it's 'national autism week'...

[shockey]

apologies if the is a db but news comes to me late. few of us haven't been touched by this cruel condition which covers a wide range of 'types.' my best friend's eldest daughter lives with Asperger's and she/my friend have done a wonderful job helping her develop into a wonderful young woman. she is graduating from u. of rhode island next month but her limitations are heartbreaking. knowing she will never fall in love and unlikely to ever marry or have children, it's sadly affected our friendship. we don't get together as families anymore. I think we feel guilty having three healthy boys.

I dunno... it's just uncomfortable talking about out kids when we always thought our kids would be like cousins (wayne's been my bf for 45 years, since little league). I mean we were each other's 'best man' when we married but it's become uncomfortable.

other have this problem? ???

 

[Mizzougrad96]

My cousin has severe Aspergers and has been married for 25 years and has two great kids.

Obviously, I don't know the full situation with your friend's kid, but never underestimate how much medication can help.

 

[outofplace]

My cousin has severe Aspergers and has been married for 25 years and has two great kids.

Obviously, I don't know the full situation with your friend's kid, but never underestimate how much medication can help.

People with Aspergers tend to be very high-functioning relative to most on the autism spectrum. That is one of the difficulties with autism, that it is something of a catch-all for a very wide range of conditions.

 

[EStreetJoe]

Unfortunately, going forward nobody will be diagnosed with Aspergers again. In the DSM-5 (which psychologists use to diagnose patients) it is being eliminated as a diagnosis, along with other disorders on the other end of the autism spectrum.

 

[93Devil]

apologies if the is a db but news comes to me late. few of us haven't been touched by this cruel condition which covers a wide range of 'types.' my best friend's eldest daughter lives with Asperger's and she/my friend have done a wonderful job helping her develop into a wonderful young woman. she is graduating from u. of rhode island next month but her limitations are heartbreaking. knowing she will never fall in love and unlikely to ever marry or have children, it's sadly affected our friendship. we don't get together as families anymore. I think we feel guilty having three healthy boys.

I dunno... it's just uncomfortable talking about out kids when we always thought our kids would be like cousins (wayne's been my bf for 45 years, since little league). I mean we were each other's 'best man' when we married but it's become uncomfortable.

other have this problem? ???

I guess the first step would be to stop calling it a cruel condition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Grandin

It might limit their daughter in some ways, but it's not like she is a leper. Read the above link and look at some of the **** Grandin accomplished.

 

[outofplace]

apologies if the is a db but news comes to me late. few of us haven't been touched by this cruel condition which covers a wide range of 'types.' my best friend's eldest daughter lives with Asperger's and she/my friend have done a wonderful job helping her develop into a wonderful young woman. she is graduating from u. of rhode island next month but her limitations are heartbreaking. knowing she will never fall in love and unlikely to ever marry or have children, it's sadly affected our friendship. we don't get together as families anymore. I think we feel guilty having three healthy boys.

I dunno... it's just uncomfortable talking about out kids when we always thought our kids would be like cousins (wayne's been my bf for 45 years, since little league). I mean we were each other's 'best man' when we married but it's become uncomfortable.

other have this problem? ???

I guess the first step would be to stop calling it a cruel condition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Grandin

It might limit their daughter in some ways, but it's not like she is a leper. Read the above link and look at some of the **** Grandin accomplished.

Grandin was the featured speaker at a conference I attended a while back. She really is amazing. Very witty, determined and self-aware.

Unfortunately, not everybody with autism can function at that level.

Not everybody with autism can do that. Some are much higher functioning than others.

 

[93Devil]

Well, their friend is graduating from college.

 

[outofplace]

Well, their friend is graduating from college.

Doesn't mean she doesn't have severe limitations in other areas.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

apologies if the is a db but news comes to me late. few of us haven't been touched by this cruel condition which covers a wide range of 'types.' my best friend's eldest daughter lives with Asperger's and she/my friend have done a wonderful job helping her develop into a wonderful young woman. she is graduating from u. of rhode island next month but her limitations are heartbreaking. knowing she will never fall in love and unlikely to ever marry or have children, it's sadly affected our friendship. we don't get together as families anymore. I think we feel guilty having three healthy boys.

I dunno... it's just uncomfortable talking about out kids when we always thought our kids would be like cousins (wayne's been my bf for 45 years, since little league). I mean we were each other's 'best man' when we married but it's become uncomfortable.

other have this problem? ???

I guess the first step would be to stop calling it a cruel condition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Grandin

It might limit their daughter in some ways, but it's not like she is a leper. Read the above link and look at some of the **** Grandin accomplished.

