Help!!

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Hi I'm new here, and about to pull my hair out.

We honestly don't know if our 12yo son has aspergers or not. The child psychologists have told us it could be aspergers or post orphanage behavior. They are so similar. We wouldn't "really" know until he was probably 15 o 16, perhaps not even then. He was adopted at 2, and been raised in the orphanage.

In the meantime, life is really rough....most days. One person I've talked with says it sounds like her son, with exceptions. She told me her son doesn't lie. Mine will.....in a heartbeat. He treats his 13yo sister terrible(who was adopted as well and his fully biological sibling), unless we are around. He tells her she's fat (which she isn't by any stretch of the imagination), or stupid. And just overall rude to her. We do homeschool, so I can't say what he would be like in a traditional setting. I know friends we hang out with wanted him to stop coming because he's mean. He does things to them he knows they don't like. He acts perfectly politely towards these kids when there is an adult around, so it's not like he doesn't know. He's very sneaky and deceitful. And he acts like nothing is ever his fault. He's also lazy. He will do only the bare minimum or try to get his sister to do more of the work. That might be Tom Sawyer syndrome. hahahahah!! !! !! !

On the positive side he's very smart and a wonderfully creative writer. He always remembers things we need to take someplace. He's also very good at architectural drawing. At times he's very sweet, to me and his dad. I'm not really sure he's ever nice to his sister outside of our presence.

I feel like a terrible parent and have so much guilt for the way I feel around him. I'm always frustrated. I really do love him and I'm trying to understand. What is going on? I don't know how to handle all this. I could really use some advice. The psychologists really haven't been much help.

Thanks in advance.

I don't understand why the psychologist hasn't assessed him for autism.
He should take the ADOS, or be assessed by the public school district. I'm pretty sure you can request an assessment from your school district even if you are homeschooling.

He should get professionally assessed, but there also some on-line tests you could have him take just to get a feel for the likelihood of the issue being ASD.

Meanwhile, I'd like to dig into some of your observations further.

First, and I know it is a sensitive issue, but IS his sister overweight? Is he trying to be mean or does he feel he is being honest? Are the statements made out of the blue or in response to questioning? ASD kids often feel it would be lying not to give their honest opinion, even when it hurts someone else.

On the issue of lying and deceit, can you give some examples? One of the things that can happen with ASD kids is that in failing to understand the subtlety of social nicety (like not telling your sister she is fat just because you think it) is that they end up with this sense that the entire world lies all the time, that being told not to lie is hypocrisy, and that lying is actually what people want from you.

Or ... it can be that questions aren't made precisely enough. ASD kids tend to be very logical and precise, so if someone were to ask, "did you wash your hands," that is a question that can be honestly answered yes if they have ever in their entire lives washed their hands. They may not get that you expect an answer to the question, "have you washed your hands in the last five minutes" instead of the one you actually asked.

Does any of that strike a chord with you at all?

Also helpful can be IQ tests, since there tends to be a lot of scatter among the varying components with ASD individuals. ASD tends to give clear gifts and clear deficits in a pattern that normal people find surprising. Why can't the same kid who can brilliantly solve math problems beyond his level not tie his shoes? How can the kid who seems to remember every fact he's ever been taught not remember what to pack in the morning? And so on.

Can he get into the concepts of symbolism and metaphors, or does all that strike him as completely illogical? Does he have theory of mind, the ability to see an issue from a perspective different than his own?

And, that hallmark - can he read facial expressions?

Again, you will need a professional assessment, but these are some of the things I've noticed pretty consistently among ASD kids.

Yippy skippy, I hadn't thought about the public school system.

Thanks, DW.
I have done the on line test and he tests high for ASD. It seems every time we approach a psychologist, they play the post orphanage card.

His sister is not overweight. Not even a hint. She's 5'1'' and weighs about 95#. When I did ask him about it,he told me he thought it was funny. That is his reasoning a lot. Saying things to her quietly or when he thinks I'm not listening seems deceitful to me. She was trying to apologize to him the other day and he kept interrupting her say "blah, blah, blah". When I ask him why he does that, he says nothing, "I don't know", or "I was trying to be funny". I try to get him to think about it from the point of someone else, but not sure he gets that when in a situation. I guess that would be the theory of mind thing you mentioned.

