PLEASE HELP

Post Reply New Topic

My sons psychologist has done a workup on him and mentioned she thought has aspergers. Ive been keeping a list of things that are his "quirks" PLEASE PLEASE read them and tell me if you think she is right. Im in serious denial. I go back and forth, one minute he seems normal, one minute he is not there.

-showers feel like rocks pelting him
-socks feel like they are "strangling his feet" if imake him wear them he takes them off at school
-underwear feels like it will "cut him in half" he has taken his undies off and left them in bathrooms or rooms he is in when we are in someone elses house!
-fat on any meat product in his mouth makes him gag, he will inspect each bite and pick pout anything that looks like fat.
-pulp in his mouth makes him gag
-chocolate in his mouth he doesnt likethe "melting"
-any type of blanket except "cold blanket" which is a cotton sheet is not acceptable
-getting his nails cut hurts his body
-getting his "hairs" cut he thinks he can feel them being cut
-any type of touch from another human bring feels like he is being scratched
-hugging him feels like he is being suffocated
-any breaded meat in his mouth, he will not put any meat in his mouth that has anything on it unless he puts it on, ie:sauces
-jeans, i dontknow why yet, but he will weat he same two shorts everyday
-he wraps himself in a tight cocoon in his sheet to sleep at night, like a mummy
-he pours glue on his hands and picks it off ALL DAY EVERY DAY
-he sits with his legs over his head in public
-he puts his head inside of his shirt and puts his hands over his ears if we are in a loud place
-if he is in a large group of people he will sit like a frog and make squeaking noises
-he twitches his eyes and does a throat noise thing
-when he is concentrating on his legos or pokemon cards, he will ignore all bodily functions and needs. Ie: peeing, drinking, eating, etc. for HOURS all day if Iet him
-he picks his nose in pubic, picks his rear end in public, he has no sense of social acceptance
-he doesn’t know where his body is in the world. Like he is in his own world. I am constantly telling him to pay attention to where his body is in the world
-it is as if he cannot hear me when I talk to him
-he is defiant. He says he wishes he was like everyone else, he wants to be someone else.
-He will not look me in the eyes unless I point his chin to me. When I ask him why he doesn’t he just says, “why should I need to” or “I do not know”
-If he is uncomfortable he will say “I do not know” in a monotone voice. No matter what is said to him. I mean, you could ask him if he wants the lego hes been dreaming of and if he is uncomfortable he will say that over and over.
-He has odd postures when sitting and walking sometimes it looks like his neck is shifted to the side and sometimes he shifts it back and forth
-He has no idea when he is squeaking or making body movements like neck moving or repetitive eye blinking.
-He is amazing at building anything. He has built some of the furniture in our house at 8 with me only handing him tools. He builds HUGE lego sets in mere hours. Like 7-800 pieces. He can look at his lego and notice if even one little piece is missing.
-He goes on and on about things no one wants to hear about when he is with other kids outside, they will walk away and he will just follow and keep talking all the while looking at the ground.
-You cannot tell Joshua he is wrong, he is never wrong. He wholeheartedly believes in himself and his “knowledge” of the world, although he is wrong a lot.
-He often “teaches” me about things he does not know about.
-He has no friends. There are about 15 kids on the street and while he has played with all of them at one time or another no one ever comes to see if he wants to play or invites him anywhere. His friendships are all in his own head. He claims he has friends yet no one ever comes to play.
-He has no idea when he is being made fun. of I have often witnessed him getting made fun of for being different yet he stays there and just has no idea what is happening around him.
-He has no idea of some jokes. I joked with him the other day and said “go on with your bad self” and he thought I was saying he was bad.
-Joshua gets along really well with a 19 year old deaf boy across the street. I believe they understand each other, however I feel he is too old for josh to play with. He also gets along really well with his baby brother, but not his second brother.
-Although Joshua gets along with the baby, he constantly bombards him and gets too close waving his hands in his face or “gritting” his teeth and squeaking his name over and over. He has no idea to stop doing this even when JJ is screaming and crying about being overwhelmed by him. Its like he has no idea how he affects others. I often tell him to pay attention to how the baby is acting because when he cries it means he doresnt like what you are doing. But he keeps doing it. It is not teasing, he is trying ot be affectionate yet he doesn’t quite know how. He is just always in the babys face trying to squeeze him, bear hugging him tight, wave his hands in his face, get his attention in weird ways. Its not meant to upset him. Its like josh needs to do this to feel affectionate.

