should a child diagnosed with Asperger be told?

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I think these depends much from his personality - if he suffers from his difference, I think you should tell you abot AS; if he likes the way he is, I think you should not tell him - he probably will fell better if he tinks that he has only a different personality than a condition described in medical books.

But, attention, I am not-diagnosed, and I think that you should give more weight to the opinion of the diagnosed members of the forum that to my opinion.

Whether knowing the diagnosis early can make any radical change or improvements, I can't say - when I was 13 nobody I knew had any idea what AS was and I didn't find out until well into middle age.

However, I can tell you this: There is something central to this condition that gives us a tremendously sensitive notion of social justice and trust - probably due to the fact that from very early on we don't pick up on the subtle nonverbal cues and body language signals going on around us; as a result we are susceptible to bullying and tend to be socially naive.

If you are ever anything less than honest and up front with a loved one with AS, once they discover that you have hidden information or misrepresented the truth at any point, they will never fully trust you again, ever. Full disclosure should always be the rule of thumb. An Aspie may often have trouble disclosing what's bothering them (it feels like a weakness), but they usually prefer not to lie, because they learn early to hate liars.

We'd rather know the unpleasant truth and have a chance to process it and absorb it, than be bushwhacked with it unexpectedly.

I think what's more important than knowing whether or not to tell him is how you tell him (if you do). First impressions count. You have the advantage by telling him, because you can control how positive you present the information. How you perceive Aspergers will make all the difference in the world as to how he will perceive himself.

Thank you to EACH of you who has responded. It is amazing to me how open you are and how caring you are to take the time for someone you don't even know and someone who obviously knows so little about Asperger's compared to your personal experiences with it. From the bottom of my heart I thank you.

From what I see in the posts, there is no "right" answer for everyone. If you guessed I know very little, you're right. I've known my wife and her son for around three years but we've only been married and living together for less than a year. My stepson is home schooled for many of the reasons I hear in your responses - bullying and lack of adequate support in the public schools. He is bright and caring and is starting to question a few things about himself - but not too dramatically as of yet. Of course, no decision such as this should be made without his mother's involvement or his biological father's as well. It's nice for me to begin to understand the dynamics of the choices so that we can make an educated decision.

Again, my thanks to each of you

Definitely yes especially in his situation. it a no brainier. You need to realise that all the help you give, cannot match the power that knowledge gives to a person. He needs to be told in a supportive way.

It is is also not for others to judge how long a period is need to prepare for adult life.

The risks of not telling always out way the risks of telling, the risks of telling can be addressed, the risks of not telling set you back.

Tell him. I'd say "tell him" if he were four years old. At thirteen, he knows he's different. There's simply no way he wouldn't know. And if he's not labeled autistic, he'll be labeled lazy, loser, stupid, immature, etc. You cannot escape labels. You can only choose which one he gets. "Autistic" is a neutral label. The other possible labels are not.

Besides, how are you going to justify all the extra lessons he'll need to become an independent adult? Autistic people do not tend to naturally learn the kind of things that NT teens can pick up along the way. Once he realizes that other kids do not get lessons in shopping and bill-paying and job-interview-handling, he's going to be awfully puzzled if he doesn't know why he's getting said lessons.

Only way you wouldn't tell him is if you wanted him to grow up thinking he's defective and not trying hard enough. Because that's what happened to me. I eventually tried so hard I burned out and ended up in the mental ward. Don't do that to him. Oh, he may be annoyed at first, because like anybody who grows up in our culture he'll have the "disability is shameful" stereotype in his head; but if you make enough of a point that YOU do not think it is shameful, he'll figure it out eventually.

Definatley.

yes. i was dx'ed developmentally delayed at 5 and my mom chose not to tell me. thanks to her i didnt learn to deal with being differant and i finally graduated high school at 22, and ive never held a job for more than 2 weeks without getting fired because i never learned to act approperately. being a parent is a privledge and people who lie to their children do not deserve to have custody.

I know that many people here feel very strongly about people knowing they are autistic as soon as possible, but I disagree with absolute statements like this. I really believe that it depends on the individual whether or not they would benefit from knowing at this age. That may be very difficult to judge, but I do believe that there are advantages for some people to not knowing until you're out of your teens... particularly if his self-confidence is strong, he doesn't show a whole of dismay at not being able to fit in, doing well at school, etc. There are a few of us on WP who feel that not knowing about AS during our teens was a good thing. Then again, there wasn't an AS diagnosis back then, so it's not like our parents were actually withholding information from us.

I think you should tell him eventually... plus it will probably come up at some point. And if he figures it out and starts asking questions, I agree with Willard: there is no point in lying to him.