My older kids (22 and 24) tell me he's totally different when I'm not around. Example, the kids were singing some song that J totally mocks. N (my oldest) thought it was funny they way he did it (J can be a total clown, another wonderful part of his personality). So he started singing it when I was there and J didn't respond at all. When N asked him why he was being so calm, he just looked at him. I often think I am just too hard on him, so he turns off somehow around me. I really try to be a good mom. That is one reason I found this forum. I really want help for me. To understand....and keep all our sanities.

I could see how some questions there might be me thinking he's lying when I'm thinking context and he's not....like the washing hands thing.

I haven't done an IQ test with him. But he is the kid who can remember any fact but forget his pj's going to his grandparents.

We have worked on metaphors and symbolism so that is better. But it's always been rough for him. Which has made it hard for him in social settings. He has told me that.

He can read my facial expressions, but I'm not sure if he could read the expression of a stranger.

I don't know where to get an eval. Every time I talk with someone, as soon as the orphanage thing comes up they go down that road. I just get tired of dealing with it. It's like they are afraid to deal with it. One told me she has evaluated two boys as having ASD and it turned out to be POD, so she doesn't test kids adopted kids for ASD anymore. She told me if the skills to parent ASD help, follow those. f it turns out to be POD, it wouldn't have hurt. Thing is, I'm not sure what those skills are.

Thanks so much for listening.

I really do just want to be a better mom. I'm sure my previous post sounded awful. I've just been so frustrated the past several weeks. But while making dinner I thought about some things. Like his older sister just got married.(2 weeks ago) His older brother was home for 3 weeks after being gone for 7 months and had to leave again. So, I guess those two events could be enough to "set him off".

He sounds very 12, to me. My oldest has Asperger's, but he isn't mean or deceitful at all. Not to say he won't eat all the cookie dough and hide the tub, but I consider that more of an immature trait than outright deceitful. On the other hand, he's in a boy scout troop with a whole lot of neurotypical kids, so I've certainly been exposed to mean and deceitful behavior on a regular basis.

Only a few of the kids in the troop are really mean, and only a few are actually deceitful. Probably most will outgrow the behavior with consistent discipline and positive reinforcement, but the process of self-identification often includes experimenting with unpleasant behaviors. Kids need to know what bad behavior feels like so that they can understand why they are choosing the good behavior. Someone is mean to them, so they try out being mean to someone else to better understand why it happened.

How does he respond when you talk about your trust of him, and how his behavior affects other people's opinion of him? When my kids have experimented with bad behavior, I've asked them, "Do you want to be the person people are glad not to see? Do you want your classmates to go home and think, 'Boy, this would have been SUCH a good day if only Jack hadn't been there', or do you want them to think, 'What a great day this was, because Jack was there!'? I didn't ask it as a rhetorical question, either. We processed through it, and through what that answer means to the child.

For my kids, having that kind of discussion combined with some significant consequences has helped. Modeling and rewarding kind behavior helps a lot too! Have you tried challenging him to a "kindness contest" where you each try to do more kind things than the other for a week?

As far as whether he's on the spectrum, I can't help. I have one with Asperger's, one with ADHD, and one with both. In my personal experience, unkindness hasn't been spectrumy so much as experiential.

Nicurn,
Thanks for the thoughts.

Honestly, I don't think he cares what people think of him. We have had similar discussions as to what you mentioned, especially when our friend's kids said they didn't want to him play with him He told me he was really okay with and wanted to stay home anyway. Curious thing is on his baseball team, they LOVED him. He was an encourager and the one to keep everybody laughing. They even defended him when boys on the other team were making fun of his size. (He's very small for his age). He doesn't really like sports, so doesn't play anymore.

He certainly gets the attitude that he never does wrong. Of course he is SUPER smart, so that might play a part.

I don't know. Maybe it's a sibling thing. My older kids never treated each other like this, but they are all different.

I appreciate the thoughts. Thank you so much.

Sibling rivalry is common for any kid particularly those close in age. It doesn't mean much, by itself, but I was wondering is she very advanced in maturity and social skills? If he is is on the spectrum and she is not that could be the source for any extra animosity beyond the normal stuff. Girls often act more mature in the pre-teen/teen years anyway, but if the difference is even larger due to him being on the spectrum, I could see that causing more issues self-esteem-wise.

As far as the p-docs, they will lunge for low hanging fruit, and the orphanage data is that low-hanging fruit. We didn't have any of those issues, but I think the background information that they gather in the beginning is prejudical and they use statistical correlations to do much of the work for them in terms of differential diagnosis.

If your son's biography included one or two bio parents in the computer science industry or some other obvious ASD stereotype as opposed to an orphanage history, I bet they would lean towards ASD.

