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Anxiety Overload in Asperger's and HFA

Autism spectrum disorders and anxiety often go hand-in-hand. Aspergers and High Functioning Autism may affect a child’s ability to communicate effectively with others and to understand the world around him -- and that’s bound to cause anxiety. Anxiety can become even worse when there is a change in the child’s routine. Even positive and “fun” changes (e.g., school field trip, visit to the zoo) can increase anxiety and aggressive behaviors.

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Being Your Aspergers Child's Advocate

"The psychiatrist has told us that our son Travis has Autism (high functioning). Should my husband and I tell other people, for example teachers, that he has this? I'm not sure if making others aware of this will make it better or worse for Travis."

Click here for the answer... 

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Aspergers and HFA Children and Poor Sportsmanship

"My boy (high functioning) hates to share - and even worse - hates to lose. He takes playing games too seriously, and takes losing too personally. How can I help him be a better team player? Also, what games might be a better fit for him?"

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Highly Acclaimed Parenting Programs Offered by Online Parent Support, LLC:
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Applied Behavioral Analysis for Aspergers Kids

"As I am researching Autism Spectrum Disorders, I hear a lot about ABA therapy for children with Aspergers. What is ABA exactly, and is it something I should look into for my Aspie."

It is often difficult to understand why a child with Aspergers or High-Functioning Autism behaves the way he does. However, there is a reason for his behavior, and applied behavior analysis helps us understand the behavior and determine a method of support for the child so that he no longer needs the behavior to meet his needs.

Using Applied Behavior Analysis, you can determine the antecedents to behavior, identify the behavior, and identify the consequence for the behavior, or what is currently maintaining the behavior. Using this process, you can determine alternative behaviors that are more appropriate, yet will meet your child's needs, without displaying the inappropriate behavior. This aids parents in understanding their child better and helps outline a method to change his behavior.

ABA treatment can include any of several established teaching tools:

1.    discrete trial training
2.    fluency building
3.    incidental teaching
4.    pivotal response training
5.    verbal behavior

In discrete trial training, an ABA therapist gives a clear instruction about a desired behavior (e.g., “Pick up the green toy.”). If the youngster responds correctly, then the behavior is reinforced (e.g., “Good job! Have a sticker.”). If the youngster doesn’t respond correctly, the therapist gives a gentle prompt (e.g., places the youngster’s hand over the green toy). The hope is that the youngster will eventually learn to generalize the correct response.

In fluency building, the therapist helps the youngster build up a complex behavior by teaching each element of that behavior until it is automatic or "fluent," using the ABA approach of behavioral observation, reinforcement, and prompting. Then, the more complex behavior can be built from each of these fluent elements.

Incidental teaching uses the same ideas as discrete trial training, except the goal is to teach behaviors and concepts throughout a youngster’s day-to-day experience, rather than focusing on a specific behavior.

Pivotal response training uses ABA techniques to target crucial skills that are important for many other skills. Thus, if the youngster improves on one of these pivotal skills, improvements are seen in a wide variety of behaviors that were not specifically trained. The idea is that this approach can help the youngster generalize behaviors from a therapeutic setting to everyday settings.

Lastly, an ABA-related approach for teaching language and communication is called verbal behavior or VB for short. In VB, the therapist analyzes the youngster’s language skills, then teaches and reinforces more useful and complex language skills.

Social and behavioral skills can be taught, even to profoundly autistic kids, through the ABA method. Many - if not most – young people who receive ABA training learn to behave appropriately at least some of the time, and some even lose their Aspergers diagnosis after a few years of intensive therapy.

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Aspergers Checklist: Impairments in Language Skills

"I'm interested in Aspergers children and their language skills deficits. Do you have any information on this topic?"

