Isolation, depression and your child with Aspergers

Filed under:Education — posted by admin on May 12, 2009 @ 9:25 am

Hi there and welcome to this week’s blog post …

Question

Can you tell me about Asperger’s and depression?

Answer

Children with Asperger’s have difficulty verbalizing their feelings and thoughts. This can be misinterpreted by some and can lead to the assumption that because these thoughts and feelings aren’t verbalized, that they don’t exist. Often, the opposite is true. Many children with Asperger’s have an overwhelming number of thoughts and feelings that go unexpressed. This inability to express feelings can lead to depression.

Children with Asperger’s often find school a challenging environment. Difficulty with social interaction can lead to a child feeling isolated and friendless, especially during the tumultuous teenage years. Those feelings of isolation and confusion can lead to depression. This can be compounded by an inability to express the feelings of depression to anyone.

Learning to cope with these feelings is an important part of learning to cope with Asperger’s syndrome. In his book, “Helping Children Overcome Depression and Anxiety: A Practical Guide,” Kenneth W. Merrell
outlines some clear cut and creative strategies for helping your child’s teachers and counsellors deal with depression. By utilizing some of Mr. Merrell’s intervention methods and strategies, school personnel can work with you and your child to help recognize signs of depression and to help your child overcome it.

Since depression in children with Asperger’s is often linked to feelings of isolation and frustration with not being able to express himself, it’s important for parents to understand that while children with Asperger’s don’t necessarily express their feeling, that doesn’t mean that they don’t have them. Talk with your child about how he might be feeling about his social relationships with others. Try to give him the words to use, such as mad, sad, frustrated and angry. By giving him those words and trying to help him differentiate those words and identify those feelings, you can help him develop his voice while expressing his emotions. You may not be able to make his social relationships smoother for him, but you can try to get him to understand that his feelings surrounding those relationships are valid.

Talking to your child with Asperger’s about emotions can be a frustrating experience for you, but the benefits will hopefully outweigh the frustrations you are dealing with. It’s also helpful for you to understand the warning signs of depression. Watch for behavioral changes that might indicate depression in your child. Is he more easily frustrated? Is he giving up on his social relationships? Has he lost interest in things that typically gave him pleasure? Does he have difficulty sleeping? Has he gained or lost a significant amount of weight?

If you notice unusual changes, speak with your child’s doctor about the possibility of depression and possible treatments.

That’s all for this week … and have a great week.

Dave Angel
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Articles posted this week at The Parenting Aspergers Community
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Communication/comprehension is a big problem (understanding what is meant by others in conversation). How can I help my child with this?
Asperger’s is interesting in that it is the only group on the autism spectrum in which language is acquired normally and a good vocabulary is not unusual. Some young children with Asperger’s have difficulty using pronouns, such as …
To read the full article go to: -
http://www.parentingaspergerscommunity.com/members/248.cfm
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Standing up to bullies by Matthew Readman
What is a bully; in the Webster dictionary a bully is defined as “one who intimidates one who is smaller then weaker” HA! To anyone who has aspergers the list goes on and on. I have been mocked, criticized, humiliated, punched. If anyone who knows bullying it’s me. Ever since I was …
To read the full article go to: -
http://www.parentingaspergerscommunity.com/members/246.cfm
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My child will not take personal responsibility for her actions; she’s now 18 so what can I do?
Even though your daughter is 18, emotionally she may be anywhere from 12 to 15 years old. She acts irresponsibly because she is functioning at 13 or 14! She will continue to mature as time passes and may catch up by the time she is 25 or so. If your daughter still lives with you, she is not an adult and you still have the responsibility of …
To read the full article go to: -
http://www.parentingaspergerscommunity.com/members/247.cfm
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comments (16)

16 comments »

My son is not coping with school – this is a snippet of the email I received from his teacher today – what can I do??? He is on Concerta and Risperdol – I don’t want him taking any more drugs just for the sake of it. But he just isn’t coping.

Middle session saw us sit the Writing section of the test. The students are all given a page which has a picture stimulus and some written information – they then have 5 min to plan, 30 minutes to write a story and 5 minutes to edit their work.
This session proved to be a problem for Will. It started with him thinking someone had taken his sharpener – a yellow plastic one. His clearly has his name printed on it and this other one did not (as you can imagine there are many yellow sharpeners that are exactly the same). Will was not able to refocus on the task – the test! Instead he ripped up the planning sheet and told me there was no way he was going to write anything. I swapped the ‘accused’ yellow sharpener with one of my own blue ones of the same brand and gave him the yellow one to calm him down. I thought he would be happy to get it and therefore start his writing.
When I gave him the sharpener the test had only been going long enough for the 5 minutes planning so he had not missed out on any of the allocated ‘writing’ time. Unfortunately, as much as the two aides and I tried to encourage him he simply refused to attempt one word of his writing task.
During the break this cascaded into breaking many of the preps ’sink and float’ resources (cups, and hand made boats) and quickly became a very angry attack on gardens, lattice and many posts.
Please help….

