accidentally worn his pe shirt out of the locker room and to class. He loses and/or forgets everything (honestly, I do too) and it frustrates him so much that he feels awful about himself...sometime to the point of tears.

So...what changes...and what can he just not help? I know there are little things that don't matter, but I'd love to know what behaviors you think should be improved upon.

All of this is obviously opinion, so take that into account.

Affection: My son used "back into" snuggles when he was younger. He still does sometimes. He has always been very affectionate and snuggly though, just idiosyncratically so. I think he got into that habit because when he was little he had very bad colic and would sit in my lap, all day. So he was used to sitting on me for comfort, if that makes sense. I think avoiding eye contact was a side bonus. You can snuggle frontwards and avoid eye contact, too. I taught it to him as a social convention, just because relatives were confused by the backwards snuggle, but I did not make him change. He did it when he was ready.

Personal contact is just that--personal. I would not inflict things that are uncomfortable on him, unless you have to for hygiene or something. If he finds a mate and chooses to become serious/marry, whatever, he will need to find someone who can accept him for who he is. He may not want a spouse or a serious relationship. If my son doesn't want to date or marry, that is OK with me. If he does, I will just let him know what people who date typically do, and make sure he understands he needs to look for context clues, respect boundaries and not to be too snuggly...because you know, the person might not want...

He will not be happy pretending to be someone he is not, doing things that are against his nature, and that give him sensory issues. This is true of everyone including NTs. That said, when he is dating age/hits puberty I would tell him what the conventions are so he knows what another person would expect. If he wants to date, he will probably try the conventions to see if he can make them work for him or not. The verbal conventions may be easier than the physical ones, for sensory reasons. Also, teach boundaries if your son has issues with them.

I do think sensory issues should be (gently) worked on, but not necessarily for dating purposes; mainly I think the purpose should be in general making him more comfortable and less stressed. Sensory issues bring a lot of stress. I don't think it should be forced, personally. I have always been very gentle and very slow. My son used to hate baths and having his hair touched and washed. He now loves his baths and pours water on his own head, to wash the shampoo out. he still doesn't like haircuts, but we manage it. other people may have other advice but we do best with slow. he also had OT at school, but I am not sure how much help that was because she really didn't do a good job of replacing things they were trying to extinguish with things that he would accept. She would try to force things on him and that just doesn't work. I do think a good OT is of value, though, based on others' posts.. It is a thing you could look into.

We had problems with elevators, although he did OK on escalators after getting sick of walking up steps. We just took stairs when we needed to. It wasn't a thing that bothered us. The noise...yeah...he still has issues with noise. We haven't used anything like earplugs or headphones due to sensory issues with those. He goes into he other room when I use the blended and I vacuum when he is out. Supposedly he handles fire drills. He used to have issues with Amber Alerts etc. on TV, though he has acclimated. A good OT could probably help with desensitizing, but we just have been letting him get used to things gradually.

Social Skills: That is our biggest problem. We also give advice which he does not follow, as he is sure he is right. You can really only tell him what is expected and what the social consequences are for following rules. He has to make the decision to try it, if it is worth it to him. If he wants to, you can help. If he doesn't...not much you can do. Some people use social skill training group therapy. I have heard very mixed things. I think based on what I have heard, interest-based groups are best, if you can find one.

Organization Skills/Executive Functioning: Ugh! Middle school was horribly focused on this, when I went, and the requirements around here anyway, now start much earlier. I think help in this area would be nice, but again, he has to want to organize. Some of it he may need accommodations for, as it is hard to control forgetting things. Someone who has gone through this stage would give better advice. My son is seven, and so the teacher would just handle the things he couldn't remember to do. She would check his folder for homework and notes and that kind of thing. There is scaffolding you can get for the older ones, too.

Really the biggest things to focus on are the things that are currently affecting him and that he cares about. Worrying about future spouses is probably not a priority. Have you asked him what he wishes he could improve? The more buy-in you get, the more productive any help will be. If he does not want help, you will not get forward motion.

Affection and socialization, etc: I think its about what he wants and cares about. I've taught my son enough to meet his own goals in these areas, and after that I leave it be. He won't learn a skill unless he has a personal reason for it, so that approach is simply pragmatic for us.

Organization: I think there is a real developmental gap in that area for most (if not all) of our kids. My son will never be good at it, but he definitely matured and grew into it quite a bit between 6th grade and high school. Our approach was simply to seize the reins for him until he was ready. You cannot teach someone something they are developmentally incapable of, although you can help them find work-a-rounds. So, it is work-a-rounds and parents playing administrative assistants for now. And possibly in some way forever. But this is an area important to their lives and, so, you definitely have to try doing something.

