How to Raise Your Aspie

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I am an Aspie (Asperger's Syndrome). I am now 74 years old and have lived a good life. I didn't even know that I was an Aspie until I was almost 70. But now I UNDERSTAND.

So I thought I would pass on some useful information to the parents of Aspies, some advice to help them on their journey through life.

So what is an Aspie?

Those with Asperger's syndrome, in contrast, must by definition have suffered no cognitive delay during their first 3 years of life. This means that they will usually have at least a “normal” IQ. In some cases, their IQ may be very high, even in the genius range.

That sounds about right. I was a normal child until around age 3, then I became an Aspie. But in my case I understand how this happened.

I thought the first point I would start with is some guidance on how to raise Aspies. We are unique individuals and need special approach. As a young Aspie, I fit in with the rest of the children in school. That was until a child turns into an adult. In males this normally occurs around age 12. Then my whole world began to fall apart. I was subjected to three years of sheer torture (both mental and physical attacks) by my peers. The young male students in school. This went on right in front of the teachers when they weren't looking.

I survived this period and became stronger inside because of it. But it was a painful experience in my life.

So what is the solution? Well the world is not perfect but there are some ways to help your child. For example, when your child reaches the age of around 12, they might be home schooled for a few years. At least for the middle school years. Another approach in my opinion is to place them into a military academy. In some large cities, they have developed special schools for high achievers.

Also have them take a class called Speed Reading. It teaches a very different form of reading. In speed reading you learn to read a paragraph from the inside out. In normal schools, we are taught to read from the beginning of a paragraph to the end. But I found this very difficult. I took this class when I entered my first year of high school and it taught me Aspie Reading Skills that opened the door to getting a degree in Physics at UCLA.

So why do some Aspies have higher IQs?

The answer falls under how Aspies learn. We do not accept anything at face value.
Let me repeat that again. We do not accept anything at FACE VALUE.

Most children go to school and are taught information. It is done by brute force in school. But a well developed Aspie learns by fully exploring questions from many different angles to learn. That just takes longer. Whereas most neurotypicals (NTs) operate on around a 55 percent accuracy rating, Aspies can dig deeper and achieve around a 95 % or 99 % accuracy in arriving at a decision. They can become SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTS.

For a well developed Aspies, nothing is sacred. It doesn't matter who is providing the knowledge (teacher, boss, president). Everything must be tested to learn. Nothing is given a free ride.

Now taking this approach can lead to a lot of strife. Most NTs want quick answers. They begin talking about something and then switch to something else and then something else. By the time an Aspie decides to enter a discussion and contribute, they enter the discussion late. People have already moved on. The Aspie is OUT OF PLACE.

In some large cities they have very large school systems. They develop their school by a ranking systems. Those who are high achievers are placed in one school and those at lower levels of achievement are placed in a different nearby school. This is a very good approach because if they are all placed in the same class, in general, they will be taught with the least amount of training and quickly become bored to death. In other words the high achievers will lose the drive, lose their zest for knowledge.

Some schools are designed without a grading system. There is no first grade, no second grade. There is only skill sets. You may be very advanced in some subject and less advanced in other subjects. Therefore these systems accelerating the learning process.

Now I am going to speak about a very different type of learning process. When I was a very young child, I experienced a very unique type of training. I must have been around 5 or 6 when my parents gave me a Howdy Doody Ventriloquist Puppet. It never came with instructions. In a way it is self taught. It is different then a doll that girls play with. It has eyes that move, a face that moves, arms that move. It is almost a living being, except it is a puppet. It needs only one more ingredient to make it work. It needs a human being.

So how does this work and why is this critical?

Humans are much more complex then anyone currently thinks. We possess multiple brains. Generally our daytime brain exist on the left side of our skull. It is the dominant brain. But our other brain exist in our sleep state in REM and NREM sleep. It is our nigh time brain. These brains are independent and very different. I am different from many people because when I was around age 3 or 4, I died and my right side came online during the daytime and became dominant. Eventually my left side recovered over time and became my sleep brain. It was nothing more then a brain flip. And that is why I am a little unique.