I would tend to agree with the psychologist but I can't offer a professional opinion. Have you thought about a second opinion from a neurologist?

Yes, he sounds autistic. And he has Sensory Processing Disorder issues.
Please protect his baby brother. Josh really doesn't understand what he is doing and he could seriously hurt him. I know a child who drowned his puppy, not out of any meanness, he just didn't understand and he thought the puppy was thirsty.

It doesn't matter if the other boy is older... making connection with others is difficult and as long as the other boy is kind, I'd allow it.

You need to get over your denial... he is not normal. You need to get the support and education you BOTH need to enable him to his highest capacity and not loose your mind. It's not easy having a child like this, and you will need a lot of support. WP is one place, but there's nothing like in-person support, especially if you are neurotypical.

Oh! and Welcome to Wrong Planet. You can learn quite a lot here.

Thank you for both replies. My husband and I are just in knots over this. Its like we have been mistreating him all these years for trying to discipline alot of these behaviors.

Joshua is 9, we just found this out a few weeks ago. We have military insurance so when he was 5, the doc in the box on the base diagnosed him with ADHD. he seemed to fit that because he couldnt even talk to us, he jsut ran around in circles squeaking or hopping like a frog, we were young and stupid and didnrt question it. We have not even thought of a second opinion, we only took him to a psych because we thought he had low self esteem because of the behaviors I mentioned. we were BLINDSIDED with aspergers and had never heard of it until then. What would a neurologist do? a brain scan?

I have never thought that Josh would hurt the baby. I do notice that sometimes if the baby is hurt by his own accord, josh wont notice. I will definitly watch that closely, thanks for letting me know.

I suppose I was just creeped out about the age difference, but they sit there and play legos and they sit alike and all, its a trip. Maybe I will just let it be.

I appreciate you all being honest and not tryng to sugar coat anything, I guess I will wait till the 26th and see what happens. She had sone some testing on him and an IQ test. The last thing she said to me in our meeting was "now he will be able to get the services he needs" so I am thinking she already qualified him but had to score tests or something.

Much can be done with early intervention-your son sounds like he has some real talents as well-there are a lot of good books out there-Emergence-Labeled Autistic by Dr. Temple Grandin is a good introduction. She is a brilliant animal behaviorist and is also autistic.

I would agree that he sounds like he's on the autism spectrum.

Don't beat yourself up over it though! My daughter was diagnosed a couple of months ago (age 6 and a half). She also was diagnosed ADHD..and misdiagnosed as bipolar a couple of years ago. In kindergarten, she started covering her ears and rocking when she heard loud noises. The rocking was the first thing that made me think "autism?". Her doctor said that we would likely go through some difficulty as parents accepting her diagnoses...but for me, I took it as a blessing. NOW we know what it is, and we know how to help her! I also was able to justify weaning her off of the dangerous atypical antipsychotics because we now know it was never bipolar. In retrospect I can look back at her behaviors and see that this has been there all along, and it explains ALOT. But I also think that because Aspie kids are so advanced in some things and have normal, if quirky, language, it is really hard for most parents to recognize. Be thankful that you are about to get a complete picture of what is going on with your son, and that you will finally be able to help him.

I got less than half way through that list. Maybe your child does not have AS specifically, but the assessor is certainly on the correct path. The traits and characteristics you describe are highly unlikely to occur in the same child outside the course of a Pervasive Developmental Disorder (the DSM category for Autistic Spectrum diagnoses).

Most parents (healthy parents) do not want to punish or cause discomfort to their children for purposes other than facilitating the child’s growth/well being and the smooth operation of their family unit. It’s quite natural to feel as you describe when you discover you might have been applying expectations your child cannot meet, and imposing punishments for behavior that your child cannot reasonably control. Just as long as you know that however you feel about this, the reality is you did what you understood to be right in the context of the information then available to you.

You act on the basis of what you know, and plenty of people (of all ages, educational and prior parental experience levels) do not know anything useful or anything at all about AS.

As an aside, my nephew was diagnosed with ADHD at around the same age as your son (a year or so younger, at age 4 if I recall correctly). He had intervention at school and was in regular contact with occupational therapists and diagnostic physicians. He did not receive HF Kanner Autism as a diagnosis until around the age of 8. That’s about the same four year gap between your son’s initial Attention diagnosis and the subsequent suggestion of a possible Autistic diagnosis. There is no reason to believe your child would have been diagnosed sooner if you had acted differently.

