Calum

Ah, the mist clears - thanks Lynda!

Hi Lynda, what is this SALT to which you refer? I've tried a bit googling but can't find anything quickly... Cheers, Calum

Thanks both for the feedback - much appreciated. MM, I'll certainly look into those additional websites and see what they offer. BN, we're in Insch and therefore covered by the Garioch branch of the NAS. I thought that Gary Wade covered that area though? May be wrong. The route you had covered off is exactly what we're looking to have done as we feel that the assistance we've had to date has been minimal at best. She was asked to see the speech therapist (winnie who's surname I forget) at Inverurie as her speech is far advanced for her age. Winnie observed that she wasn't able to recreate structures of colours, building blocks etc when asked. The only facial expressions she can recognise are happy and angry. Leone Carter was the person who came to do the observations as nursery. Given all the info we have on her (outbursts, complete unreasoning, lack of understanding of basics, lack of sympathy/empathy, hand twirling and complete body rigidity when focused on something interesting and more), Leone still felt that there wasn't enough really to take an observation any further. Whilst I appreciate that she has her remits of what she can cover, as parents we're frustrated and dismayed at the lack of willing from the 'system' to help. We're now going back through Mrs Crumb in Inverurie in the next few weeks to see her and probably back to Lynn Buntin in Aberdeen as she was excellent in the diagnosis with Alexander. BN, where are you based? I'd be interested in having a chat with you one night if that's OK (actually my wife would as well!) about how your diagnosis went? Thanks again all.

Morning all, been a while but I'm in need of some advice. We have a 11 year old who has been diagnosed with Aspergers and we're managing him with not too many issues these days. We also have a 4 year old daughter who exhibits many of the signs of Aspergers but not all. We think that she is also exhibiting many signs of ADHD as well. Putting a diagnosis completely aside for a minute, we're having real issues managing many of her behaviour 'traits' at home and have asked for help firstly from the doc. They have put us onto a child psychologist and speech therapist. The psychologist has been to see Bryony at Nursery for an hour and as far as she's concerned there is nothing to worry about. The issues we have are at home though and how to manage the outbursts and complete meltdowns etc. Although we appreciate that a diagnosis at this age can be difficult, we're shouting for help primarily in managing her at home but secondly we're sure that there's something diagnosable there. Soooo, what I'd like to know is: Is there an official route that the services should be following in ascertaining if there is either an ASD or something along the lines of ADHD? Secondly, what assistance can we be asking for in trying to manage her at home in order to make our lives, but more importantly her life, a happier and more enjoyable one? You would think that the servcies would be looking to help where they can but all we seem to be hitting are roadblocks at every turn. Thanks all, Calum P.S. We're in Aberdeenshire if that helps at all.

Bear in mind as well that there are no guarantees with SMS messages. It's a fire and forget system where messages can (and regularly do) take a long time to come through. Even when you request a read receipt it only guarantees that the SMS has got from one network to another, not to the end user. I'm working with my laddie at the minute on using an IM solution of some kind so he can express himself better. Many IMs like skype and msn can now be installed on phones as well. Would that be worth a shot?

Heard about this on the way home today. Lots of gaps as far as I'm concerned in the story but was it the right decision? Did care for the guy go amiss? No right or wrong answer here but wanted opinions... As a parent of a 10 year old aspergers laddie, I know how hard things are for them but as a parent I know how much this must've heart from a parents stand point. http://m.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/sep/13/internet-troll-jailed-mocking-teenagers?cat=uk&type=article

Afternoon and welcome! I've recently set up a support group within the school where parents meet on a weekly basis with a couple of teachers there. The parents get to learn from each other and the school gets an eye opener at what we as parents deal with on a day to day basis! This is certainly helping the school understand more about how to deal with things and as parents gives us hope that a certain level of continuity can be there between home and school. For home use, get a schedule made up and allow him to use that as his routine from day to day. Our Alexander is lost if he doesn't have his list as it's what he uses to fill the day. Good luck and let us know how you go...

Morning all, Had a meeting with the clinical Physchologist yesterday. Interesting session with the following outcomes: 1. Seems to be bourne from a worry or anxiety deep rooted - we didn't try and delve into what it was... 2. He's going to try and overcome easy ones first and reduce the number of times he does it. Then progress onto more difficult ones 3. This is the fun bit! I need to try and find some proof that we can't physically 'jump' from one universe to another. 4. Came up with a good idea... Anyone ever seen Inception? I'm going to try and find Alexander a 'token' of some sort so he can carry it around with him so he knows he's still in this Universe. Next step if this all doesn't work is medication apparently but I would rather avoid that where possible! Anyone know anything about the medication in case we need to look at that as a last resort?

