One of the hallmarks of Aspergers syndrome is the development of obsessive thinking and the performing of ritual behaviors done to reduce stress and anxiety. This type of behavior can later meet the criteria in adulthood for obsessive-compulsive disorder. Aspergers syndrome children often have an obsessive interest in a particular subject and very little interest in much else. They may obsessively seek information about maps or clocks or some other topic. They may also be very inflexible in their habits and rigidly adhere to certain routines or rituals. These obsessions and compulsions are believed to be biological in origin. This means that it is very difficult to go to therapy or just talk the individual out of the rituals.

Even so, there is some evidence to suggest that cognitive-behavioral therapy may help control some of the behaviors and makes the child aware of ways to recognize when the behavior is occurring so as to stop it before it occurs. This kind of therapy, in general, can be helpful for children, teens and adults with Aspergers syndrome because it focuses on concrete behavioral and “thought” changes necessary to function on a day to day basis.

Parents may need to simply be supportive of the child who so rigidly hangs onto rituals he or she doesn’t understand. Unless the child has done a lot of therapy, it takes a great deal of effort to fight the rituals nor does it help to punish the child for them.

There are medications, often used in obsessive compulsive disorder that can take the edge off of the ritual behavior and obsessions, especially when used along with cognitive behavioral therapy. No medication is without side effects and the improvement may not be complete; however, it is worth the effort to try the medication as recommended by your child’s doctor.

PARENTING AUTISM & ASPERGERS NEWSLETTER
VOLUME 17
MARCH 2008

This is Dave Angel and Welcome to the seventeenth edition
of “The Parenting Autism & Aspergers Newsletter”…..

Inside this edition you will find:

1. More problems with the Blog………

2. Hot Topic of Discussion - Aspergers and Employment Prospects

3. In the News – A Story of Hope…

4. Parenting Tips - High Functioning Autism

5. Famous Autistic Person - Tim Page

Best Wishes

Dave Angel

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1. More problems with the Blog………

Hello and welcome from a very chilly England - surely warm
weather and pretty spring flowers should be showing by now?!

This week the blog completely disappeared into cyber-space on
2 occasions…

Goodness knows why but the incredibly helpful techy people at
my web hosting company seem to have solved it.

Well at least they did sort it out and didn’t give me the
standard

“have you tried turning it off and turning it back
on?”

advice that seems to be the first lesson that every good
IT technician that I come across at work seems to have learnt
at IT School!

But I’m thankful for small mercies!

Apparently it was “some connectivity problem with the mysql
database”…and if you understand that at all it makes you a
far superior human being to me!

Anyway fingers crossed it continues to be OK and again
apologies for any disruption.

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2. Hot Topic of Discussion - Aspergers and Employment Prospects

I stumbled across another blog about Aspergers recently which
said that unemployment for people with Aspergers was as high as
85%…which seems way too high in my opinion.

Gavin, the owner of the blog then carried out his own “quick and
dirty” survey which found the figure in his group to be around
11%…but my guess is that’s probably a bit low.

My estimate would be around 20% - although to be honest as we
all know there are “lies, damn lies and statistics!”

News flash - Having had a little surf further around the net the
statistics are actually quite staggering certainly in the UK…

A number of sites quote the unemployment rate for people with
Aspergers as 88% - and this statistic seems to originate from
the highly-respected and knowledgable National Autism Society.

Scary stuff indeed…

But what can you as parents do to stop this becoming a reality
for your child?

Well pretty much what you are doing already…judging by many
of the excellent emails that I get in from so many of you.

In conjunction with school it is so essential to get your child’s
social skills, interactional skills etc. as up to speed as is
humanly possible.

When the time gets closer for your child to be thinking of work,
then as parents you need to be really proactive in bringing this
topic to your child and helping them to look for opportunities.

Plan out what your child would like to do and what looks
achievable for your child - bearing in mind their own particular
issues with regard to sensory stimulation, crowding, understanding
social situations.

Each child is different and so there is no catch-all solution.

But involve your child in decisions all along the way - don’t do
it for them.

Then it may well mean contacting local businesses and working
closely with the school and careers service in identifying a
suitable employer who will have a sensitivity to your child’s needs.

An honest and straight forward explanation of Aspergers and what it
means can help a great deal of employers who are happy to give
people a chance - but are maybe wary or scared of the label
Aspergers, simply because they don’t understand it.

Then it’s up to your child (often with support at first) to be
able to convince the employer that they can do the job.

One tactic may be to ask for a 2/4 week unpaid trial in which your
child can be given support to learn the ropes and then impress
the boss sufficiently to get a permanent job.

