Hi, new member with family aspie

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Hi, I have a younger sibling that's not long been diagnosed with aspergers, I've been looking over these forums for a few months and thought I'd join. I find the quirks of my little aspie quite frustrating and just want to know how best to deal with situations and get to grips with how they might be viewing the world. Anyway, hello everyone!

Hello, and welcome!

If you want to understand how we view the world, consider this: you find a single aspie frustrating, but we are trapped in an entire world of people who are just as alien - or quirky, or whatever word you prefer - to us as an aspie is to you. And that world understands what we can't do, and forces us to try to do it anyway, but almost none of them ever even imagine there is anything they can't do. I'm not accusing you of this, but most of the world doesn't even consider that they can't understand aspies - they just assume we can't understand them, and that's it.

I know that the first creature I recognised as a fellow thinking, feeling being was a cat. That's how alien people were to me, that I could make a connection more easily with a cat. And by the time I was five or six, I knew they were living in a world they hadn't made and didn't know how to cope with; I knew that instinctively, because I recognised they faced the same sort of problems I did. Humans were like the little characters in a video game, where they stand there and wait for you to figure out you've got to ask if they have any fish to trade for your nuts, so you can go trade the fish for the key you need to get into the dungeon... frustrating, incomprehensible, but with the power to keep you stuck where you are until you figure out what you're supposed to do, and not offering any clues to help you figure it out.

I hope that helps a little.

Thank you, I think the hardest bit for me is a combination of his age and intelligence. He is 4 but very, very clever. He learns comlex things quickly. I taught him how to understand a computer in about 2 months yet he can't understand something simple like pasta tastes the same whatever shape it is or its not okay to scream or spit. And he really doesn't understand feelings. He'll be naughty and I'll say he's hurt my feelings/hurt me/embarrassed me but he'll have a melt down because stopping whatever he was doing has hurt HIS feelings. Also his logic is pretty concrete, saying "because I say so" holds utterly no weight with him because he has no concept of children doing as adults say. (I'm much older) I just get the impression he thinks I'm mean a lot of the time because I'm always telling him to stop screaming/spitting/throwing stuff/doing dangerous things.

I was a lot like your brother. I was able to read - and understand - Readers Digest by the time I went into first grade. But I didn't understand people at all...

I'm sure he's difficult; I was quite a pain for years. I probably still am although I hope not quite so much so.

A few points: pasta does not taste the same no matter what the shape - not to us. The different texture can make a huge difference to those of us with sensory issues. Before you disregard those issues, I'm 52 now. I just figured out less than a year ago that Aspergers was the one thing that explained all the strange issues in my life. Right after that, an eye doctor finally figured out the precise nature of the eye problem I was born with (ocular albinism: I have no pigment in my macula) - and apologised for using bright lights, because he admitted they must have hurt my eyes. I was shocked, not at the idea that bright lights hurt my eyes - I did know that - but at the notion that, among all the other sensory torments, that one which had gotten lost somewhere in the middle was one I had a genuine medical excuse for. That medically validated pain was real, and something I was always very aware of - yet it was so much less intense than other things like certain noises or smells. Or tastes and textures.

Why do you dismiss the idea that stopping him from doing something he wants to do hurts his feelings? Just because you view it as irritating, wrong, or dangerous does not mean his feelings aren't hurt. That does not mean you should always let him continue, but you're likely to have more success if you at least understand he does have feelings, and stopping something he's focused on will hurt those feelings. Our minds don't work the same, and in some cases, stopping us - or at least me - from doing something, no matter how good the reason, is painful. I've observed myself in situations where I stop myself - and the result is often a very painful internal dissonance and temporary dysfunction. Stop him when you need to, but at least be aware that it is very likely you are hurting him, in ways I doubt he is yet capable of fully understanding. (I'm a writer, I'm pretty introspective for that reason, and I'm 52 - and I still don't perfectly understand them and certainly can't explain them very well to anyone who doesn't share the experience. As an analogy, though, I think of it as stopping a machine by jamming a rod into the gears.)