And ... I have to run.

I try to think about my son as an independent 25-year-old when I'm deciding which battles to pick.

For instance, we struggled over shoe-tying for a long time (he finally did master it, but he's s.l.o.w. at it) and I realized that as an adult he can probably avoid tie shoes as he wants. We tossed that one.

DS struggled with "lining up" and "walking in a line" and I also realized that, unless he joins the military or somesuch, he's not going to need that skill as an adult. We wrote into his IEP that he be allowed to be at the rear of the line and that was that.

Social skills, OTOH, are something that DS both wants and needs. Organizational skills as well. We work on those things and our IEP ast school reflects that. Your school should be helping you figure out strategies: is he getting a social skills class/pragmatic speech therapy? Does he have assistance with organization?

In DS's IEP, it states that he is supposed to write assignments in his assignment notebook - even if there is no assignment, he has to write SOMETHING. Teachers are supposed to sign off on his notebook. He also is offered "check-in, check-out" by his IEP team before and after school. We also taught him to arrange his locker into "before lunch" and "after lunch" sections and the school had periodic locker clean-outs (otherwise, having someone help him keep his locker straight is something you can ask for.) DS managed OK with PE, so I am not sure what to work on there.

A lot of what my son needs are instructions in explicit, bulleted list form. Inability to follow the list usually means the instructions are not explicit enough - it takes some tweaking.

I would first ask him if he would like to learn. If he does, then absolutely, you should break it down step by step and teach him how to show affection. I find that I need to break things down and give explanations as to "why" one does this. For example, "When you see someone you haven't seen in a long time, the convention is to smile. That shows them that you are happy to see them. Then usually you will hug each other. While you are hugging, you can pat the person's back lightly twice and that will help you know when you have hugged long enough. Then you stop hugging and look at each other's faces and ask each other how you've been, but the question is only a matter of convention. At that point you usually say something like "Good, and you?" and you don't really get into a back and forth conversation during the initial greeting."



I tend to have a "leave alone" stance for many sensory issues. Often times, it is not just that they don't like a sensation or are afraid of it, it could be that it is experienced as painful. However, for example, my daughter has a major sensory issue with water on her face. For a long time, I did everything humanly possible to avoid getting water on her face. But now she has decided she would like to learn how to swim, which is not possible due to her panic reactions to water on her face. So we are working on desensitization together. She is actually making fairly rapid progess (all things considered) but I think this is largely due to the fact that it is something she wants to do. She still covers her ears for loud sounds. She can do this until the day she dies for all I care. It causes pain. Some loud noises actually initiate her fight or flight response if she can't protect herself. My son cannot go on many rides because of gravitational insecurity. I leave it up to him to guide me in what he wants to try to conquer. Sometimes he does not want to do anything "risky" and other times he is willing to try something new. I let him go at his pace.



Social skills I am more insistent upon. It's not that my kids can't display relatively typical social skills. Its more that it doesn't come naturally. My son is not good with greeting people he knows and does pretty much what you say your son does. Part of his problem is prospagnosia. If he sees a friend outside of the normal context, sometimes he does not recognize them as someone he knows. But it also has to do with the simple fact that he does not feel innately compelled to return a greeting. We worked on this by consistent reminding that his friends would take his lack of response as a sign that he did not like them or that he disapproved of them. This seemed to help him somewhat because he doesn't want them to feel that way, but at the age of 11, I still need to prompt him before going in to places where we might see people we know to smile and respond when greeted. With my daughter, I do a lot of prepping and verbal explanations of social settings and what is expected. "At a birthday party, the birthday girl gets to choose everything you do. It is not a time when we take turns. It is kind and friendly for you to do what your friend wants without complaining or walking away if you don't like it. This shows your friend how important she is to you...They will serve some kind of desert, most likely cake. If you do not like the desert they are serving, you say "no thank you" with a friendly face. You do not tell them that it looks gross and you do not ask for something else. Your friend's mom tried really hard to pick something that everyone would like and we don't want to hurt anyone's feelings... When it comes time to open gifts, she may not choose yours first. This does not mean she does not like you. There are many gifts to open and everyone wants their gift to be opened first." etc.



Are we talking about the same kid? Honestly... If you can figure this one out, please let me know. Nothing that we have tried seems to help, and unfortunately, I have the same deficit so it is very hard for me to be able to figure out how to help him. I got the book "Smart but Scattered" as recommended by this lovely group and it provides helpful insight. We are also moving away from paper planners next year and switching to a kindle app we found (can't remember the name right now).

How would he be able to avoid that when shoes for the most part have laces?



