What am I describing? *help needed*

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All right, so here it is. Please help if you can, if you have any ideas, feel free to put them out there.

My son will be 4 in about two weeks. He did not have a language or cognitive delay in his formative years. My daughter did so I am well trained to recognize it. Though he is not stupid, he takes a while to digest things and often asks endless questions as though he has zero self-analysis skills. If he sees something he is confused about or unsure of, he will request endless confirmation in the form of questions. He will also ask a question over and over again, whether you're engaged in conversation with someone else, talking on the phone, obviously busy. My father describes this as hitting "send" over and over. We joke at home that he just keeps hitting the send button until you answer. He's very gullible, too. You can tell him anything and he'll believe it. I used to tell him flaming squirrels stole the toys that annoyed me most and he totally bought it.

He has definite gross motor issues. Bluntly, he is very clumsy. He cannot run without falling on his face. It took him a while to master his tricycle and even now, he's dangerous on it because he's busy checking out the clouds or the flowers... look out for that curb! He is somewhat delayed in pottytraining, very lackadaisical about it all. Probably he can't pay attention to his bodily signals. He also has listening issues. I feel like in order to get him to really hear me or a direction I want him to go in, I have to grab his face in my hands and make sure his eyes are on me. Even doing this, his eyes still want to wander off as though he simply cannot pay attention. He generally won't hear me or respond right away if he is playing with his toys and I call his name over and over. I have to physically get him to look at me. He is unable to follow even the simplist of directions. I have some experience with age-appropriate step-directives and I know by this age he should at least be able to carry out a three point directive (Go get your socks on, put on your shoes, wait at the door).... He gets distracted, wanders off, becomes interested in one of his toys.

I also find myself telling people who care for him that you have to "approach him in the RIGHT way"...he doesn't respond well to bootcamp crap. you have to give him motivation, not threats. I find that he will generally comply with one-step directives if I give him something to hope for at the end of it. Either someplace he wants to go or a treat or whatnot. So, if he is not approached in this sort of manner, he will rebel and have tantrums, hit people, bite people, kick people. He is not a mean-spirited child, he is really very sweet. He just doesn't respond well if you don't know how to get him to do what you want. So I am dealing with behavioral issues as well.

When he and his sister get together (she's the one with HFA), they are like two drunks on crack. it has lately become necessary to separate them entirely if we want them to eat anything or get a task completed. Separate from him, she is not at all like this. She can sit and concentrate and I know she hears and understands me when I say something to her, it is not like with my son where I feel we are always in a friggin Blues bar and he's standing five feet away and can't hear a damn thing I'm saying.

He does not have a wide, varied vocabulary, is not one of the "little professors" that seem to be a prerequisite for AS, so I don't know what his issue could be. He's not generally hyper or overactive and i have SEEN hyper, so I know this is not him. He's easily confused, disoriented, hung up on certain issues and unwilling to move on until he understands them completely.

I don't know what else I can add, if I think of anything I will add it to the list.
Does anyone know what I'm describing?

Hoo Boy. There are some definite learning disabilities there. He seems like the kind of kid who attracts a lot of labels. The first few symptoms you listed I was thinking, yeah, could be aspie, but the more you brought up the more I think is going on. He should be seen at a University Child Development Center by a team of different specialists.

You are a thoughtful parent indeed who realizes" the boot camp crap" DOESN'T work! I always say, " Given the choice between do-it-or-else, I'll ALWAYS choose " OR ELSE ", if I have to die in the process! It's the principle of the thing..."

I agree with Lelia. I think that you should seek out help at a professional center for child development and learning.

It could be Autism. It could be a lot of other things too. I would keep an open mind. A wrong diagnosis could lead to the wrong treatment and the wrong stigma.

Best of luck to you.

Idaho Aspie
www.AllThingsAspergers.com

Sounds exactly like me as a kid, no joke. I can't tell you the number of times I've been smacked around by teachers because of this, I would totally space out all the time.