Sorry for the tangent, but one of my pet peeves is the lack of scientific rigor in the diagnostic process.

ASDMommy,

I did not see your comment as a tangent. it was actually a breath of fresh air. Thank you.
I have been asking myself if an official diagnosis would really matter. Would it help me? I already know he is who he is. I've read LOTS on ASD, but I still get frustrated and I don't always understand why he does some of the stuff he does, even with all the reading.

As far as our son's bio parents. We don't know for sure. His mom was listed as a homemaker and his dad a "stocker". But when we were there (Russia), our translator said something about his father being in the police force. When we asked farther, he acted like he really didn't understand what we were asking. They played that card a lot.

His sister is more advanced in social settings for sure. She is also extremely dyslexic. He definitely uses that against her, making her feel dumb. I've tried to find if there is a connection between dyslexia and ASD. They have the same bio parents, and my understanding is both, dyslexia and ASD, are genetic. I thought it might give us more into his background. I've never thought about the age difference playing a part. They are 363 days apart. He is also still significantly smaller than she is, and she is stronger. She is very athletic and loves all the outdoors stuff. She just naturally uses her muscles more. He is not into sports, at all. I guess I could see that playing a part in his self esteem. I really appreciate you bringing that up, because he also can be very "snotty" towards his older brother. (Our oldest bio son). He is almost 25, 6'3", weighs about 210#, in the world of professional baseball, and extremely good in social settings J loves his older brother dearly, but I could see how that could cause some issues n his mind, especially when people make comments to him about being big like his brother one day, or asking him if he's going to be in baseball. J's bio parents were listed at 5'2" and 5'3'. He probably isn't going to be 6'3". We have always encouraged our kids to be who they were made to be, but those thins could be causing some issues. I've never thought it, because he, most often, acts like he is superior to everyone. Curious. It gives me something else to possibly see into his thinking. Thank you.

Another point - I have a friend whose son was adopted from an orphanage, and his behavior and the ways of dealing with it are strikingly similar to my son. In short, I don't know that it matters unless you are looking for specific services - a diagnosis is only as good as what you get from it.

What made us finally figure out that the autism diagnosis fit my (very verbal and initially socially successful) son was that he got better when we treated him like he had AS - meaning that we used the techniques we found here and in books. Look through the posts stickied at the top of this board and see if anything there makes sense to you. Read some of the recommended books; that's where I started to open my eyes.

As for lying, DS did it all the time (almost constantly) and still struggles with it a bit. He's socially savvy enough to understand lying, and not savvy enough to understand the consequences of it. Some of it was confusion with language (being overly literal) some of it was wishful thinking, and some of it was just trying to avoid consequences because his life was so very out of control when nobody understood him. Acting superior is also something I see a lot in DS and his friends on the spectrum - it's a common coping device (heck, my parents used it their whole life.)

Try to look for patterns in the behaviors you are having trouble with. See if they fall into categories, and work on them one category at a time. For instance, DS really struggled with rigidity - to the point that he would freak out if I parked on a different side of the school than usual. It took me a while to realize that he needed first to be prepared when something was going to change and second to learn that change was not always bad. He's relaxed considerably.

Other behaviors had to do with communication: DS didn't "catch" nonverbal communication, and at some point we realized he was pushing our buttons just to anger us because he could "see" angry, but not all the other emotions we were feeling. He was just trying to get a reaction that made sense (not totally consciously, mind you.) There are all kinds of tools to help kids with that - pragmatic speech therapy, emotional labeling, etc.

Sorry for taking so long to get back.

I can see why it would be confusing.

I guess that unless you are in need of services or accommodations from the school, the exact label does not really matter. Even among all our diagnosed ASD kids there can be huge individual differences, so trying out different ideas and seeing what sticks is always going to be part of the process. Definitely check out ideas and protocols from this site and see how they work for you both. I have no idea what kinds of protocols would be recommended for POD, but you can work the ones that make sense to you from that, as well.

Truth is, it doesn't have to be A or B: it could well be a little bit of both. Pulling information from parents with experience with both can't hurt.

Looking ahead, I'm thinking you probably do want to get testing for ASD, because that could allow him accommodations on his SAT and AP testing. What is his work speed like? Could he use extra time and a less crowded room? Anyway, if you are going to want to have options like that, you will need time to get everything through the process. As in over a year's worth of time.

Finally, you sound like a thoughtful and caring mom to me. That makes you a good mom. There are no perfect ones.