Splinter skills are where a person with autism has skills in one particular area, not necessarily to the level of a savant but not at the level they have other academic skills. So say a kid with ASD who scores at the 50th percentile for maths but barely manages to read or write would be considered to have splinter skills at maths.
Where the idiocy comes in is where a kid with ASD is achieving academically across the board and educators persist in describing this as a splinter skill. Every single area they are achieving in. That’s pretty impressive.
Learning differences do seem to be part of Aspergers, even when kids test as gifted. It’s hard when accommodations are seen as ‘helping’ when they’re really just evening out the playing field. My older son uses a computer to do all writing and when or if he returns to school, that’s not negotiable. He’s got no ability to rote learn and that has led to being unable to memorise maths facts or the like. We were ‘lucky’ in that an MRI scan found organic brain damage so that it’s quite reasonable for him not to be expected to do arithmetic. Mathematically in terms of concepts he’s very talented. In terms of learning his tables, it is to laugh.
My 9 yo boy was diagnosed just before his third birthday. He hadbegun speaking in the typical manner, but lost all his language by the time he was 26 mo. old. He didn’t speak again for many months, just shrieked or cried or took my hand and pulled me to what he wanted. (Pulling, not pointing at the wanted object, is another indicator of autism spectrum disorder.)
We had him evaluated and he was placed in early intervention, then moved to developmental preschool, where he started receiving speech therapy and OT. Whether it was the therapy, or the influence of Disney - because he started to sing Disney songs before he resumed speaking - he was speaking single words by the time he was 3 1/2 and full sentences sometime during his 4th year.
He was always social in that he was interested in other people, including kids, but he didn’t know how to approach kids and just join in and play. He was also always very affectionate and touch was calming, not disturbing.
He’s now mainstreamed in a regular classroom and has been for the past four years, without an aide, and does very well.
To Sunspace, we got our son’s diagnosis by consulting a pediatric neurologist who had an autism clinic ‘team’ consisting of a nurse, a speech therapist, an occupational therapist, and a psychologist. If something like that is available for adults, it would seem to be the optimal way to be evaluated.
I’ve skimmed it when reading about AS, before. Didn’t know much.
They seem very similar to me, with no real concrete thing to set them apart. I might have that, but some of the points seem contrary to me("an intense fascination with letters or numbers, Significant difficulty in understanding verbal language[I might not be the best conversationalist, but I can understand what people mean], Learn expressive language in a peculiar way, echo rote memorize the sentence structure without understanding the meaning (echolalia), reverse pronouns , Normal development until 18-24 months, then regression, strong auditory and visual memory , Difficulty answering “Wh–” questions, such as “what,” “where,” “who,” and “why” , etc.)
Thanks Primaflora it’s good to have company.
I’ve just gotten onto the idea of having my son use a word-processor type tool in school, his fine motor skills are hugely lacking and impede regular classwork incredibly. I’m not sure what we’ll work out, exactly, the district I live in has this big plan to give laptops to all 6th graders this year so we might just do that, and make sure his teachers know he’ll be doing nigh all his note-taking that way. I have spent a lot of time this summer trying to familiarize him with the basic keyboard, but how exactly is a kid with fine motor control issues supposed to learn to type!?
They used early language development as one of the signs pointing to an Asp’s diagnosis with my son, also. Yes, he spoke early and clearly and was using complete sentences quite young, but I rather presumed that it was because he spent so much time with babysitters.
I usually find that when there’s a young’in I can’t understand clearly, they’ve never really had to learn to enunciate or use correct terminology because mom or dad or grandma knows that bahbie indicates a favored blanket or whatever. As a single parent, my son spent a large amount of his waking hours with sitters and their kids, if he had been unable to make himself understood he’d have been SOL. I was surprised when the powers that be thought his early language skills to be so telling, his pre-school teachers had even made notes about it, things like asking for a beverage instead of milk or juice,etc.
