Can you guys relate to my nephew???? Advice please :)

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Hi everyone,

This is my first post on this forum. The reason I came here is because my nephew has many traits of aspersers, but has not been diagnosed as such. I was hoping to get some of your feedback, and see if you guys can relate to my nephew. A little about me--I'm adhd, as is my sister (I think), but we don't know of any pdd disorders in the family. My nephew is four....About 2 years ago, we started getting worried about his social skills--he didn't seem that interested to play with other kids. Actually, he barely interacted with anyone. And he displayed autistic signs such as focusing on light switches, etc. He loved letters and words, and loved being read to. He started reading at 2 years, 9months--he's 4 now,, and just read a 100 books through the library program here (the librarian didn't believe my sister until she actually observed him reading).

At around 3 years, my sister got very concerned, and has seen tons of specialists. They felt that he is not on the spectrum, but have not completely ruled it out either. Since then, he has definitely become more social, and initiatives interaction with kids and grown-ups (his first time initiating any type of contact with anyone was with my cat about a year ago). His verbal skills are extremely delayed--he has "expressive and receptive delay" which means it takes a while for him to process language. So sometimes he gets frustrated when we don't understand what he's saying. In addition, though he does play with other kids now (unlike before), he still can't get involved with more complex games like house and make-believe.

Then he also has add traits--such as not focusing when he's not interested, or hyperfocusing on words, etc. He also has a great sense of humor, and teases us and laughs to get a reaction. But from what I've read on this forum, it seems that a lot of AS folks have a great sense of humor, no? Can you guys relate to him? Is there anything you wish your parents would have done when you were his age to make things easier? I just want him to be happy, excel at what he's good at (music and reading, even some math), but also feel in place. I'm starting to notice that he feels a bit left out from the other kids because he has a hard time initiating and maintaining social interaction.

Sorry my post has become so long... and I'm not sure if was organized enough, but I really would appreciate any feedback. This is all new to us.

Thanks

Well, you could try giving him a set amount of time each day to get his obessions out of his system. That way, his interaction (don't force it, he'll get there if he can/needs/wants it.) may not be hindered as much by his obessions. Expect to teach him even the most basic of social skills.


Good luck!

That was me as a kid!



Yes. Wish they would have refrained from pushing me into socializing, and expecting me to automatically understand social rules.

I agree with the poster above who said, be prepared to explain even the most basic social skills. Don't make the mistake of assuming that he "should just know" about them. If he is on the spectrum, then whether or not he should or shouldn't know these things... he doesn't.

cat,

First, I notice this young gentleman seems to be quite a voracious reader. Secondly, you mention about some social challenges he seems to be having. Those are blatant AS traits to begin with.

I have a few more Q's I'd like to add:

1. Is there a specific subject he has a fixation for? At that age, I was totally gah-gah over Astronomy.

2. Is there any hypersensitivity to certain stimuli; certain sounds, touches, etc? Does he react a certain way if other members of the household are quarreling?

3. How does he react to getting ticked? I ask this because for me, getting tickled (especially on the sides) was like getting electrocuted -and still is to this day.

4. How does he react to loud, sudden unexpected noises? My own reaction to such a stimulus is a violent flich followed by several seconds of epilepsy-like seizures.

5. Does he get anxiety attacks when in a crowd of strangers?

6. Are there any signs of developing talents such as painting, writing, and/or does he like to "invent" things with Tinker-Toys or Lego blocks?

I don't call myself the expert that can give a staight answer but the more yesses there are to the above, the more likely he may be AS-autistic. I hope you find an answer soon!

Thanks for your replies! I've really appreciated it. To answer your questions Papillon--at this point he loves roads and traffic lights (a bit on the obsessive side) For example, if we let him, he'd be perfectly happy staring outa window looking at a traffic light for 2-3 hours straight. He loves building tracks, and actually, compared to other kids his age, can build things better (but perhaps its because he can spend so much time focusing on this?) And, as I said before, he LOVES words. In fact, for a while, his parents started hiding his letter toys because that's all he would do.

As for hypersensitivity (which, as an ADDer, I can totally relate to) I don't see anything that's out of the ordinary--I did just try to tickle him, and he hit me (we're trying to deal with the hitting without getting angry, but not either approving it). Regarding crowds, he just sort of runs around on his own usually. Or he'll tag with one, max two kids. But someitmes, he just becomes a bit of a loner--but not always. Luckily, there's no real arguing in his home, so I don't know how he'd react with people arguing loudly in front of him. But when he stresses, many times, he'll just start crying, and the worst part is that he can't verballize what's bothering him, which creates a frustrating cycle for him.