I struggled with this as well especially when I was forced to be line leader. When I was line leader most of the time I didn't know what to do without major verbal prompting. I was supposed to follow the teacher but there were times I wasn't supposed to and they were not expliciti about it.



I would've loved to have had major help with organization, social skills and pragmatic speech therapy when I went to school at his age.



I don't understand this one. How can he write something if there is no assignment? I don't get it.



This is what I need as well to. Explicit, bulleted list forms are great for me especially when they're specific. I did this in 6th grade. Mr. Mercer, our power transportation teacher, said to copy the questions. Some of the questions would be 1-2 paragraphs long. I realized a loophole to his instructions and my hand was hurting and tired. The structure of both of the paragraphs consisted mostly of declarative sentences. The only thing that had a question mark was the word "why" which was the question. I taught other members of the class the loophole.

Last edited by cubedemon6073 on 21 Jun 2013, 3:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

My son writes "No H/W" for "No Homework," or at least he is supposed to

Oh! So he's not supposed to leave it as null am I correct in my interpretation to your response?

Yes, he has to write something, even if that is NH for no homework (which is what my son does as well.)

Adults can wear slip-on shoes if they choose. The requirement to wear shoes with laces is pretty much a kid thing unless you do lots of sports - and even then, there are usually slip-on options. We've found the bungee laces work just fine.

Read John Elder Robison's book "Look Me in the Eye". This gives a good perspective from an adult Aspie who had no idea he was an Aspie growing up and neither did his parents. There are some graphic details about the abuse he and his brother suffered as children which was troubling for me to read but despite that, I found it really enlightening.

A question that often runs through my head when I am considering whether or not to push DS in any given area is, "Is this a life skill or a relevant pre-cursor to a life skill?" IMHO - Yard work, not a life skill. Millions of people live in cities and never have to do that type of chore. Learning to do basic housework and learning how to cook, life skills.

I do think that having some social skills is important in the long run. He needs to be taught these in a very explicit, focused and supportive manner. This means he needs to practice it A LOT. He is not likely to "get it" if the only time it comes up is when you remind him after he has had a failed attempt with a peer. What works for some people is to make up scripts and practice them in a low-risk environment such as with a therapist, parent, sibling, etc. Then schedule situations for him to practice with others. Hopefully you can find some same age friends who are at least a little tolerant of his idiosyncrasies to help you work on this. He needs to have successful interactions in order to know what that feels like. It is not likely that he is ever going to be a social butterfly but he needs to interact with people at some level.

Sensory issues, well some of these he may learn to cope with but I think this is an area where you should make reasonable accommodations for him and teach him how to advocate for these for himself. I don't "look the other way when he casually covers his ears for certain loud sounds." I pack ear plugs if we are going somewhere that I know will be loud or if I am not prepared with ear plugs and I am aware that a loud sound is going to occur, I warn him so he can cover his ears. There is no shame it the fact that he experiences a higher degree of discomfort at loud sounds than most other people do. Sensitivities of this nature are not likely to go away. It's kind of like being color blind. There will be certain things that he just can't do or will need to find a way around. Unless he wants to work construction for a living, being sensitive to loud sounds is not going to be a big deal. Let him know that it is OK for him to take care of his own needs in this area.

On organization, a lot of folks here recommend the book "Smart but Scattered". This is also an area where lots of practice and pre-planning are going to be needed to make progress. Don't expect that he is going to be able to follow instructions for how to be organized after one or two times, you will most-likely need to break things down into small chunks and work on them one little thing at a time.

Have patience and take small steps!

Yes, because if he doesn't write anything, one cannot tell if it is because he forgot or because there was nothing to write. It also establishes a predictable pattern that can be followed every day no matter what. Like I have a hook by the front door where I hang my keys. Every time. Without fail. Or I will never be able to find them. It is a habit that I don't even need to think about.

Back. I agree with the "what will he need as an adult?" perspective, as long as you allow for developmental lags and differences; some things truly need to be grown into.

What gets interesting here is the social skills area. See, my son has little trouble engaging appropriately with adults. His manners may not be perfect, but adults enjoy his conversation and company and "get" him just fine. It is peers he struggles with and he has had an interesting point there: won't they all grow up and eventually act like adults, at which point he'll get along fine? Why does he need to learn the transitory social rules of high school and middle school that, to be honest, most of the adults don't even know well enough to teach? We've had some interesting discussions about all of this.

He has had some speech lessons on reading body language and non-verbal cues, and that all does help and is worth doing. But no adult can teach him the unspoken language and rules of teens, and the efforts by peers can have unintended side effects, so he has mostly accepted that he's on his own there and has adopted his own language patterns that are just his. Maybe some part of him figures that when he does that no one expects him to talk like a typical teen and its true, no one does.

