Board index › General Discussion › General Autism Discussion

Looking for courses or programs on autism issues

Page 1 of 1 [ 3 posts ] 

Previous topic | Next topic

bakattsura
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker

User avatar

Joined: 10 Apr 2006
Age: 41
Gender: Male
Posts: 68

05 Feb 2011, 1:32 pm

I'm the sort of person who's always trying to improve aspects of my life, especially those that are impacted by being on the autism spectrum.

I'd like to be better at time management and life management, but I need a system in place to be able to do these things effectively. Without calendars, schedules, and written plans I am quite literally unable to function.

I realize there are life coaches, like the ones the Asperger Association of New England offers, but those are never covered by insurance and cost $60 to $100 an hour and more. That is scarcely something I can spring for at this point in my life.

So my question for you, dear Internet, is this. Are there any Online courses or useful books on organization, conversation, life management, and things like that you've found to be useful, or that you've heard were helpful to someone else?

I've found the Miss Manners books to be excellent, personally, though I tend to do poorly with traditional books since I don't have the attention span to follow long chapters. I'm not sure if that's from autism or the effects of two decades of MTV on my brain giving me the attention span of a fruit fly.



pgd
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 16 Jul 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,624

05 Feb 2011, 2:33 pm

bakattsura wrote:
I'm the sort of person who's always trying to improve aspects of my life, especially those that are impacted by being on the autism spectrum.

I'd like to be better at time management and life management, but I need a system in place to be able to do these things effectively. Without calendars, schedules, and written plans I am quite literally unable to function.

I realize there are life coaches, like the ones the Asperger Association of New England offers, but those are never covered by insurance and cost $60 to $100 an hour and more. That is scarcely something I can spring for at this point in my life.

So my question for you, dear Internet, is this. Are there any Online courses or useful books on organization, conversation, life management, and things like that you've found to be useful, or that you've heard were helpful to someone else?

I've found the Miss Manners books to be excellent, personally, though I tend to do poorly with traditional books since I don't have the attention span to follow long chapters. I'm not sure if that's from autism or the effects of two decades of MTV on my brain giving me the attention span of a fruit fly.


---

In my view, you're doing a lot of the right, basic things already: calendars, schedules, and written plans. There are no magic bullets (so to speak)(my view). A few persons with ADHD are helped a little by the right stimulant - alerting agent (examples: coffee, caffeine compounds, Tirend, NoDoz, Ritalin, Dexedrine, Adderall and so on - no cures at all - only temporary reduction of some symptoms for a number of hours). There are websites like Chicken Soup and Nightingale which contain lots of motivational materials and ideas. About Executive Function - http://www.ncld.org/ld-basics/ld-aamp-e ... unctioning - One of the few books which changed small aspects of my thinking slightly is the book by Dale Carnegie about friends and people (not a cure). WP has a lot of good ideas - a large number of insights over the years into autism - Asperger's - related challenges.



bakattsura
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker

User avatar

Joined: 10 Apr 2006
Age: 41
Gender: Male
Posts: 68

05 Feb 2011, 8:57 pm

pgd wrote:
In my view, you're doing a lot of the right, basic things already: calendars, schedules, and written plans. There are no magic bullets (so to speak)(my view). A few persons with ADHD are helped a little by the right stimulant - alerting agent (examples: coffee, caffeine compounds, Tirend, NoDoz, Ritalin, Dexedrine, Adderall and so on - no cures at all - only temporary reduction of some symptoms for a number of hours). There are websites like Chicken Soup and Nightingale which contain lots of motivational materials and ideas. About Executive Function - http://www.ncld.org/ld-basics/ld-aamp-e ... unctioning - One of the few books which changed small aspects of my thinking slightly is the book by Dale Carnegie about friends and people (not a cure). WP has a lot of good ideas - a large number of insights over the years into autism - Asperger's - related challenges.


A magic bullet would be nice. I would be all up ons that.

I've tried Ritalin, but that wasn't a big help for me; the issue being that it's difficult to tell if I have ADHD or if I just have autistic symptoms with a propensity to be distracted.

I've actually read How to Win Friends and Influence People and found it to be helpful. It assumes, of course, you know how to make all the small-talk it asks you to engage in, however! A field manual to chit-chat would be nice, and if someone ever goes and engineers that I'll be the first person to buy it.

Thanks for the advice.