Socially, I can tell he wants to be freinds with kids (perhaps not as much as other kids) but has no clue how to socialize, so he ends up doing his own thing. He doesn't seem upset about it--he is quite an introvert, and as I said before, not that interested in others.

My appologies if I am being ignorant here--but do aspies generally have strong sense of humor? The reason I ask is because everytime I think my nephew must be AS, I realize that he really has a great time teasing us. Do aspies relate to this aspect of humor? Because even though my nephew doesn't verbally express himsself, he def. expresses his love for us (hugging, kissing)--but honestly, this has been a development in the last year. Before that, he didn't really express any emotions, even to his mom.

Sorry for the ramble--I am ADD, so perhaps this wasn't as organized as some of the other posts I've read here

I would say it merely seems to be a strong sense of humour because of the hyper-focus.


I don't do jokes, I do sarky quips and craziness, but then you can't really call my family sane.

I would disagree with some of the other things said - my own experiences of AS is that yes, there is great capacity for humour, for imagination, for all of those kinds of things. My family have always said I've had a great sense of humour and have picked up on things pretty quickly. I also like to tease and play with people - sometimes a little too much, maybe

I also learnt to read at 2, and I think this is a good AS sign. My one concern is that he has (did I understand correctly?) taken time to learn how to speak in comparison with other children?

I said my first words at 10 months and I thought that Aspies generally spoke very early on.

Having said that, every Aspie is different. He may not be Aspie but may simply have traits that are on the spectrum = especially since you and your sister have ADHD and I think these things are genetic. Certainly my doctor told me so when I was diagnosed (and though none of my family are officially diagnosed, both my parents and my sister have some aspie traits, not to mention a couple of other more distant family members!)

Apple

This is my advice based on my life as an Aspie. Things that I’ve done, things that I’ve experienced, things that I’ve learned.

Except him. There is nothing more painful then to be rejected or to feel like you don't belong. No mater what his diagnosis -never say 'I wish you never had__' or 'If only things had been different'. To me, those words would be like saying ‘I wish I never met you at all’, because autism is a part of me and I wouldn’t be ‘me’ if I weren’t an Aspie.
So support him, accept him, listen to him -even if you don't always understand. Don't try to drag him into your world, but realize you may not be able to get into his. Be prepared to meet halfway.
You're nephew sounds like me when I was little. I loved being read to because I liked how things sounded when someone said them.
I didn't play with other kids, or even my baby sister. I would sit in my room and play with my toys alone because no one else could do the voices like I could, no one could set things up properly, no one could get the characters in my stories right.

And don’t let anyone tell you we have no sense of humour or imagination. Anyone who says so has clearly never spent time with Aspies or their families, but has based their knowledge purely on what is written in reports. We may not understand your double-meanings, but we know a good joke when we hear one -^^-.

Laugh with your nephew, be with him, take interest in his obsessions –let him rant about them to you, even if you’re board to tears. Allow him to ‘stim’. If he shows signs of ‘stimulation’ behaviour (i.e. flapping arms, rubbing batteries against his upper lip, sucking on spoons for the taste of metal, repeating phrases or pressing wrist watches to his ear est.) don’t stop him. It’s a way of feeling good. As a close friend of mine once told me, ‘if he’s told to stop he’ll try to find other behaviours to replace them –and they might be more disruptive then the ones that were taken away.’

Don’t be afraid of a late diagnosis. I was a teenager when my diagnosis came in and, like your nephew; Autism had been a question.
If it is AS, then I won’t lie and say that the road will always be smooth, but it won’t be all uphill either –and that’s life for everyone, really, not just us Aspies. Trouble comes and goes, like it does for all people.
Autism is just another way of ‘seeing’ –taking joy in little things, like light switches, chandlers, tea ceremonies, vacuum cleaners and the way cat fur feels against your cheek.
Autism is just another way of thinking –being comfortable in the deepest chasm of your brain. Autism is anger, it is sadness, it’s happiness, it’s rage, it’s temper tantrums and giggling.

This is my advice. That’s all I can give you right now.
Sorry it turned out slightly poetic and long –I do that sometimes.
Best wishes for your nephew.

Oryx.

Thank so much for all these replies...it really meant a lot to me Oryx, I love your post, it provides great insight--and I'm sorry if I offended anyone about not understanding that aspies have a sense of humor But I guess we can always learn, right? I guess I just don't know any aspie adults personally (at least that I'm aware of), so this forum is really very useful.

