Great Article About Aspergers and College

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Hi-

I'm posting this here because I really hope parents of young Aspies will read it:

Taylor Sweeting Article

To put my website together, I read articles every day about the accomplishments of people with autism. This one on Taylor Sweeting is the first one I would say is essential reading for the parent of a kid with Aspergers. This is partly because Sweeting is such an inspiration-- he's graduating from MacMurray College in fall 2011 after serving as Student Association president and a resident assistant. But it's also because he does a great job of explaining some that help him succeed, like self-assessment and observation. Especially important to his success to college: frequent visits to the college his sister attended when he was in high school.

Strange that he was diagnosed with Asperger's when he didnt speak until age 4....obvious speech delay. That would certainly disqualify him under diagnostic criteria for Asperger's but certainly not for Autism. Sorry...details, you know? It bothers me when things like that are published because it confuses people when they are wondering if their child might have Asperger's, they read something like that and think "Oh my son/daughter didnt have a speech delay so he/she cant have Asperger's".
Other than that I enjoyed the article. I have an 18 year old daughter with Asperger's who wants to go to college. She had some very serious troubles last year due to her anxiety and did not finish high school. She decided herself that she wants her diploma and not the GED and is back in high school.

I didn't catch that, but it's a really good point. It should have been pointed out that the speech delay was unusual for Aspergers. Still, things like this make me glad that Aspergers is going away as a diagnosis completely distinct from autism-- I think the stark separation encourages people to think all sorts of ways that just don't reflect reality. Taylor's speech delay is an anomaly, but I know very few adults with Aspergers who don't have some traits or experiences that fall outside the definition of AS.

Is the distinction between AS and HFA ever really useful?

I agree with you completely. I think we should call it what it is. I have Asperger's and out of my five kids I have two Aspies and one Autie. There may be differences but then again if you compare two different people with Asperger's you will find differences in sensory issues, social issues, ect...same can be said about people with Autism. I find that, at least in my family, that we on the "spectrum" are not all that different. I do understand why they initially separated the two but I think it should all fall under one diagnosis.

it really depends on what they mean by "didnt talk". if a child can say single words by 2 yrs old (mama, dada, etc) and 2-3 word phrases by 3 yrs old (want milk, go park, etc), then they DO NOT have a significant speech delay described in the diagnostic criteria for classic autism. that is still delayed, as most children are more advanced in their language skills by then, but its not significantly delayed.

my son had the ability to say single words by 2, but didnt use them. he refused to talk, even when asked, except to tell you "no". at 3 he was using the communicative phrases, but thats ALL he used until he was 4. he usually chose not to talk, and often would not use words even if he knew them, preferring to grab you by the finger and lead you into the kitchen and stand in front of the fridge before even uttering the word milk. so he was delayed, but not enough to fit that one criteria.

all of my kids have been on the slower end for speech, my asd son was no different there than his brothers. my middle son had only 4 words at 2, by 3 he WOULD NOT SHUT UP =P he still chatters constantly but is in speech for a lisp. my oldest got words a little late, but it was the severe impairment in intelligibility that was the worst for him. he was completely unintelligible at 5, even when he tried to communicate no one apart from me could understand him, and it was like that until he was about 7. he did 6.5 yrs of speech. with this history, it was impossible to separate out the speech issues my asd son has in regards to whether they are caused by autism, or a natural variation in development as displayed by his brothers.

in that article, its interesting to note that sweeting was one of the first kids diagnosed with asperger's. perhaps at that time there was more of a focus on lack of severe impairment in making the distinction between classic and asperger's. or he had a doc that wanted to try out the new dx. even today, there is so much misdiagnosing going on that the lines are blurred beyond belief.

i, too, will be glad when there is just "autism".

Vector, this was a really useful article, thanks very much for pointing it out.

One of the take-aways for me was that part of the reason for the student's success has to do with him being at a smaller college which was more accepting of people with different ways of thinking. When I think about attending a largish university, I can imagine someone "getting lost in the crowd" and I can also imagine larger universities not being able to teach very well to students with individualized needs. For this reason, do you think it would be fair to generalize that people with ASDs who are interested in earning a college degree would probably do better at smaller colleges in general?