some people clearly have no clue!

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Hi all, we live in Australia so things may be a little different here.

I took my son to his job net work agency yesterday. He wont go unless I go with him, because he doesn't know or trust this worker, he wont talk to her or barely look at her, he gets confused by what others say and his short term auditory memory is bad. Any way we are also in the process of applying for some sort of disability support payment for him. This woman who is supposed to know something about his disabilities (this is a disability employment service), she asked my son if he has any friends. C (my son) shook his head, she looks at me, I say he interacts with his little brother only. She then goes on to say most people make friends when their at work (my son has had the same very part time job for nearly 6 years) She asks him if he socializes with the people from his work. He says NO! The she goes on to say, "well you need to go out and socialize!". Then she sits there smiling like she has just solved all his problems.

I'm flabbergasted. I turn to her and ask "Umm do you even know what Aspergers is?".
She looks embarrassed and says "hmm yeah".

If she understood why would she say something so stupid?

WHAT!? She obviously DOESN'T know anything about Aspergers!

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I have HFA, ADHD, OCD & Tourette syndrome. I love animals, especially my bunnies and hamster. I skate in a roller derby team (but I'll try not to bite )

And it's a disability service. What a joke.

face palm!

Really. I actually did a face palm.

Theoretical Facepalm.

Because i didnt actually put my palm to my face, i only pictured myself doing it.

The small rational part of her NT brain can calmly acknowledge his autism, but the larger social part of her brain cant handle being ignored and/or a target of an obvious expression of distrust toward her............. from an underling......

.......which disturbed her enough to make an ass of herself

That like throwing someone out of a wheelchair and telling them their solution is to walk!! !

ignorance and aroragance are a really bad mix that seems to plauge disability services is the US too.

In my former disability job agency they do not call your disability by its name. I found this very disconcerting because I didn't think they took my symptoms into account. And when we had our group days people would all be chatty and I'd be sitting there nervously and eventually I just ignored people and started to get really frustrated with that type of group meet up.

So, yeah it might be the case that they are not looking as your sons disability as Asperger's but as a 'barrier'. Seriously, they wouldn't even call it a disability. The world is just so damn PC these days.

Anyway, the fact remains people with autism will not have their issues addressed unless with an expert in that field, and those people are bloody expensive.

You should say something to that job worker like 'my son finds it difficult to make friends.' Or leave that place.

Telling an Aspie to 'just socialize' is like telling a blind person to "just cross the street when the light is green"

Or telling someone with an eating disorder to just eat if they want to. Like it's that simple.