There is a web page at NAS that would be helpful for you to mention
to a potential employer (or even print off the details and actually
take to show them):

http://www.nas.org.uk/nas/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=444

If you wish to read more of Gavin’s Aspergers blog go to:

http://life-with-aspergers.blogspot.com/2008/03/how-does-aspergers-affect-employment.html

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3. In the News – A Story of Hope…

This month’s news item comes from Somersworth, New Hampshire
in the USA.

It features a young autistic boy called Ryan and attests to the power
of therapeutic interventions and parental determination for children
with an ASD.

Ryan has an hour per week Speech & Occupational Therapy program
after school (and before anyone shouts out - I know they are
very lucky and certainly many areas don’t offer this, but
don’t shoot the messenger please!)

This has led to him being able to ask questions and converse
with schoolmates for the first time ever.

In the past Ryan could not tolerate the car radio or the
sound of a microwave but last Christmas he was able to ask
for his own present and listen to Christmas music.

But these great results have come from a huge amount of
trial and error work from his parents who likened it to
the famous light bulb inventor Thomas Edison:

“Edison used to say he found 10,000 ways not to make a light bulb
before he discovered the right way” Dione (Ryan’s mum) said.

Eventually these efforts were rewarded by finding a variety of
approaches, including the speech and occupational therapy, that
really help.

A nice quote in the article came from his father Frank who said:

“It gives me hope for a better tomorrow”.

And as I’m sure you know hope is such an essential ingredient in
any parent’s make up who wants to help their child with ASD.

So take a little hope and inspiration from this story and if you
want to read more on Ryan go to:

http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080309/GJNEWS_01/833802553
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4. Parenting Tips - High Functioning Autism

This month’s tip comes from Kathleen (in Florida) so thanks
Kathleen…….and here’s the tip…..

“I am homeschooling a six year old grandson with high-functioning
autism.

I am finding Michelle Garcia Winner’s work on social cognition
to be very insightful and helpful.

The higher-IQ children like my grandson respond best to a
cognitive approach, direct instruction on things that are
intuitive to most people but not to them, rather than a
behavioral one.

One of her suggestions is to teach children directly to keep
“memory files” on each acquaintance so that they can converse
with him or her on subjects of interest to the friend or of
mutual interest (rather than the child’s own obsession).

However–my grandson has faceblindness (prosopagnosia).

He can tell emotions very well, but he has pretty severe
trouble identifying individuals.

Somehow he needs to learn to compensate for this socially.

It’s supposed to be something neurological that cannot be
changed, but there must be a better way to compensate than
doing what he did yesterday: walking up to a new “friend”
whom you have played with several times and do remember what
you did, looking him straight in the face, and saying “ARE
YOU JOHN?”

And how can you develop memory files when you can’t tell
the kids apart?

How can I help a child with social cognitive deficits and
faceblindness (and auditory sensitivities) make friends?

Kathleen in Florida”

If anyone can help answer Kathleen’s own questions above
can you go over to the blog and post your answers and ideas
there.

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5. Famous Autistic Person - Tim Page

Tim Page is a Pulizer-Prize winning music journalist who is
diagnosed with Aspergers.

At school he recalls that teachers obviously saw him as
intelligent (in facts labelled him as a “genius”) yet he
struggled to succeed and get grades.

His intense interest areas were music, silent films and large
chunks of the 1961 Worldbook Encyclopedia.

And he immersed himself in learning all he could on these
topics.

But socially he struggled a great deal at school and says that:

“It’s been kind of a lonely life and remains a lonely life. You
get the sense that you don’t have the connections with people
you’d like to have.”

Which is a terribly sad but not eaxctly new experience for a
child/adult with Aspergers.

But on the flip side Tim goes on to say that:

“On the other hand, it seems to me that a lot of things I did
and am doing in my life happened because I had Asperger’s.”

He is an authority speaker in music and lectures at
universities in the USA, and has been a celebrated music
journalist for the Washington Post and New York Times.

Currently he is a visiting professor with the Annenberg School
of Journalism at the University of Southern California.

So clearly al of that obsessional interest in music at an early
age has shaped his future destiny.

Giving him a career and life experiences that many people with
or without ASD would be overjoyed to have had.

He is due to release a book on his life with Aspergers next
year which I would imagine will be a fascinating read.

To read more on Tim go to:

http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2008/03/13/music-critic-describes-life-wth-aspergers-syndrome/
————————————————————-

Well that’s all for this edition and I hope you
enjoyed it.