Grandin was the featured speaker at a conference I attended a while back. She really is amazing. Very witty, determined and self-aware.

Unfortunately, not everybody with autism can function at that level.

Not everybody with autism can do that. Some are much higher functioning than others.

My wife saw her speak. She came home raving about how amazing she was. Grandin also came to my area a few weeks ago, and the line outside the place stretched around the block.

 

[RickStain]

Yeah, let me promise you something:

Parents of kids who are a little further along the spectrum don't want to hear about all the amazing things that less autistic kids are doing.

 

[Tarheel316]

apologies if the is a db but news comes to me late. few of us haven't been touched by this cruel condition which covers a wide range of 'types.' my best friend's eldest daughter lives with Asperger's and she/my friend have done a wonderful job helping her develop into a wonderful young woman. she is graduating from u. of rhode island next month but her limitations are heartbreaking. knowing she will never fall in love and unlikely to ever marry or have children, it's sadly affected our friendship. we don't get together as families anymore. I think we feel guilty having three healthy boys.

I dunno... it's just uncomfortable talking about out kids when we always thought our kids would be like cousins (wayne's been my bf for 45 years, since little league). I mean we were each other's 'best man' when we married but it's become uncomfortable.

other have this problem? ???

I guess the first step would be to stop calling it a cruel condition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Grandin

It might limit their daughter in some ways, but it's not like she is a leper. Read the above link and look at some of the **** Grandin accomplished.

Grandin was the featured speaker at a conference I attended a while back. She really is amazing. Very witty, determined and self-aware.

Unfortunately, not everybody with autism can function at that level.

Not everybody with autism can do that. Some are much higher functioning than others.

Most definitely true. My middle brother has autism and lives in a group home. He's 52 but child-like. Though he could never live in on his own he does OK in the group home setting.

 

[93Devil]

Well, I think it's OK to talk freely about their child. They might actually be proud of what their child has accomplished.

 

[outofplace]

Well, I think it's OK to talk freely about their child. They might actually be proud of what their child has accomplished.

That may be true and I agree that shockey probably should just talk with his friend about it. I just think it is important to remember that you cannot lump all people with autism together. There is a very wide variation in the level of disability along the spectrum.

 

[RickStain]

It's not anyone's fault whatsoever, but I get soooo tired of the Temple Grandin did this/my friend's cousin with Asperger's accomplished that conversations.

My son's not going to do that stuff. He's not going to go to college, he's not going to hold down a job. He's freaky smart in his own ways and I'm thankful that it's not even worse, and I look forward to continuing to see him through his life's journey as he progresses and grows in his own ways, but he's not going to do that stuff and we're not going to be able to pretend everything's normal and he's just a little quirky.

A lot of parents with autistic children do a really poor job managing the line between giving your child real chances to challenge themselves and not being honest with themselves about what they are dealing with. I'm kind of thankful in a super weird way that my son's not just a little less disabled, because I don't have to deal with that. It's clear what we're dealing with.

We had a family friend who is going through the process right now. Their son turned 18 last year and has Asperger's. His Special Ed program dragged him through high school, but he dropped out of college quickly, flunking his classes badly. In a five-minute conversation, you'd probably just get the impression that he was kinda weird but not that he had a full-on disorder. But he is utterly incapable of setting and meeting goals or taking directions from a superior for any length of time, so getting and holding a job will be a disaster when he gets around to trying it.

And so now all of a sudden they are realizing he is 18 and completely incapable of living on his own or supporting himself in any way, and as silly as it sounds, that apparently never occurred to them until just now, and it's causing all kinds of emotional turmoil and strife. I still don't think it's sunk in with him yet, to be honest. He talks a lot about grand plans he has for his future, but he doesn't have a prayer of actually accomplishing them.

 

[outofplace]

Thank you for sharing that about your son and about the 18-year-old. I think people need to hear those stories as much as they need to hear about people like Temple Grandin for the exact reason you stated. People need to realize just how different the disability is from one end of the spectrum to the other.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

The other thing, about Temple Grandin's story, is that she had many struggles with employers before she became established.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

It's not anyone's fault whatsoever, but I get soooo tired of the Temple Grandin did this/my friend's cousin with Asperger's accomplished that conversations.

My son's not going to do that stuff. He's not going to go to college, he's not going to hold down a job. He's freaky smart in his own ways and I'm thankful that it's not even worse, and I look forward to continuing to see him through his life's journey as he progresses and grows in his own ways, but he's not going to do that stuff and we're not going to be able to pretend everything's normal and he's just a little quirky.