A neurologist would probably not do a brain scan, but would more likely use observation of behavior, your reporting, and functional tests to assess and diagnose.

I pretty much agree with the others who have posted here, including not beating yourself up about it. He's your son and you love him and want to do what is best by him.

Many of sensory issues you describe, particularly at the beginning of your list wouldn't be included in a diagnosis of Asperger's in Scotland, where I am, but would certainly to be considered as occuring very often in autistic children. I agree with the person who mentioned Sensory Processing Disorder, sometimes also referred to as Sensory Integration Dysfuntion.

His communication difficulties and the way he interacts, or doesn't, with other children certainly would fit with a diagnosis of autism.

Good luck with everything. He sounds like a real character!

My two sons are on the spectrum, as well as my husband and myself. I would say yes, without a doubt.

I sent you a message that should be in your inbox.

I can't answer honestly yes or no because I am not an expert (yet!), however a lot of the things you describe would fit into the diagnostic criteria for Asperger syndrome with Sensory integration dysfunction. At first I thought maybe just the SID because all the first things in your list describe that and not AS, but some of the other things you wrote did sound a bit AS to me. Oh well, the important thing is to remember that no matter what, he is still your child and you can get him the help he needs at a younger age. I wasn't diagnosed until I was 19 and it made my life a living hell. I hope things go well for you .

Nobody has voted no. This upsets me.

I have added to my list, its alomost 5 typed pages now. im completely freaking out. I dony mind his aspergers. i think these things make him so adorable and loveable. but i dont want him to have this because I have been reading about the torment he will likely face form his peers.

He is really smart, he gets A's and they put him in the class with the G&T kids this year, although he isnt gifted and talented I asked why they did this and the principal said that she believes he will fit in the best there. Everything is happening really fast. I dont know what to think, but I no longer want to leave him alone with kids his age out of fear that he will get his feelings hurt or worse, then lash out and hurt someone and be labelled a bully when in reality he was just defending himself forbeing tormented. Irrational?

I don't know who's been talking to you about autism, but stop listening! All this doom-and-gloom stuff is way overblown. Let me tell you a secret: You know those autism "awareness" associations? You know how they get their money? They take the worst possible case of autism they can find. They play up how horrible it supposedly is. They try to make people pity the kid. They totally ignore the fact that said kid is learning and growing and will almost certainly NOT be that disabled his whole life. They ignore all the happy, healthy autistic people out there; they ignore the good parts of life; they ignore that most of us do not think our lives have been ruined. They play up the stereotypes of the lost child and empty shell and whatever they can think of to get people to pity us. They don't put a single autistic person on their board of directors, nor listen to autistics when they design their awareness campaigns. That's how they get their money. And it does NOT do any good to parents like you who are hearing "autism" for the first time. I do not know how many times I have wanted to stand up and yell at those people, "THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH HAVING AUTISM!"

No, I'm not kidding. There really isn't. Don't listen to those idiots who say your kid's life is over or you've got to put him in four hundred hours a week of therapy or something. This kid is still the same kid you've loved all his life, he still loves you, and now you've got a name for some of the stuff that's causing difficulty for him. Life is going to get better. Sure, he's not normal. Neither was Einstein. Normal is a freaking setting on a dryer and not much more. I'm not normal and I'm freaking proud of being not normal.

Sorry. I get so mad at those propagandists sometimes. They do no good to anything but their own pocketbooks.

Notorious example--not autism, but muscular dystrophy: Jerry Lewis. This is me getting mad about him:
http://chaoticidealism.livejournal.com/30335.html

I'm sorry, but to us, while we're not professionals, it seems incredibly obvious. He doesn't even seem like he's "borderline" autistic.


So why are you upset?


Do you think he hasn't already been the victim of torment? Did you think that the traits he exhibits would disappear as he gets older if he wasn't autistic?

Imagine if there weren't a diagnosis for Asperger's (there wasn't until 1994) and there was simply no explanation for his behavior. There are countless stories of parents seeking answers for years and years, only to come up with nothing. You have to ask yourself if it is worse to know or if it is worse to not know?

Yeah. My mom didn't know about me... well, she knew, but she refused to believe it... and blamed it all on bad behavior; and I grew up thinking I was a horrible rebellious child and it was my fault that people didn't like me.