Talk Health Forum

The HealthlinkUSA Talk Health Forum is a place where
you can discuss specific health questions and
exchange information with others.

Asperger's Syndrome


Message 5 of 22 Previous Next

My 14 year old niece is profoundly autistic and I know a couple of teenage boys here in England who are autistic/Asbergers. My 13 year old daughter is in some ways a touch Asbergers too - like give her a telephone message and it goes into a black hole! She finds talking to people very difficult, has to consciously 'read' their faces and voices to try and guess how they're feeling, and usually prefers to retreat into a book or chat online where such things don't matter. Especially with boys it's really important to have a very structured lifestyle with choices and changes kept to an absolute minimum, and to warn your son well before any changes happen so that he isn't freaked out by them. Also it's important to 'train' them in appropriate social behaviour so that they know how to react to situations appropriately. Even if they just produce a stilted sentence, it gives them confidence that they can cope with the nasty confusing world out there. Autistics/Asbergers seem to lack the ability to see the world as a structured, understandable place; everything comes at them like a steam train, no rhyme or reason to it, and they retreat from it in horror. Like it's total information overload. Asbergers kids especially benefit from learning a simple set of 'rules of social behaviour' which should stop them from being ignored or treated as weirdos by other kids. It also helps if you can keep the food he eats very simple and with as few chemicals and additives as possible. Autistic/Asbergers, like ADHD sufferers, are often hypersensitive to white sugar and preservative/colouring chemicals. As the most obvious and annoying aspect of Asbergers is the communication difficulties, a structured program learning how people react to specific things and why - watch a video of people being normal, then discuss it a little - motivation, emotion, why it's important to find out how other people are feeling and why, that sort of thing has to be learned as a skill by autistic/Asbergers sufferers, instead of being picked up automatically like most people do. It's possible, it's hard to do, but at the end you should have a kid who can see that he's different, but is equipped to cope with that difference. The up side is that an awful lot of geniuses and very creative people behave as if they're Asbergers as well... that ability to focus so completely on one tiny thing... I bet your son will have some very positive gifts that can also be encouraged and channeled into achievements you can all be real proud of. That is, once you've coped with the collections of hundreds of stones.... or snailshells... or making dozens and dozens of small stylised birds out of wax melted down from candles... yup, that's my girl! Total immersion in one activity or interest to the point of obsession, for weeks or months, then just dropping it and never looking at it again, that's characteristic of Asbergers. All you can do really is 'go with the flow' - if he wants to make wax models he will, the ingenuity he'll show to obtain the wax will astonish you, and he'll do it until whatever he wanted to achieve is there.... then you'll be able to collect up all the little figures and he'll move on to the next interest. It's driven me half nuts in the past, but nowadays I can at least reason with my daughter and encourage her to channel her obsessive nature into something relatively okay, like drawing... or painting... it will come in the end, but it takes a while. All the best!


Search the Talk Health Forum for messages
concerning a specific Health Topic


Tell a Friend

Your Name:
Your Friend's Email:
Your Comments:
Search Health Conditions and Concerns
  • A