I think Mama Zappa described it best, regular interactions can be bewildering to my son. It’s incredibly frustrating for us both, if such a thing exists I’d say he’d be high functioning Asp’s. He actually does quite well with small talk and strangers, its more apparent when one tries to carry on a ‘real’ conversation and he misses the regular give and take, he tends to monologue at the other person.
I’ve heard it said that only children, particularly boys, are diagnosed with PDDs far more often than other kids, anyone else find that to be informally true?
Where do you draw the line between Asperger’s and a package of extreme shyness, low self-esteem, social incompetence, and “not working up to your potential in school?” I graduated high school in 1967, with all those symptoms, and I never heard of Asperger’s until a year ago.
Even if I had AS as a kid, would there be any point to a diagnosis now? Obviously, there’s a lot I don’t understand about AS.
Queen Tonya have you tried a program like Mavis Beacon? P the E’s been able to use a keyboard despite poor fine motor skills. P the Y has good fine motor skills and has no problems keying. Some kids find a trackball easier than mousing.
The major difference between hyperlexia and Aspergers is that a kid with hyperlexia reads without comprehension. So if a kid with early reading skills can comprehend what he’s reading then it is NOT hyperlexia and feel free to thump any professional over the head who says it is,
ASD occurs at a higher rate in boys than girls. It’s not just anecdotal. Simon Baron-Cohen has just released a book where he floats the idea that Aspergers is an extreme form of maleness.
AskNott I honestly don’t know. Maybe reading about it, there’s a lot of good books out now and some good stuff on the web might help? There’s a lot of people out there who self diagnose with Aspergers and I’m not a fan of that. If you got the label, what would change is the big question.
Wow. OK, that was all really informative. In fact, I was only mildly aware of what Asperger’s Syndrom was, and only b/c of The Man With The Golden Gun’s (would it be ok to call you TMWTGG?) and Aslan’s mentioning of it in the past. This thread has been enlightening to the point that I have just one question:
Just who the heck is this Asperger guy, anyway?
Hans Asperger was the first guy to describe the syndrome as distinct from Kanner type autism. His work was published just before the second world war and was pretty much ignored until British researchers such as Ute Frith and Lorna Wing began writing about the syndrome.
In Australia we have Tony Attwood to blame for our apparent epidemic of Aspergers. I’m fairly cynical about Attwood’s diagnosing – of all the kids I have known who went to him, there’s only one who didn’t get the label. Attwood’s making a fine career out of Aspergers.
d_redguy: Hans Asperger(pronouced As-Per-Jers) was a Viennese physician who in 1944 wrote a paper about boys who had normal intelligence and language development, yet exhibited autistic behaviours and had problems with social and communication skills. Although it was published in '44, it wasn’t til the DSM-IV(1994) that it was officially accepted, but some doctors still refuse to aweknowledge it. His main body of work was the study of autism.
I’ve heard him mentioned before. What did he do to cause a epidemic, specifically? I assume he’s famous, otherwise his diagnosing of AS would probably go unnoticed.
And do you know of good AS self-biographies? I read one by a kid my age that was interesting, but I’d prefer someone with a lot more life experience.
I live in Brisbane where Attwood practises. He’s extremely visible in the media and gets wheeled out whenever an expert is needed. I’m cynical about just how many kids are being diagnosed here. My older son has a problematic diagnosis with the professionals who have seen him divided about 50/50 as to whether he has Aspergers or not. My younger son was diagnosed in less than 30 seconds by a psychologist who worked with Attwood. At the time I questioned his diagnosis deeply but as he’s gotten older, it’s become very clear it is accurate. But when diagnosis is done by one practitioner alone instead of a team of professionals and it is so quickly and lightly done, it’s hard not to be cynical. Of course a diagnosis here gets you services and a government allowance which can make a huge difference and as a consequence diagnosis is made so that families can access the services. Bit of a curate’s egg really.
There’s also a bit of a running joke amongst the parents of kids who test as gifted that if you need a diagnosis of ASD for accommodations for your kid, then Attwood’s your man. There’s an incredible number of gifted kids in this city who also are dx’ed as Aspergers.