Your mom never worked with you or took you to any therapies?

I was 15 when I found out I had an autism diagnoses and it was removed. I wasn't mad at my parents. They didn't even tell me what other labels I had and what I had been diagnosed with. AS was the only thing my mom told me about. I didn't do anything about my label until I was into my mid teens. But I was already learning to cope before I knew I had AS and before I even knew what it was. I had always known I was different. I just didn't start caring until I was 10 and then I started to change.

I still went to all these therapies and my mom still worked with me before I even knew I had AS.

Yes, I think so

I know that when I was told I had ADHD and later Aspergers it felt a lot better

But the parent needs to explain to the child that it is OK and that it does not make them weird, abnormal or strange

In fact, inform the child that it can be a very GOOD thing, it gives them a unique outlook on life and makes them see it in a way that others don't see it

But I would never hide it from the child, because by doing that the child will feel that they are weird and strange and not know why

And that could upset them more

See, that's the trouble. Waiting until they know they're different isn't going to do much good. I was oblivious to my own differences. It was when I was released into the great big world at the age of seventeen that suddenly I didn't have the ability to do anything that anybody else knew how to do; and all those labels that had been put on me as a teenager when I failed at something, I applied to myself. Learning you have AS when you're doing well is better than learning about it when you're doing badly. If you're going to think "AS is a bad thing", isn't it better to be able to follow it with, "...but I seem to be doing well, so it mustn't be so bad after all," rather than, "...and it must be why I can't do anything right?"

That was pretty much my own experience. I always knew that I wasn’t normal and the other children at school clearly showed that they thought that about me too. And I did feel that I had something very wrong with me. I had a feeling that everybody except me knew what that something was, and that maybe it was something so awful that nobody could tell me, so the whole world was keeping it a secret from me because it would just be too painful for me to hear and maybe too embarrassing for them to say. But I was a child in the 60’s and 70’s and AS wasn’t known about then. The real problem was that back then nobody did know the root cause of my difficulties.

I agree that it can be very hard to broach the subject with a 13 year old. When I was that age I wanted nothing more than to fit in and to be normal. I’m not sure how I would have reacted to being told when I was your stepson’s age, had a diagnosis been available then. But if he finds out later that you knew and didn’t tell him he might deduce that Asperger’s must be something bad, something really negative in order for you to hide it from him. He will also find it had to trust you again. I think he will already have figured out for himself that he is different in some ways, even if he hasn’t said much. I didn’t talk to my parents much about my social difficulties and the way I felt about myself in relation to other people.

It’s great that you’re being so supportive of your stepson and that you’re concerned to do what is right for him. I believe that one of the most important things we can do for a young person with AS is to look after their mental wellbeing as much as possible. Everybody should have the right to develop a positive self-image and to take pride in themselves. Problems of depression and negative self-esteem can make AS worse, and makes it much harder for us to get by in the social world and to achieve our true potential.

Generally, I don't think one can accurately assess the answer to this question about oneself until post-adolescence. By that time, if things have been going okay for you, you've built up a certain life experience level in dealing with the world. Then, when you are faced with the "Huh, I'm autistic??" question, you have more context to fall back on and you aren't second-guessing yourself.

Being that I didn't know earlier, I can't really say what life would have been like had I known or suspected then. Life is good for me now, and going back and changing anything about my childhood would run the risk of giving me a different, perhaps less positive, look on life. Conversely, the people who didn't know when they were young and feel like it would have helped them will always wish that they had known. Us humans are protective of what we feel is the most "positive path" of our lives.


I knew I was different, but only in the way that you're told that "everyone is a little different."

no, i never learned to adapt as a kid. i was in motor-skill therapy though, but didnt know why. when i found out i had aspergers i felt there was nothing wrong with that. not knowing however made me feel there was something wrong with me because i knew i was differant but didnt know why. actually for a while in school i thought people didnt like me because i thought i must have smelled so i started showering several times a day and would brush my teeth between classes which made people think i was weirder and i would ask people if i smelled and get mad when they would say no because i thought they must have been lying to me. today i dont have a job, i dont take care of myself well and i make 339$ a month from dshs because i cant even figure out how to get ssi or any other benefits. its not that theres anything wrong with me. i just never learned how to do anything because i didnt know what to work on learning what i had difficulty with. denying someones differance can make someone who can be sucessful serously disabled for no good reason.

This has been so enlightening. My wife and I are going to review these tonight and spend some time trying to figure out what to do next. Again, thanks to all of you who offered your input - I value each of your comments very much. Thanks

mjstat