Anyway. Sorry for the tangent. Just random thoughts this conversation has inspired.

I agree. DS would be a great one to apply this to, except he really wants to fit in with his peers (sadly, we often swap "talks well to adults" to "talks like he is in the school lunchroom 100% of the time") So, social skills are on our agenda. We do follow his lead on a lot of stuff.

However, there ARE some social skills and pragmatics you will need at 25. Appropriate greetings being one (although I think you can allow for some quirkiness) and things like repairing language (saying sorry, etc.) being another I can think of off the top of my head. Some kids on the spectrum have these, others don't.

I also agree about the importance of his particular current level of development - the road to developing skills he needs at 25 always starts with figuring out where he is now and meeting him there. Everything happens with discussion and figuring out DS's particular wants and needs.

Ok, so I love this forum and I have to be confident in what I know and believe even though the school couldn't diagnose him.

Thank you everyone for the responses. Like I said, he's undiagnosed and one who knows nothing about aspergers wouldn't realize he has it, but would simply think he's slightly different (which he is). It's hard to explain, but one minute he's very asperger like and another minute, not. Sometimes he will shake hands with certain friends and freeze up with others. When I wrote about future a spouse, that was just an example. It's in all of his relationships where he needs to learn to show some kind of affection/kindness that concerns me. I just don't want him to be alone (whether that be a spouse and/or friends).

"You cannot teach someone something they are developmentally incapable of, although you can help them find work-a-rounds." This is what I was wondering. What are they NOT capable of working through? I want him to be who he is, but also encourage him to be the very best he can be for him.

Sensory: He's a teen AND has sensory issues. Hormones, teen life and sensory issues are getting all jumbled together. It just dawned on me why he was so exhausted acting one afternoon last week. He graduated from middle school and his entire behavior changed following the event. He must've had a huge sensory overload. Right? I mean, there were some other serious issues going on (if you read my other post), but this was a drastic change within 2 hrs. We have talked about his sensory issues because we just can't avoid them. However, he tends to hide his fear of loud sounds on occasion. Like when we hit the lock button on the car and it beeps. He'll casually plug his ears. I'm not looking away as in avoiding. It's being respectful of how he feels. We purposely don't go on rides with the loud sounds and he knows we do that for him. His siblings have a hissy fit, so we need to find some balance there.

Organization and serious forgetfulness: It's bad, but I'm glad he's not the only one. I do have to say this year was better though. He has a planner and wrote in it for half the year.Papers don't go in his organizer like they should and we'll find parent notes months later. I'll send him upstairs for something and he'll go up there and do something else instead. It is SO hard on his self esteem. Like I said...I'm this way too. I almost wonder if I'm an aspie. I'd feel weird getting tested, but I too have social issues. Ugh.

Thank you for the book recommendation. I'm going to look into it!

Actually, I have another recommendation - check out the stickies at the top of this board. If you're new to the whole spectrum thing, there's a wealth of information up there: suggested reading, threads by topic, IEP/school info. All from the perspective of other parents who are doing it, too - or even more precious, from adults on the spectrum.

Most of us got a huge benefit from doing LOTS of research. All kids are different - aspie kids included; you have to find what works best for YOUR child.

I've received a huge benefit for myself by doing lots of research. It is true that not everyone is the same including aspies. This really crops up.


* Venting now: Ignore if you wish*There have been a few aspies on here I have butted heads with.

I am an INTP. http://www.16personalities.com/intp-personality
Some are ISTJs. http://www.16personalities.com/istj-personality

I have butted heads with NTs who are ISTJs as well. The main issue is the N VS. the S. It is very difficult to get an ISTJ to see different possibilities or to run what-ifs analysis's of their own ideas they have. They want to stick to the facts and that is great and all but there is only one problem. Why can't there be multiple interpretations to the facts? Why don't they see multiple viewpoints of these facts?

Let's take the concepts of success, failure, positivity and negativity. It is said and I am paraphrasing those with a negative attitude set out to fail and they self-sabotage themselves. This means, if they have accomplished this then have succeeded in this endeavor. If they did not accomplish it and they end up succeeding in whatever they believed they could not do then they failed at self-sabotage failed at failing.

What is success? What is failure? What is a positive outcome and what is a negative outcome? Is Bill Gates a success or failure. It depends upon one's interpretation.

The issue is interpretation and trying to get an ISTJ to give you their interpretation is very frustrating as they only see one interpretation and possibility and to them it is obvious.

Okay. **Rant Over**