Finally, "because I said so" never would have worked with me, either. And you need to be careful. You can destroy your own authority in his eyes very easily. As a personal example, when I was six, my parents wanted to leave my kitten with the vet while we went on vacation. I didn't like the idea anyway - and when we stopped at the vet's, I could hear dogs and cats protesting and calling out for help. I said it was a bad place, but my parents ignored my concerns, and told me vets "helped" animals. When we got home, the vet said my cat was dead. My second cat went to the same vet when I was twelve. He died the same day, after they sent him home. Two cats, one nine months old, the other less than three years old, two vet visits, two deaths. And neither spaying (which was supposed to be done for the kitten while she was boarded) nor FUS (feline urological syndrome) are normally fatal. As I grew up, I heard a lot of dark rumours around town about this vet, and finally learned that he hated small animals. I was right in the first place - but adults learn to ignore their senses in favour of what they "know". When we're smart, and able to pick up on details everyone else has learned to miss, we very quickly learn not to trust anyone just because they said so. I wish I'd been more stubborn; my poor kitten might not have suffered the way I learned she probably did before she died. (He would have done the spaying - but then left her in a filthy cage with only intermittent food and water, surrounded by other terrified, suffering animals. I actually talked to a teenage girl who worked as an "assistant" there...)

Actually a lot of NT 4 year olds still think that the taste of the food depends on the shape, have understanding that other people have feelings, and have tantrums,meltdowns, etc. Preschoolers are generally very concrete, literal thinkers with little control of their emotions (I've worked in preschools and have studied child development). From what I read combined with my childhood experience, a key difference is that NT kids outgrow this type of behavior in the early elementary school years while Aspie kids continue this type of behavior much later than the norms. It's a developmental thing similar to why most 8 month olds can't walk but most 18 month olds walk well without support while kids with certain types orthopedic impediments will need special support and services to learn to walk at age 4.

IMO- it sounds like he's just acting 4- My psychologist says you can't even diagnose Aspergers alone based on behavior (as opposed to HFA which may involve language delays) until around 6 just because behavior in NT preschoolers is so variable.

Welcome!

Welkome to WrongPlanet.

The WP Kink

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Thank you so much for your replies, especially theWanderer and AllieKat thank you for your insight Unfortunately it seems my bro is getting worse. Our mum was a kindergarten teacher with a lot of experience with under 8's and I think she's shocked by how different he is. It's a pretty steep learning curve for us all. Does anyone have any experience of special schools or just mainstream education?

It isn't so much that he's "getting worse" as that the differences are more pronounced as we get older. That lasts for a while, until we grow up and learn to adapt - as much as we are capable of.

I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, when autism meant only those kids who sat silently rocking in corners, so no one had any idea what my problem was. And I was reading at such an advanced level so young that I got the "genius" label slapped on me, which further confused the issue, along with my vision problems. In other words, I only have experience with mainstream education. Which was a disaster for me. On the other hand, they didn't have IEPs then, either.

Unfortunately, teachers, with so much experience of "normal" kids, are often the very worst at dealing with us. I had a small number of very good teachers, a huge number of mediocre ones who simply couldn't handle me - and a decent number of outright nightmares, teachers who provided the fuel for horror stories. Like my second grade teacher, who because I came off so oddly, got it into her head that I was lying when I said I had to hold the book close to read it. She convinced the school nurse of this as well, and together, "for my own good", they tried forcing me in front of the class to read with the book at a "normal" distance. I am legally blind, with very visibly crossed eyes...

Edited to add: The problem with teachers is - usually - a simple one. They know too much... but, for us, everything they know is wrong. It is often said that it is easier to teach someone totally ignorant than someone who has learned the wrong things. Well, however good they might be with "normal" kids, a teacher who learns coping skills for those kids will know the wrong skills - for coping with us. And learning to overcome those wrong skills will be harder than it might be for someone who has no idea how to deal with any kids.