But there is one more piece to the puzzle. That is when I was a young child, my parents bought me a Ventriloquist Puppet. It takes two people, two very different people to make a puppet work. One is my daytime brain and the other my night time brain. Both people can exist at the same time. As a result, there are two people inside me and it is really hard to fool me. I can see the world from many different angles. It gives me a level of independence that is unique.

Howdy Doody

And how did this character begin. Here is a bit of history.

Howdy Doody - Remember When - Buffalo Bob Smith

So in my humble opinion this is the best way to train your young Aspie boy and girl. Teach them how to use a muppet. We have two brains and this little device allows you to bring both out. And they will be stronger, more resiliant, better able to figure out this strange world we live in. A Place Called the Twilight Zone.
No dummy, A place called Wrong Planet.

I am interested in this two brains idea. I often feel like I have two brains. I can read my daughter a bedtime story and be thinking about something entirely different at the same time. I have no idea what happened in the story because I was thinking about something else, but I've managed to read it aloud without diffficulty. I don't know how common that is.

Similarly, I find it very easy to hold opposing viewpoints in my mind. Politically, I tend leftwing progressive, but I can often simultaneously understand where more rightwing thinkers are coming from. Again, I don't know how common it is. It seems that most people find it very easy to dismiss opposing viewpoints without really considering them, just as 'evil' or obviously 'wrong'.

This is actually something of a problem because I find it hard to adopt a fixed position on a lot of subjects. It makes me indecisive and ineffective sometimes.

I did try to get my ASD daughter into hand puppets because I enjoy them too, but they just seem to annoy her.

DuckHairback, you mentioned an example of two brain theory. One of the traits that some people have is sleep walking. They get up in the middle of the night and walk around the neighborhood. When they are woken up, they have no knowledge of their trip. Thi9s is a common example of multi brain theory.

When I was around 19, I fell asleep while I was driving. I was traveling through Texas at the time and the roads went on for miles and miles in a straight line. I drove for 2 hours but I was asleep. It was my sleep brain that did the driving. It came across a part of the road that split into two lanes. It didn't know what to do. It panicked and woke me up. I slammed on the brakes and told my parents to take over and continue the drive. Then I told my sleep brain to Never, Ever Do That Again. And it never did.

The concept of multi brain theory is very interesting. There is a book called "Whole Brain Living" by Jill Bolte Taylor that describes the human brain a four separate beings. It is a truly remarkable book to read.

That sounds scary as hell. I'm glad your brain takes instruction well and didn't repeat it.

I kinda know what that's like because I often realise I've got no recollection of driving down a particular road or across a certain junction even though I must have done so, I just didn't retain any information from it. But I think that's more normal.

Thanks for the book recommendation, sounds interesting.

One of the interesting things about the sleep side of the brain is
This brain is designed to erase memory.
Everything that is recorded during the daytime is broken into pieces and the most important parts are stored in long term memory. That happens during sleep at a very fast clip in REM and NREM sleep. Then all the information is deleted from the brain. This frees up the brain for the following day.

I underwent a brain flip when I was a child. I died and my right side of my brain, my sleep brain, came online around a hour later. I was around age 3 or 4 at the time. My sleep brain came online and didn't really know what was happening. As a result I experience a NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE. Eventually my left side of my brain, the dominant side, normally the daytime brain, came back but switched places with the other side. It was a brain flip. That gives me a unique skillset. I was a slow reader in school. When I entered my first year of high school, they recognized my problem and put me into a class called Speed Reading. It taught me how to read by breaking apart a paragraph into a number of pieces and then finding the most important word and then the next most important word. Essentially I was able to read even the most complex writing without difficulty. It was not that I was reading too slow but the opposite. I was reading at the speed of light, using my right side brain, but I was also deleting all the information once I read it. This ability to use a different type of reading style allowed me to excel.