My nephew will get evaulated again soon, and perhaps we'll get more answers then, who knows? Either way, it is important for him to grow in a way that HE is happy. And I hope taht's what we can do for him.

Thanks all

Dear happycat,

OK, let me see if I've got this straight. Your four-year-old nephew started reading three months before his third birthday. He has now read 100 books in the local library. He LOVES words, and loves being read to. His favorite plaything is a letter toy.

Your sister is concerned about your nephew's social development. She's gone diagnosis shopping and has seen "tons of specialists," none of whom was willing to say he was even on the autism spectrum. At one point the parents were so concerned that they took away his favorite toy.

For your part, you say that your nephew seems to be starting to develop some social skills, albeit tardily. He initiates interaction with family members, including the cat; he builds things better than other kids his age, and he has a great sense of humor. You even say he's good at music, reading and some math.

SO WHAT'S THE PROBLEM???

In a more enlightened age your nephew would have been seen as gifted. The family would have rejoiced at the good fortune to have such a precocious and intelligent child in their midst. They would have done everything possible to support his special talents and to nurture his unique perspective on the world.

Tell your sister to get off the kid's case. If she can't support and nurture, at least get out of his way. APPRECIATE who he is. ALLOW him to develop in his own way. And if he never turns out to be the world's greatest social maven, so what? He's got lots of other good stuff going for him... if his mom doesn't ruin it first.

geezer

Hey geezer,

You're right--he does have a lot going for him. And he is a smart kid. The reason my sister put him in the library program was because she WANTED to nurture his talents, and get recognition for it (he got a medal, presents, etc.) Bottom line here is that we really want him to be happy, whether that's by being social or not. What's concerning is that HE seems to get frustrated a lot because he doesn't know how to interact with people all the time, or doesn't understand why people aren't doing things his way, or are not playing with him. HE gets frustrated all the time because he can't communicate to us what he wants (because he doesn't speak very well, and has a hard time creating his own original sentances).

The reason I'm on this site is because the specialists haven't ruled out pdd 100%, and do recognize taht he has some traits---but, as an adder, I know that I have some traits that are probably simmilar to AS, just that they come from a different place (ie most of my issues manifest from my attention or hypersensitivity to things around me). So I don't know what he has, but I think the more we know, the better we can help him out.

Of course we're proud of him, and adore him. We also don't want to neglect anything that could help him. But I appreciate your feedback... keepign what you siad in mind is always a good idea.

thanks!

OMG! He's holding a mirror to my face



Maybe he is extremely sensitive to tickling but couldn't verbally relate. If it really hurts him that much, my first impression is your nephew takes tickling as a hostile action. Even this far into my adult years, I still come across people who see tickling as a joke when in fact it is anything but. Last year I had an uncle do that to me in a busy restaurant and it ensued in my having an ugly confrontation with him. I told him he'd wake up in a hospital if he ever pulled that one on me again
His hitting first thing after getting tickled was probably a knee-jerk reaction to something that felt like a lot more than just a finger-poke. In that case, I wouldn't recommend another try at that.



I was a bit like that in the schoolyard. I never was any part of a large pack but there was always one or two that I could have a good friendship. Otherwise, I was always pretty much a loner.



Oh-oh... Here he comes with the mirror again



That looks to me like another yes in the Is-he-an-Aspie equasion.



I hate to say it in this case but I'd have to answer yes in this one, even if we Aspies aren't always approppriate in our own brands of humor. Expressing this among extended family members is one thing but another when it comes to dealing with complete strangers. I have a feeling he may need a bit of coaching unless he's found his own way to discern where, when, how, and to whom he should express his feelings.

So happycat, it looks to me like you have a very original and talented as well as beautiful nephew

Good luck!

He sounds a bit like me when I was small.

I also used to love to stare out of the window - not just to watch traffic, but also people, dogs, cats, birds - I just liked watching the world go by. My parents were concerned when I started doing it at a party I'd been invited to, about age six - the supervising adult was wondering where I was, and finally found me contentedly sitting on a windowsill, behind the curtain, looking out of the the window. I'd noticed the other children chasing each other around etc, but hadn't realised I was expected to join in.

I also started reading early, liked lightswitches (I was quite excited when I discovered the existence of dimmer-switches), and have always found listening to others more difficult to process than reading. I also had trouble socialising - my mother used to tell me to 'go and talk to the other children', and my response was to wonder, 'talk to them about what?'. Unless I something specific to say, I didn't see the point.

