Asperger’s
What does Asperger’s
mean to you? What emotion (if any) does
it evoke? I would venture to guess….most
people who hear that word have no emotion attached to it. It evokes a response such as “yeah…ok…I have
no idea what that means” and most people just leave it at that and move on with
their day. I, on the other hand, am
deeply affected by Asperger’s. I live
with it everyday. I have a daughter with
Asperger’s. And, there is no cure. She will live with it the rest of her
life. I can’t take her to the hospital
and do surgery to take it out. I can’t
take her to a clinic and give her radiation or chemotherapy to eradicate the
“bad cells” making her “sick”. She has
NO chance for cure. SO, the only thing
we can do is give her tools to help her manage it. We can help her find coping mechanisms to be
a successful member of society. All of
this takes patience, true grit, perseverance, and compassion.
Asperger’s
characteristics are as follows:
·
Insistence
on sameness/fairness: easily overwhelmed by minimal changes in routines,
sensitive to environmental
stressors, preference for rituals.
·
Impairment
in social interactions: difficulty understanding the “rules” of interaction,
poor comprehension of
jokes and metaphor, pedantic speaking style.
·
Restricted
range of social competence: preoccupation with singular topics, asking
repetitive questions, obsessively collecting items.
·
Inattention:
poor organizational skills, easily distracted, focused on irrelevant stimuli,
difficulty learning in group
contexts.
·
Poor
motor coordination: slow clerical speed, clumsy gait, unsuccessful in games
involving motor skills.
·
Academic
difficulties: restricted problem solving skills, literal thinking, and
deficiencies with abstract reasoning.
Easily overwhelmed by homework assignments, tests, etc.
·
Emotional
vulnerability: low self-esteem, easily overwhelmed, poor coping with stressors,
self-critical. High anxiety, easily
overwhelmed and tipped to a fight or flight response. Meltdowns/tantrums are a common occurrence,
even in older kids.
·
Behavior
serves a function, is related to context, and is a form of communication.
·
Maturity
is delayed. Most Asperger’s are about 3
years behind typical maturity levels.
Next question you
might ask: Why do you want to change
someone with Asperger’s. My answer is
why not do your best to help someone with a disability so they can have the
best chance possible for a life of independence? I am not proposing changing them (as I said
before there is no cure), I am proposing giving them tools to assimilate into
society to their best potential. Why do we do surgery on a child with a heart
problem (for example my son). Why do we cure
someone with Cancer? Why do I work so
hard to give Nicolas skills such as reading, riding a bike, and counting
money? Why don’t we accept things the
way they are? Because we want the best
for our children. I see Maggie struggle
on a daily basis. She has a very
difficult time getting along with others and understanding her behaviors and
how they affect others. She struggles
with close friendships. She struggles
being in a room with a lot of noise. She
has told me that hearing me whistle sounds shrill and piercing, that it feels
almost painful. She insists on fairness;
which causes conflict with others. She
struggles with doing tasks that seem overwhelming. She doesn’t read social cues well and
therefore gets bullied on a regular basis.
She spends 95% of her weekend evenings in her room alone. NOT normal for a teenager. She doesn’t like it. She cries because she sees her friends on Facebook
out and about doing social things…and she is never invited. She doesn’t know how to initiate
friendships. She is shy and
insecure. She is awkward and unaware of
how she appears to others. She is immature. She has meltdowns and tantrums on a regular
basis at home, causing conflict and tension.
In turn, it erodes her self-esteem.
What kind of life is this? It’s
lonely and it is unhappy. I want to help
her figure out how to cope with all of this in a healthy way. I want her to understand herself and learn
how to recognize when she is feeling overwhelmed and anxious and then have a
repertoire of tools to fall back on to overcome that anxiety so she can “fit
in” to our social norms as best as she POSSIBLY can. I don’t think that is expecting too much for
her. In fact, I think it is being a
responsible parent who is doing what a parent should do. Our job as parents is to prepare our children
to be independent adults who are capable of holding a job, having healthy
relationships, and managing their affairs (and I don’t mean relational
affairs!)