The next edition of the newsletter should be due in
mid-April.

And as ever………please send in any inspirational stories
that you know of, any questions that you would like our team
of experts to answer, any topics that you wish to be discussed
and news stories that you want to share.

We will publish as many as we can.

Until next month………

Best Wishes

Dave Angel

The child with ASD may need numerous prompts and assistance to complete daily living skills, such as personal hygiene, dressing and household chores. These difficulties may occur because the child is preoccupied with other things, lacks the ability to focus, and simply doesn’t have the ability to finish these tasks to completion.

Having to provide continual prompts and direction may inadvertently resulting power struggles between parent and child and lead to more behavior problems. Children with ASD need repetition and visual cues to learn these skills and to complete them on a daily basis.

There are many ways to provide visual cues. Providing the necessary repetition for children takes a great deal of time and effort on the parents part, and finding the time to do so may be difficult. In addition, teaching these skills to children with ASD often includes an assessment of where there skills are currently at, and what is needed to build these skills.

The Able Individual Video Learning Series (Available on DVD and VHS) provides instruction on a variety of skills that children need and use on a daily basis. Through the use of repetition, this series provides the opportunity for children to practice their motor skills, and increases their ability to follow directions.

It provides directions in personal hygiene, dressing, and household chores. In addition, this series provides both verbal and visual cues for learning tasks. When children are able to learn these tasks and perform them independently, they begin to feel better about themselves. Eliminating the need for assistance and continual verbal prompts will increase their independence and self-esteem.Kids need to be able to perform these tasks independently, they just need additional time and assistance to learn these skills, which this video series provides.

Check it out by clicking The Able Individual Video Learning Series

Thanks

Dave Angel

The teen years can be difficult whether or not your child has Aspergers syndrome. In situations where they do, however, there are special challenges that differ depending on the child.

Some parents find themselves dealing with a child who is a loner, who has few friends and focuses on one or more hobbies or preoccupations. This type of child is independent in some ways but lacks the maturity to truly be independent in life. A teen like this needs to be pushed in the direction of finding friends and developing relationships.

He or she may also need to learn some of the specific things necessary for “life independence”, like how to deal with money, cleaning up after oneself, doing the laundry and other life skills that will be needed once the teen is ready to leave home. Interpersonal skills, including how to talk to service people, shop assistants and other people they may meet along the way, should be taught and practiced as concretely as possible.

Other parents are dealing with the ongoing presence of rituals and obsessions that might interfere with the teen’s eventual independence. Psychotherapy might work in this kind of situation but there are also medications designed to control ritual behavior. Getting this under control as a teenager will go a long way in enhancing the teen’s adult experience as they grow older.

This is a time when depression can develop in teens, who know they don’t fit in and suffer from a poor self esteem. Be aware of the signs of depression and be proactive through the use of psychotherapy or medications to control some of these symptoms. This means, as a parent, you need to be aware of excessive isolation, “dark” language, outbursts of anger, or self mutilation. Help is available and can help the teen resolve some of the conflicts unique to adolescence and having Aspergers syndrome.

When a child without Aspergers syndrome makes friends, parents are not often involved in the choice of the friend or the facilitation of the friendship. In Aspergers syndrome children, however, the parent or parents may need to be an active participant in helping the child make and keep solid friends.

Part of the process involves concretely teaching the child how a normal friend should act. Teaching them politeness, restraint, in some situations, and how to talk and establish good eye contact with others will help the child learn skills that aren’t innate to their development.

Finding a child to be your child’s friend in the school situation often takes careful planning and effort. It genuinely helps if you volunteer in the classroom and get to know the children well. If you can find a receptive, relatively quiet child who would make a good friend for your child, ask the child’s parents if the two could play together. Rowdy or noisy children may be a source of distress to the Aspergers syndrome child.

If your child is one of the many who have specific interests or musical ability, make the effort to link the child up through groups or clubs of children with similar interests. Often, having a similar interest as another child will help facilitate a relationship between the two. Even if your child doesn’t have a special interest, consider something structured such as the boy scouts or a church group from which friends can be found and maintained through regular contact.

It’s probably not a good idea to invite a bunch of kids over for a sleepover. Rather, one child playing with your child at a time has the best chance of success. If the other child seems to have some maturity, explaining the condition of Aspergers syndrome to the child may help avoid the frustration some children feel around Aspergers children.

Not in every case will your child be receptive to a friendship and he or she may prefer to play alone. In that case, wait until you see signs of receptiveness before attempting to facilitate a friendship.