Comment by Donna — May 12, 2009 @ 10:06 am
One of the words that stopped me cold in dealing with my 9 year old son was that he used the word ‘invisible’. Although every time we crossed the school yard together, many children greeted him, unfortunately he did not hear them and did not respond. Sometimes he gets so lost in his thoughts and apprehensions, that he doesn’t see the world around him. It was when he described himself as invisible that I realized that the feelings are much deeper than thought and needed to be dealt with on a much more probing plane. Good luck.

Comment by Wendy Smith — May 12, 2009 @ 10:23 am
I can speak from experience that these feelings run deep in these children. At 9, The doctors who diagnosed my son told me he was suicidal. I cna only imagine his frustration everytime he sat at the lunch table to have all the kids leave. This happened everyday for a year. He is extremely extraverted and is desparate for friends. We are getting him the help he needs. Now at almost 11 the symptoms are less and we can work on the asberger interventions. Namely, how do I help him understand that the new group of “friends” set him up so they can laugh AT him.

I keep telling you all this, but you are my lifeline…

Comment by Katie — May 12, 2009 @ 11:43 am
Dear Katie, my son (16 years) has had similar situations arise, especially the kids pretending to be his friends and then getting him in trouble. He was suspended from school twice last year thanks to these little angels. When I talked to him about it I have tried to come up with a list of characteristics that real friends have and asked him to put his new list of “friends” up next to the list and see if they have those tings that make them real friends or are they just faking it. It can be tough and it depends on your son’s level of understanding. My son didn’t get it a tfirst, but we kept at it and in a month or so he began picking up on the warning signs by himself. Good luck.

Comment by Heather Boyd — May 12, 2009 @ 11:59 am
Hi my name is shole and my son Arian is 14. he has been out of school for a year with no education. He doesn’t like to go to specialist school and was in mainstream school all his time. any suggestion from anyone?

Comment by shole — May 12, 2009 @ 1:43 pm
Hi, my son is almost 17 and quietly gets on with life at school now. This is after many years of battling to be accepted and getting into trouble because he wanted so much to fit in and be popular. I know that he carries a lot of pain inside and it comes out occasionally, especially at the moment with the school ball coming up. He would like to go but knows he will end up sitting in a corner by himself. He has wisely decided to go next year when he is older and in his last year at school. Its hard not to feel sad for him. But also gave us an opportunity to discuss social situations where we also feel left out because we are not part of the “in” crowd (I am sure we all feel like that sometimes!). Of course, for them it is mostly all the time. Al has a small group of core friends now, they can be a bit odd in their ways and he does comment on this… but I believe they have found one another through all of them being rejected at sometime in their lives. The senior years at high school can be slightly easier, especially as the individual starts to gain insight and maturity. I have seen the kids in action at school where they have been teasing a friend of my son’s with aspergers… it was cruel… that boy is now being homeschooled and is much happier. My son didn’;t want to be homeschooled and has chosen to “brave” it out… very hard at times. Good luck to everyone of you in this situation.

Comment by josie — May 12, 2009 @ 4:08 pm
if anyone lived in the orlando area, there is a WONDERFUL program called Social Bridges, http://www.socialbridges.com that offers “social coaching” to ASP children. this has been a HUGE help to my daughter.

Comment by amy wallace — May 12, 2009 @ 5:04 pm
Mom Blogs – Blogs for Moms…

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Trackback by Anonymous — May 12, 2009 @ 5:23 pm
This is so inspiring. My son is in 4th, and the bullying is so horrible. It has gotten to the point that they are poking him and making fun just to watch him cry. We are trying to learn how to stay calm and not to react. This gives so much hope !

Comment by Amy — May 12, 2009 @ 9:19 pm
What fine and helpful information!! Ljmorris

Comment by Linda Morris — May 13, 2009 @ 11:07 am
Our son is in 5th grade in an Ohio public school. His anxiety and agitation are getting worse as he gets older. So far he has denied being bullied. He says things that make me wonder though. He talks a lot about having to be ready to fight to defend himself. He’s very big and strong for his age, so this might be in his favor. His teachers have also not seen any bullying, but I worry about the higher grades. I’ve been told that the junior high and high school kids in this district are very “click-ish” and take over entire hallways, giving odd kids trouble if they find them in the wrong place at the wrong time. I think about homeschooling him, but it would be so hard. He doesn’t listen to us about anything. I wish there was a better option.

