Son diagnosed with adhd and autism

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Apologies for writing here as I don´t have autism.
My son of 6 has been diagnosed with adhd and autism, and advises would be greatly appreciated.

To start, I live in Japan which my native language(Spanish) is not the same as my son which makes it hard to communicate and tell exactly what I want to tell him, and this situation took me here.

For me he is so important that I do not want to keep committing the same mistakes I might have been committing. I am not saying that I am committing mistakes on purpose but I just have been acting to him as he would be as a normal child.

The things I am concerned are:
- He never tries to understand other people's feelings e.g. he has an older sister and if he feels he is right, he will punch her sister until she starts crying.

- He will concentrate for very long time on things he likes. He cannot concentrate at all on things he is not interested.

- When he does something bad and we (parents) ask him why he did it, he will never look into our eyes and answer

- Sometimes he will pee/poo in his pants because he is too shy to tell his teacher he needs to go to the restroom

- He keeps talking about things he likes, and he repeats over and over what he has mentioned

- When he gets upset, excited he shouts

- He cannot build things (he looses his concentration). In things he likes he can build a lot of things e.g. lego

- He cannot get instructions right. He needs her/her teacher to be instructed face to face

- As a father I grew up playing a different kinds sports, not to say that I am good at any sport in specific but he is not interested in any sport at all

- when other people is talking he breaks into the conversation and he brings up his own conversation


What would be the best direction to point him? any ideas or comments would be greatly appreciated. I do not want to commit any mistakes and I just want him to become happy.

Welcome to Wrong Planet. You don't have to have autism to post here and there's parents of autistic kids who are members. The good thing about this place is you can get the advice of parents like yourself and people with autism, including kids with autism like me.

Not understanding the feelings of others is a common trait of autism. Probably more like he's unable to rather than he refuses to. Hitting however is something that needs to stop.

Having fixed special interests in some things and lack of interest or lack of concentration in other things, is a very common autistic trait and a lot of us are wired that way. ADHD plays a part in that too.

Lack of eye contact is also a very common trait of autism. Many of us, even adults, have an extremely difficult time with it.

Lot's of kids with autism your son's age and older wear diapers because of problems like these. You son has a serious neurological impairment that makes interactions like eye contact and calling on a teacher very difficult. I was wearing diapers in case of an accident until was 13. It's not something to be ashamed of or embarrassed about. It's something he doesn't like I'm sure. Especially when he goes in his pants without protection.

Talking about special interests all the time is another very common trait of autism.

Being vocal when excited is a very common trait of autism, especially with kids.

And everything else you mentioned is typical common textbook autistic behavior. A lot of wich I have myself. My parents did a lot of research on autism and did a lot of consulting to the point where they basically became experts on the subject. Knowing how do deal with an autistic child requires knowledge of autism. Knowing that my parents understand me has always meant so much to me. I also have an occupational therapist which helps a great deal.

Ezra, thank you for replying.

One of my major concerns is that he has a one year older sister. He is in 1st grade and his sister is in 2nd grade. Because my wife and myself work, they come back from school around 4pm. My wife comes back around 6:30pm. Between that gap they fight and he gets violent(both of them, my daughter knows when to stop).

Should I impose rules when getting violent? I don't know about any punishments.

He does like rules and studying so that after studying he gets to play videogames. I don't want to take apart his videogames if he does him homework.


Because he has aspergers autism and adhd, the doctor said it is difficult to detect it at a younger age. That is why we are new to this.

There are many parents of autistic kids on this site, as EzraS says. You're not alone! I believe there's also a parents' board.

I'm not sure what resources you have, but several therapies in my early childhood were very helpful to my development. I'll ask Mom later about the specific names. You could look into speech therapy. Depending on the therapist they teach etiquette, empathy, speaking clearly, nonverbal cues, and figurative language.

Eye contact can feel very invasive to autistic people. It's exhausting to look people directly in the eye. I find looking at people's noses or foreheads to be a good compromise. It's not direct eye contact, but most people don't notice.

There are ways to teach lessons using video games, especially Minecraft. That might help him learn material that might be uninteresting.

You could help him make checklists so he can process instructions better. If he has a phone or something, he can set alarms. There's actually a name for this problem: executive dysfunction. If your son's school can have an aide help him throughout the day, that might help.

Why does lack of interest in sports worry you?

Autistcs are people and thus mature albeit often differently then typical people.

Some of the most well known successful autistics such as Temple Grandin were violent and smeared poo around as kids. I am not saying your kid will grow up to be a famous or a genius, but the future is probably not as hopeless as it looks now.

As for looking in the other peoples eyes what was said by Rats and Cats above is correct.

You will have to explain to him that breaking into conversations annoys other people. That and other social niceties are not something we autistis instinctively know. These have to be explicitly taught.

There is nothing wrong with him not liking sports, it is not something that needs to be corrected. Teach him by using the subjects he is interested in. Guide him to use his interests in more productive ways.

Ezra, thank you again for replying.
It is just that his only hobby is playing videogames, and if he does his homework it is hard for me to punish him taking away his games when he fights when his sister. We have tried timeouts, but timeouts will not work for him because wherever he is while his timeout, he ends up playing with things that are around him, even with his fingers, bottom line, he does not care getting punished with timeouts.

I have not heard he gets violent In school but he does hides friends's toys.

rats_and_cats, the reason I am interested in making him sports, specially team sports is because I believe that at the end when become adults we have to interact with other people no matter what. team sports require cordination, communication and among other skills that can help us once we become adults and start working in real life. I have found other threads in this forums and found that some people say that pushing their kids to play sports is just a waste of time.

In our case I am thinking of helping him trying him something he likes. Does not matter the sport as long as he likes practicing it. In case he does not like practicing a specific sport, of course I will not force him to practice it.

We have found that he loves cars and watching races on tv so that possibly we might take him to some carts classes. When he asked him, he said he would really like trying that.

I live in Japan and japanese is not my mother language which makes it hard to find useful materials for me that I can apply to my son. Any sources will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you everyone for taking their time to read and reply.