I would ask questions constantly not really because of the information in the answer, but because I got an answer. It was the same to me as playing with those springy doorstops that make a cool noise, I just liked being able to make an action and see a response.

I would get in trouble for interrupting all the time, I just didn't get what the problem was. I remember being told, finally, to say "excuse me" if I wanted to interrupt a conversation. All this did was cause me to sit there and say, "Excuse me excuse me excuse me excuse me," until someone got fed up enough to respond, then I'd just end up saying something ret*d and pointless.

I was the most gullible kid on the planet, and I think this is what caused me to end up being so rigorous about verifying what I take in, a reaction to being lied to all the time.

I was, and usually still am, off in my own world. I'm really good at passing the time with no external entertainment. I'm always either gathering information or processing it, and would usually rather listen than talk. I was never a little professor because I never talk about things unless I have a good idea of the big picture - in fact, I'm ONLY interested in the big picture, and I think he's the same way. I understand things, but I'll be effed if I know why, or if I can remember how I got there in the first place - I just know.

I think what's going on is that he's taking in a massive amount of information all at once, and what he focuses on is not really up to him, for the most part.

I had a lot of trouble learning to skate and ride a bike, but once I got the hang of them I got really really good. Most of the problems came from being discouraged by those around me who didn't like or understand my methodology. Simply put, your son is an autodidact of the first order.

This is actually something I just came to understand quite recently, aka since I first got on to WP. Simply put, I really didn't know what my interests were, ever, the concept was foreign. It was something else every day. When I found economics, I was fascinated, and now I realize that it's because economics is the study and science of pretty much everything.



That is exactly how I operate. If a certain piece of information comes along, it can throw my whole worldview out of whack, and I'm stuck re-organizing EVERYTHING I KNOW until the pieces fit properly. What has really helped me is gaining the tools and abilities to test and verify information before it enters my brain and kickstarts a chain reaction. It took me years to get rid of religious bullsh*t built up in my head, what a waste of time.

Simply put, he needs to go his own way and learn for himself. He'd get infinitely more benefit from an internet connection and Wikipedia than he would from school.

Don't worry about his language ability, that'll pick up in the future; in a strange way, he knows better for himself than you or anyone else could in terms of that area.

As far as things that need to be done, like if you're going somewhere, he needs to know, basically, "What's the point?" If I just walked up to you and said, "Put your shoes on," it would be weird, right? He won't connect it in his head that there's a REASON to do this! He's thinking, "Why the hell would I want to do that when there's awesome toys to play with?" Even things that should seem obvious will be murky unless you can show a clear, unbroken logic chain to the activities you want performed.

I used to take Tae Kwon Do lessons, and one day a fluorescent light broke and landed on the carpeting, so we took a break while the instructor vacuumed it up. The owner of the school, a retired Colonel in the Korean Army, told us to line up against the wall, and said that if anyone could find a piece of glass in the carpeting they'd get a school pin, something that was coveted amongst the students. Anyways, several people found some pieces and everyone else gave up after a few minutes, but I was not giving up, checking all around the edges and stuff, and I ended up finding something.

It says a lot about his character that he didn't kick my ass for handing him a blade of grass. I had made ZERO connection between the light breaking and searching for pieces of glass where it had fallen, and since I had heard "grass" due to his accent, all I knew was "find grass, get pin".

The problem with your son is that he's totally awesome. And sweet. He just can't see the trees for the forest, a "reverse autistic".

If you have anything specific to ask, feel free. I think I've yammered enough for now.

I've been corresponding with a mathematical genius who works as an actuary for a number of years now, and I just remembered that he spoke of Thomas Sowell's book "Late Talking Children", and I thought it could be of use to you. From the Amazon page:

When Sowell, a Hoover Institute senior fellow (Migrations and Culture, 1996, etc.), wrote about his son in his syndicated newspaper column, dozens of parents of late-talking children wrote to him. A support group of 55 families representing 57 children eventually formed.