A lot of parents with autistic children do a really poor job managing the line between giving your child real chances to challenge themselves and not being honest with themselves about what they are dealing with. I'm kind of thankful in a super weird way that my son's not just a little less disabled, because I don't have to deal with that. It's clear what we're dealing with.

We had a family friend who is going through the process right now. Their son turned 18 last year and has Asperger's. His Special Ed program dragged him through high school, but he dropped out of college quickly, flunking his classes badly. In a five-minute conversation, you'd probably just get the impression that he was kinda weird but not that he had a full-on disorder. But he is utterly incapable of setting and meeting goals or taking directions from a superior for any length of time, so getting and holding a job will be a disaster when he gets around to trying it.

And so now all of a sudden they are realizing he is 18 and completely incapable of living on his own or supporting himself in any way, and as silly as it sounds, that apparently never occurred to them until just now, and it's causing all kinds of emotional turmoil and strife. I still don't think it's sunk in with him yet, to be honest. He talks a lot about grand plans he has for his future, but he doesn't have a prayer of actually accomplishing them.

Did your friend's son go to school full time or part time, and did he go away to school? That might have been part of the issue. If he wasn't academically prepared, he might have been better going part time and being able to concentrate. And of course, going away to school has it's own stresses for any kid, much less one with Asperger's. Perhaps going part time at a community college would have been better.

 

[RickStain]

He was living at home and taking three classes online at the local community college, two of them online-only and one that his dad drove him in for twice a week.

It's one of those where it'd be easy to get frustrated with him because if you didn't know better, you'd think he was just a lazy teenager, but it's a real outgrowth of his disorder that he gets obsessed with whatever he wants to do at any given moment and gets severe emotional distress doing anything else. It sounds weird, but I've seen it in person: Even simple daily chore lists from his parents turn into epic emotional struggles that end with him shutting up in his room, balling his eyes out. (Telling that story reminds me of the kid with Asperger's I had in my English classes in college. He seemed a bit odd but no-big-deal until one day he's outside the classroom building, tears streaming down his bright-red face, screaming hysterically at someone who was smoking a cigarette a few steps too close to the door, which is against the rules).

 

[cranberry]

A lot of parents with autistic children do a really poor job managing the line between giving your child real chances to challenge themselves and not being honest with themselves about what they are dealing with. I'm kind of thankful in a super weird way that my son's not just a little less disabled, because I don't have to deal with that. It's clear what we're dealing with.

I coach sports for kids and young adults with special needs in my area and see this kind of stuff quite a bit. The denial usually goes away gradually over the years as parents understand their kids' capabilities and come to terms. But not always. About a year ago the parents of one of the kids I've known for years, a sweet girl with Williams syndrome who is about 24 or 25 now, insisted on letting her take driver's ed even though there's no way she's physically or emotionally capable of taking on that kind of responsibility. They take the position that she should be able to at least try to do anything she wants. The rest of us kind of shake our heads.

Another one of my favorites, Sam, has twice been caught taking his mom's car out for a spin around the neighborhood. They keep the keys hidden now.

 

[RickStain]

I read every single scrap of paperwork that comes my way, and when my son was formally diagnosed, we got a huge book from Autism Speaks that I'm betting a lot of parents don't end up reading all that closely. It talked about how the two most stressful times in an autistic-child parent's life are immediately after the diagnosis and when the child turns 18, because of the denial we're talking about.

It was a year-long lead-up to the diagnosis, so we knew it was coming, but I was still in a bit of "Well, Abed is hilarious and family-friend's son is pretty cool, so this isn't a big deal he'll just be quirky once he learns to talk" denial. Then in all that paperwork they gave us is some clinical stuff about life expectations, written in no-nonsense scientific terms, and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I went into a pretty deep depression for a few months, but at least I dealt with it then and not in 15 years.

We're struggling with what to education-wise with my son right now. He's in pre-K, and his school insisted he should be in a regular pre-K classroom because his academic skills are off the charts but he has almost no communication or social skills, so why not challenge him?

I suspect the real reason is that special ed is expensive and every kid they can get out of it is another $100k or whatever on the bottom line. But who wants to argue with the school psychologist who is telling you your son is too smart to be in special ed? So for now we're going along with it, and he's crashing around a regular pre-K classroom taking up *way* too much of the teacher's time at the expense of all the other kids. But when kindergarten comes around, we're telling them we want him either in special ed or in regular class with a personal classroom aide.