Sure... Below is a handout on "Impairments in Language Skills" that I used in a recent workshop for parents with children on the spectrum:

Impairments in Language Skills--

A. Impairment in the pragmatic use of language: This refers to the inability to use language in a social sense as a way to interact/communicate with other people. It is important to observe the individual’s use of language in various settings with various people (especially peers). Since the impairments are in pragmatic language usage.

1. Uses conversation to convey facts and information about special interests, rather than to convey thoughts, emotions, or feelings.

2. Uses language scripts or verbal rituals in conversation, often described as “nonsense talk” by others (scripts may be made up or taken from movies/books/TV). At times, the scripts are subtle and may be difficult to detect.

3. Has difficulty initiating, maintaining, and ending conversations with others. For example:
  • Focuses conversations on one narrow topic, with too many details given, or moves from one seemingly unrelated topic to the next
  • Once a discussion begins, it is as if there is no “stop” button; must complete a predetermined dialogue
  • Knows how to make a greeting, but has no idea how to continue the conversation; the next comment may be one that is totally irrelevant
  • Does not make conversations reciprocal (i.e., has great difficulty with the back-and-forth aspect), attempts to control the language exchange, may leave a conversation before it is concluded
  • Does not inquire about others when conversing

4. Is unsure how to ask for help, make requests, or make comments. For example:
  • Fails to inquire regarding others
  • Makes comments that may embarrass others
  • Interrupts others
  • Engages in obsessive questioning or talking in one area, lacks interest in the topics of others
  • Has difficulty maintaining the conversation topic



B. Impairment in the semantic use of language: This refers to understanding the language being used.

1. Displays difficulty understanding not only individual words, but conversations.

2. Displays difficulty with problem solving.

3. Displays difficulty analyzing and synthesizing information presented. For example:
  • Does not ask for the meaning of an unknown word
  • Uses words in a peculiar manner
  • Is unable to make or understand jokes/teasing
  • Creates jokes that make no sense
  • Interprets known words on a literal level (i.e., concrete thinking)
  • Has a large vocabulary consisting mainly of nouns and verbs
  • Creates own words, using them with great pleasure in social situations
  • Has difficulty discriminating between fact and fantasy

C. Impairment in prosody: This refers to the pitch, stress, and rhythm of an individual’s voice.

1. Rarely varies the pitch, stress, rhythm, or melody of his speech. Does not realize this can convey meaning.

2. Has a voice pattern that is often described as robotic or as the “little professor”; in children, the rhythm of speech is more adult-like than child-like.

3. Displays difficulty with volume control (i.e., too loud or too soft).

4. Uses the voice of a movie or cartoon character conversationally and is unaware that this is inappropriate.

5. Has difficulty understanding the meaning conveyed by others when they vary their pitch, rhythm, or tone.

D. Impairment in the processing of language: This refers to one’s ability to comprehend what has been said. The Aspergers individual has difficulty absorbing, analyzing, and then responding to the information.

1. When processing language (which requires multiple channels working together), has difficulty regulating just one channel, difficulty discriminating between relevant and irrelevant information.

2. Has difficulty shifting from one channel to another; processing is slow and easily interrupted by any environmental stimulation (i.e., seen as difficulty with topic maintenance). This will appear as distractibility or inattentiveness. (Note: When looking at focusing issues, it is very difficult to determine the motivator. It could be attributed to one or a few of the following reasons: lack of interest, fantasy involvement, anxiety, or processing difficulty.)

3. Displays a delay when answering questions.

4. Displays difficulty sustaining attention and is easily distracted (e.g., one might be discussing plants and the Aspergers individual will ask a question about another country; something said may have triggered this connection or the individual may still be in an earlier conversation).

5. Displays difficulty as language moves from a literal to a more abstract level (generalization difficulties found in the Aspergers population are, in part, due to these processing difficulties).

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Understanding Theory of Mind Deficits in Autistic Children: Misbehavior or Misunderstanding?

The concept of "theory of mind" refers to the ability to understand that others have their own beliefs, desires, and intentions, w...