Damn, I hadn't read the book or the review before, but I finally realized what was happening with me a couple of weeks ago, when I realized that I can't communicate an idea to someone at the same time as analyzing it - crowds or lecturing is different, because I'm not focusing on making any one person understand. I often talk out loud to myself (in private) to work through an idea, but it doesn't work as well with someone else unless they're really on the same wavelength, and even then it's hit and miss.

Another book by Sowell on the subject is The Einstein Syndrome, which I'm assuming is a good thing

Hope this helps, I know what it's like to go through life with everyone angry at you, confused, and labeled ret*d by too many people to count.

That is still something I do sometimes. I get lonely and like attention sometimes.

I look up everything now.

It drives my wife nuts when I read, or play video games, or watch TV. She'll talk for about five minutes before she realizes she forgot to get me to look at her first.
I always ask my wife and kids. "You asked me or told me? Was I looking at you? If not, it didn't count."

I like that word. Everything people say to me is murky until I figure out what and why. Otherwise I'll mess it up.

After five points I have to make a list. Or my wife already has one made for me. "milk, bread, coffee... ummmm... eggs... ummmm... bread... oops said that already... ummmmm... I guess I need to call my wife again and ask what she told me again... Oh free samples, yum... what was I doing again?...."
I was, and still am, one of the "little professors". I was clumsy, but grew out of it. I remember getting tested for glasses at age 10, being able to see fine, but not able to pay attention to anything more than 10 feet away...

I was very much like your son as a kid too. One thing that helped me a lot was that in my early years my mom spend a lot of times keeping me engaged with all sort of games and she never gave up on me no matter how frustrated she got. She refused to buy me dolls and useless toys which I didn't appreciate at that age but came to be very grateful for later. Read him lot of books to get him interested in learning in that way and to expand his vocabulary. Buy him a lot of toys and things that would improve his cognitive skills and imagination. try to introduce him to different things to find his special interests.

Maybe you don't want to hear it but a lot of those things probably won't go away. I still don't respond very well. mostly because I'm very mono focused so I might really actually not hear someone calling me or talking to me if I'm absorbed in something or realize it vaguely but not be able to switch my attention very fast. So if he is like me you've got to give him some time to respond.

I still obsess over things that I don't understand and keep asking people until i get an answer, and sometimes even though they did answer because my mind was busy their answer might have gone over my head and I have to ask again.

But you see because I'm good at what I do and people know That I'm not stupid or ill willed they are willing to accept me.
Something that is very important is praising him for every little improvement and teaching him that no matter how things get difficult just to keep going and it will get better. And I'm sure you already do it but always make sure that he knows that no matter his differences you will always love and accept and support him and that you always believe in him; as these have helped me through very though times.

if there are other things you'd like to know ask away.

Kurts you seem very similar to me.

I've gone ahead and read some of your prior posts, and putting that together with your user name, I would have to agree.

I think we're a very small sub-set even among aspies. Before WP I never knew anyone was even remotely like me. Now that I know what to look for, the pattern is standing out loud and clear.

I've noticed that we are all very liberty-minded people who have no wish to run anyone else's life, nor have ours run for us. Nothing makes me more angry than someone telling me they know what is best for me, because they don't. They can't.

People are not to be managed and controlled like cattle.

One word: post-it. Or was that two? My office is covered in them.




I don't buy my children a whole lot of toys, either. What they definitely don't need is a lot of cheap plastic crap lying around. What they do have, however, is an abundance of age-appropriate PC learning programs, access to language and cognitive websites, books, that sort of thing. He is very interested in astronomy and could pick out the planet Saturn at the age of 2. For his birthday I'm going to get him one of those planetary mobiles and an ultra-vivid book featuring planetary photography and stellar cartography. If he's anything like me he'll memorize the planets, their moons and orbit patterns by the time he's 7.



This actually helps a lot of stuff make sense. Not just for him, but for me. My brain will work on the puzzle pieces but it has been trained to let go of whatever concept is confusing me because NOTHING makes sense.
I am going to ply him with encyclopedias and reference materials and google and hope for the best.



I hardly think so.