I’ve known of Attwood diagnosing adults based on the adult’s recollection of their childhood. Diagnosing by video in another case.
He does care about people with Aspergers, I think and isn’t solely in it for the money but I wouldn’t see him as a dispassionate diagnostician.
Books – Temple Grandin? Definitely a must read. Mark Haddon’s novel The Case of the Dog in the Night (may not be totally right title) is supposed to be excellent. Check out Jessica Kingsley via google. She’s a UK publisher who specialises in books about ASD. I’m pretty certain there’s a few adult autobiographies now but I’ve not read any which stick out in my mind apart from Grandin.
So I seem to be understanding that AS has an effect on interpersonal relationships to a degree. Ya’ll seem like really pretty cool people to me, so do you feel like it is something that you are “recovering” from? Has life gotten better for you over time, in regards to AS, interpersonal relationships, studies, etc? In a nutshell; is AS “treatable”? If so, how?
ASD autobiographies and books - Liane Holliday Willey, Wendy Lawson, Gisela and Christopher Slater-Walker, the previously mentioned Temple Grandin, Donna Williams, Judy and Sean Barron (to name a few).
Some of these authors are diagnosed as autistic and others as AS, if that matters. I’ve read Temple Grandin, Donna Williams, and Judy and Sean Barron, and have shared a private e-mail list with Liane Holliday Willey and Wendy Lawson for several years. All have insightful and interesting things to say.
I’ve gotten better at social things over the years, from trial and error. It is still hard to relate or uderstand people’s emotions and such, but the aren’t total enigmas anymore, as they once were. I feel very nervous in social situations, and I’ll doubt that will change, no matter how well I develop people skills.
It’s treatable in the way that we can learn that certain behaviours lead to bad things happening, and thus we’re less likely to do them(a lot of my ideas come on impulse, with no thought behind them. I have to think about things before I do them and weigh the consequences, good or bad, that might occur).
That might sound like any ‘normal’ person learning about actions and consequences, but it’s harder to control urges and wants with AS. When I want something, I want it NOW!, regardless of what it is. I feel remorse afterwards, but during it I don’t care and want what I want. I don’t like doing that, it tends to hurt people. I hate hurting people.
I have. And it tended to have negative side-effects, like drowsiness, hyperness(sometimes with the same drug, as contrary as that sounds), a feeling of myself being ‘stunted’. I did not feel like myself at all when I was taking them.
Aslan, these are the same responses my ex had with SSRIs.
People with AS are often very sensitive to medications. My son has the usual executive functioning problems found in AS - organisational and impulse control issues - but a trial on psychostimulants was a total disaster.
Modified Cognitive Behavioural Therapy has proven to be very successful with AS kids and adults for anxiety and depression - Tony Attwood runs a number of programs here in Brisbane. ABA is another psychotherapy that has positive benefits for some AS kids. Others have had success with dietary changes. There are no cures but there are things that help. Mind you, accessing different therapies can be an expensive business.
I think what I said about feeling ‘stunted’ is true of a lot of disorders(such as ADD, Manic Depressive, some others) when treated with drugs, or so I’ve read.
Primaflora, has that happend to any of your children(they feel emotionally and creatively impaired under drugs)?
Aslan, you say you still find it “hard to relate to or understand people’s emotions” (although this is improving). Could you elaborate a bit? How does this problem affect you in practice? Is it just that you find it hard to interpret social signals and gestures (eg, somebody shrugging shoulders, or sitting with head in hands, or drumming fingers to indicate boredom) or do you find it difficult to imagine yourself in that situation at all?
I think what I’m getting at is do you find it difficult to empathise - if a friend or relative is having a bad time, what do you actually feel?
Most novels and films rely on the ability to make very quick judgements about people’s emotions - otherwise you literally lose the plot. I’d be fascinated to know which films/books you both enjoy and which you find difficult or baffling.
Finally, what sort of games/activities/books did you enjoy or dislike when you were children?
Sorry to be long-winded and bombard you with questions!