Comment by Jane — May 13, 2009 @ 12:44 pm
My almost 14 year old son sees the ads on television for depression and asks me if he is depressed beacause the people in the ads are…sad, and he feels that way sometimes too. I have told him that some people need medication to help them, but that the best think to fight depression is to get exercise and eat good food. He could be the type of kid who thinks a pill can help him. And I don’t want to go down that road.

He has sensory issues, and up until about 3 weeks ago, he had some real problems with outbursts at school, telling kids to STOP!!! really loudly, that their noises were bothering him. Well, we started this program of rewards for good behavior, and it has reallyu worked. Everyday he gets a + from all of his teachers if he has a good day, and if not, he gets a -. At eh end of the week if all of his teachers have givenhim pluses, then he gets a reward. The reward is usually a movie over the weekend, or pizza and a fun activity on friday night etc. It never has to be anything HUGE! But it is working. Yesterday I received an email from his tteacher telling me that he has not had any outbursts in his math class for 2 weeks, and he is learning to quietly ask people to lower their noice level etc. He got an A+ in science, an A+ in s social studies project and is doing WELL in math. I am not one to brag on my children, but I am so thrilled, as this sensory issue has been a BIG PROBLEM in our family. He just finished a 2 week run as a Workhouse orphan in the play OLIVER! (theater is his passion) and while he was rehearsin for 2 months and then doing the play, he kept up with his school work and really excelled. I share this with you all to encourage you in helping your aspie find something they are passionate about. I am looking forward to 8th grade for him, as teachers have told me boys really mature alot in 8th grade, especially ASPIE boys. anyway, thanks for letting me have a place to share my GOOD NEWS!

Comment by Sue Orr — May 14, 2009 @ 1:40 pm
My son, 13, is on medication for depression and anxiety for 3 years now. I see it makes a huge difference in the quality of life for him. I know there are people who do not beleive in medications for the AS child (and I used to be one), but when your child is miserable all of the time, you have to do whatever it takes. If you have ever had depression then you understand, and for a child to experience it breaks my heart. So for those who are on the fence, you should not rule it out entirely.

Comment by Carol — May 15, 2009 @ 4:38 pm
I’d like to second the previous comment. If someone were to ask me what my 12 year old son’s biggest disability was, I wouldn’t tell them “social issues”, I would tell them “fear and anxiety”. I too, started this journey swearing that I didn’t want to medicate my son, but found attention medicines made the difference between success and failure in elementary school. After several years of treatment though, the cumulative affect of an appetite suppressant really took its toll. The meds weren’t helping with attention and my son really wasn’t eating enough. After a choking incident, he stopped eating solid food altogether. In the meantime, his behaviors were off the charts in all directions…with too, too many things to address at once. We turned to an anxiety medication, Zoloft, to help him. Oh my God! What an astonishing change it has brought. I really, really wish we had done it years ago. Our “battle” count went down dramatically within weeks and for the first time in his life, he’s really keeping up with his homework, having brought a C- average up to a B+ in just a few short months. But even more importantly, he is able to take on the tasks of the day almost every day…and last night when I put him to bed after a nice weekend, he simply said, “Mom, I’m really happy!” Music to a mother’s ears, and something that has been a very, very long time in coming.

Comment by Christy Hubbard — May 18, 2009 @ 1:56 pm
I am a parent of a daughter who has aspergers. She is 11. I did not want to medicate my daughter however it got to the point where her anxiety and depression got so low that during one of her meltdowns she held a knife in front of her stomach and threatened to stab herself. I realised that we had to try medication. To my relief it has helped her. She is taking a mild dose of anti depressant and this seems to keep her highs and lows much more manageable. Her meltdowns are less frequent and not as severe. I can say that I can live daily life without that feeling of dread in my stomach as to what was going to happen next and she is able to function much better at school and at home. She still has difficulties with her friends (just seems to float between friends really) however she feels more at ease. I am keen to find some sort of program that might help her with some social skills. She unfortunately is at the age where listening to all Mum’s advice is a bit “boring”.

Comment by debbie — May 27, 2009 @ 10:02 pm
Hi i have an 18 year old daughter who has a child and have had such a hard time with her just like you have. I have now got an appt with a specialist and hoping that we can get her diagnosed with aspergers. She just wants to no that she isnt mad!! I work with special needs children.I have been on this website as my friends daughter shows lots of signs of aspergers but she wont admit there is anything wrong. I too have had the really bad threatning behaviour and by george it dont half scare you. I would love to chat to some one with the same problems in there life just to help and support each other and may be the kids could get involved to xx

Comment by Tracey — June 6, 2009 @ 4:06 pm