My ASD Child

"Any tips for helping my 'typical' kids to understand their older brother (high functioning autistic)?" Almost more than spouses, brothers and sisters are thrown together for better or for worse. When a sibling has an autism spectrum disorder, it can complicate that relationship because one youngster lacks social skills and another just can’t figure out “why my brother acts that way.” Tips for Parents— 1. Don’t accept bad behavior from your HFA youngster, and don’t expect perfection from your other kids. That can lead to resentment and acting-out. 2. Fully educate yourself about your HFA youngster, and then inform his siblings on an age-appropriate basis. Know that kids on the autism spectrum find it very difficult to pick up on social cues and often have intense, narrow interests. Even a young sibling can understand that, “Jacob gets upset when we stop talking about trains, but we’re working on ways to make that better.” 3. Realize just as you m...

There are several different pathways to the diagnosis of Aspergers. Some kids receive the diagnosis fairly early in life, while some individuals are not diagnosed until well into adulthood. In some cases, kids are inaccurately diagnosed with another disorder, (e.g., a language disorder, depression, schizoid personality), and are only later correctly diagnosed with Aspergers. Some kids are considered autistic early in life, but progress well enough to ultimately be diagnosed with Aspergers. The impact of the diagnosis of Aspergers on a family is no doubt partly related to the manner in which the individual was diagnosed. Families who recognize early on that there is something seriously wrong with their youngster and are given a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (and only later learn their youngster has Aspergers) will experience many of the reactions families with autistic kids have. These reactions are described below. Many families, whose kids progress far enough to no longe...

Hyperactivity— There has recently been considerable interest and research into the possible connection between autism spectrum disorders and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). This interest includes both the similarities in symptoms as well as genetics. Hyperactivity, inattentiveness and impulsivity can be present in a number of childhood onset disorders, including ADHD as well as autism spectrum disorders. Kids with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) are often considered as having some characteristics indicative of Aspergers. Although they are two distinct disorders, they are not mutually exclusive and a youngster could have both conditions. One nine year old boy with Aspergers, Jake, displayed severe symptoms of hyperactivity. He could barely contain himself when in his therapist's office, preferring to remove all the books from her bookshelf and trying to race down the hallways. Another possibility is that of misdiagnosis. Some kids originally diagnosed...

"We've been getting complaints from our aspergers/high functioning daughter's teacher that she doses off during 'study time'. It's becoming a real problem. She seems wide awake and full of energy at home though. What would you suggest?" Click here for the answer...

There are several different kinds of attention, some of which tend to be impaired in kids with Aspergers. In particular, there are often problems with shifting attention, the ability to shift attention in a flexible way from one subject to another. Aspergers kids may engage in over-focused, repetitive play for lengthy periods of time, under-reacting to distractions in the environment... These observations suggest good sustained attention, but deficient flexibility in shifting attention. There is a distinction between active and passive (distractibility from outside) attention. In autism spectrum disorder, the problem tends to be more one of active attention. Aspergers kids are not interested in directing their attention to outside stimuli... They follow their own ideas, which are mostly far removed from ordinary concerns, and do not like to be distracted from their thoughts. A related matter is that of relevance, the ability to judge where it is important to focus one's atten...

Many kids with autism and Aspergers have unusual reactions to sensory experiences (i.e., experiences related to the senses of touch, hearing, vision, smell, and taste). About 40 per cent of kids with autism have some abnormality of sensory sensitivity. There is now evidence to suggest that the incidence may be the same for Aspergers. The senses of touch and hearing are most commonly affected; certain kinds of touch, especially light pressure, and certain sounds may be experienced as intolerable. This difficulty is known as sensory defensiveness. Interestingly, while kids with autism and Aspergers are usually hypersensitive to sensory input, at other times they may be under-reactive, particularly to pain and changes in temperature. It is not uncommon for over-reactivity and under-reactivity to co-exist in the same individual. The following examples illustrate these points. One child became so agitated by the sound of the vacuum (over-reactive) that every time the house cleaners ar...

Aspergers (now referred to as "high functioning autism") is a relatively new category of developmental disorder. Although a group of kids with this clinical picture was originally and very accurately described in the 1940's by a Viennese pediatrician, Hans Asperger, the disorder called Aspergers was "officially" recognized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders for the first time in the fourth edition published in l994. Because there have been few comprehensive review articles in the medical literature to date and because Aspergers is probably considerably more common than previously realized, this discussion will endeavor to describe the syndrome in some detail and to offer suggestions regarding management. Students with Aspergers are not uncommonly seen in mainstream educational settings, although often undiagnosed or misdiagnosed, so this is a topic of some importance for educational personnel, as well as for moms & dads. Asper...