While I definitely agree that your nephew should be encouraged in his interests, told that you think he is special etc, some advice I'd like to offer is that you try not to encourage him over-enthusiastically. When I was small, I used to memorise facts about animals, reeling them off to anyone who was interested. My mother was very proud of this ability, and I'd hear her telling other people about it, and how clever she thought I was. But from my point of view, it wasn't a difficult thing to do, and I didn't know that it was an uncommon tendency, so I'd end up feeling disconcerted and confused, wondering why she made a fuss of it.

I guess my main concern is with your sister's prolonged and determined effort to have your nephew diagnosed. "Tons of specialists" (how many is that?) have told her that he's not on the autism spectrum. She refuses to believe it and continues to look for the diagnosis she wants. Is it possible she's obsessing over what are pretty normal childhood behaviors? If this is your sister's first child, she may not have figured out yet that her son's wants are different than her own. Even if she has other children, she may not have realized that her needs are not their needs -- and vice-versa. If she has -- or says she has -- figured that out, she may still feel that "mother knows best." That's not always true. In your sister's case, I suspect it's manifestly untrue.

In a book called "I'm not crazy I’m just not you: The real meaning of the 16 personality types" (1997), authors Pearman and Albritton point out a common human tendency: "We assume that what makes sense to us is best for all, and don’t think about what others may actually appreciate more" (p. 154). It sounds like your sister has very little idea of what your nephew actually thinks, feels, wants or needs, but she has a very clear idea about what she wants him to think, feel, want and need.

It's not about your nephew. It's about your sister, and her desperate need to be needed. She's a feel-good junkie. She gets her feel-good fix by "helping." She no doubt characterizes her efforts as those of a good and loving mother who's concerned about her offspring's development. But what she's doing is not love.

As far as the fact that the specialists haven't completely ruled out AS or any other PDD, that's not going to happen. No professional in their right mind is going to give you a 100% iron-clad guarantee that such-and-such a thing can't or won't happen. Can you imagine a medical doctor saying that you don't have a broken arm, and that you'll never have one? How about an optometrist telling you that you don't need glasses, and you never will? Silly? Yes. So why not take the specialists' word for it? Your sister's persistence in the face of advice to the contrary suggests that she's the one who needs professional help, not your nephew. Let's not confuse her needs with those of her son.

I am admittedly reading a lot into your comments. It's extremely difficult to address your sister's concerns remotely, through you. Why isn't she on this website herself? Let's hear from her. Let her tell her own story.

geezer

Papillon--thanks for your reply--I'm glad you have a sense of humor I know, that probably sounded really ignorant on my part Besides, I have a strange sense of humor too, and I guess my family's pretty quirky too Yeah, he does get coached a bit--like, for example, instead of him hitting someone, or throwing a chair, we've taught him to say phrases like, "please move," etc. so at least he has some choice words to use when he needs somthing. And no, I'm not going to tickle him anymore

Lousie--thanks for the advice--I never thought about hyping up his talents--they do come so easy to him--but we get sp proud of him anyways, it's so hard not to

Geezer, sounds like you had it tough with your mom? when you were a kid, but perhaps you are reading too much into my posts. I already feel like I'm babbling on and on, so I need to trim details. My nephew has seen a lot of specialtis, not because the parents are shoppng for a diagnosis, but because my the doctors keep reffering him to someone else with some other specialty. They can't quite figure it out. And he's not progressed in some ways that they were hoping for. And I think you either are on the spectrum, or you're not...you don't just "catch" it later on in your life, so I didn't really get your anaologies. A doctor will never say that you'll never have a broken arm, but he/she can say with certainty if you have one right now. With my nephew, they have def. ruled out anything extreme, but as I said, they want to revaluate him again (this is the doctors' idea, not the parents).

And call me selfish, but however my nephew tuns out, I do want him to be happy. It doesn't matter if he's happy by hiself or with others, but it is important that he is happy. And right now, he's starting to get frustrated because he can't always relate to others, or can't communicate what he wants, or what's bothering him. Persoanlly, I think leaving a kid to just "be" when he's clearly upset is be a form of neglect. And as for the reason my sister's not on this site is because she's not much of a forum type of person. She's more of an article person. This isn't about her, it's about my nephew. The reason I'm here is because I too care about my nephew--I see and play with him everyday, and absolutley adore him. I'm not here to get my sisters' questions answered, I'm here to get MINE answered. So I'm not really sure why you're focusing on my sister. But I do appreciate your input, because clearly, you're writing because you are trying to help out with my nephew, so thanks for caring