Afternoon all, I have a ten year old son with Aspergers who came home in a right state the other day regarding puberty, it's being discussed at school. So, just looking to get insight into how puberty is perceived from someone who has Aspergers but can explain their perception of it and how it affected them? Alexander has issues trying to explain how he feels but I'd like to try and understand what's going on in there! Cheers, Calum

Hi BuntyB, I would go to http://housecall.trendmicro.com/uk/ and try this, it's an online scanner that will check your machine and is pretty rock solid. HCKU sounds like a variant of HKCU which is a large (and very important) part of the registry - HKey Current User. If you've not got an AV as yet I would recommend AVG (free if pennies are tight) at free.avg.com or the full one if you can. I've been running it in the house for the kids (best test of an AV solution!) and it's always been watertight! Hope that helps...

Hi and welcome, I'm relatively new here myself! I would have thought that with (what sound like) severe symptoms that 12 months would be too long to wait. Is there no way of excalating with your doc to get diagnosed more rapidly? Good luck though and given the nature of this forum, there's people on here at all times of day and night - me included!

We have someone called Gary Wade who is our NAS rep for this area. You tried getting in contact with him? Let me know if you need his contact details... Cheers We pondered whether we should tell Alexander but we decided to as we thought it would help him understand. Still don't know if it was the right choice but we're going through a phase now of helping him understand how it affects his everyday life - hard going.

Sounds reasonable. When we went to see the consultant in Aberdeen, she intimated that there were lots of symptoms to Aspergers - none of which are common in every single case. What I am starting to realise is that Alexander is becoming much more aware of his condition and the limitations it's placing on the way he perceives the world and those around him. Trying to put it into words that he can understand at 10 is difficult especially when he lacks the ability to be able to sympathise and empathise.

Interesting... Here's me thinking we're the only ones! Do you know per chance if it's OCD that causes this and is OCD more prevalent in people with Aspergers? Or is this just part of having Aspergers? I'll look into those books - thanks!

Evening all, My 9 year old laddie has recently started having issues crossing doorway thresholds. He feels that if he doesn't cross from one room into another correctly (and he can't describe to me what correcetly is, seems to vary), he'll land up in a parallel universe where things will be different and scary. This also occurs When he's hanging up his dressing gown Looking to/from the TV to the wall Crossing from flagstones to driveway in the garden Touching his glass on the table glancing at me whilt eating his meals The list goes on but is varied. Problem is now that it's getting the better of him and he's having to come downstairs to ask for help to get into his room. My wife (Fiona) has lifted him across once or twice but I'm looking for advice as to how to get him to help himself. Any thoughts please? Thanks much, Calum

Hi Lynne, we're in Insch between Inverurie and Huntly. Nice part of the country, in London every now and again but glad to get back to the sticks! Timetables rock as long as we can stick to them!

Best thing to do is get a windows CD and reset the password that way. Either that or pull the HD out and plug it into another machine, get the data off then rebuild.

Evening all, Just joining up here as things are starting to get tough here at home. Bit of background I guess first... We are a family of six! Me (Calum), Fiona (wife), Charlie (12 year old girl), Alexander (10 year old), Bryony (almost 3) and Eva (month old yesterday! ) Charlie and Alexander are from Fiona's previous marriage and go to see their Dad every couple of weekends or so. So... We had Alexander diagnosed with Aspergers just over a year ago and since then have been on a constant struggle with keeping Alexander on the level. We have been through various different phases of change but the noticeable things at present are as follows: walking in and out of doorways constantly - needs interrupted/diverted in order to break the cycle. Making regular hand movements whilst at the dining table. This is one of the few places that we try and encourage a sense of 'normality' as we have juniors present that we are also trying to teach table manners to! The one thing that we are seriously struggling with is tempers. We were back at the psychologist last week (Lynn Buntin in Aberdeen, highly recommended!) and she has recommended that we try and look to see these things coming before thay happen. Easier said than done as I'm sure many will know. We have also booked Alexander in to see her a week tomorrow to see if we can try and figure out what is causing the extreme anger at the minute. All we know is that Alexander sees the rest of us as the problem in his life. I suspect that Lynn will come back and probably say that there have been many changes as far as he's concerned and that is the issue. But... In the meantime, anyone got any ways of dealing with this? At present if we see things spiralling, we send him to his room to calm down as we'll only talk to him when he's calm. Sometimes though this doesn't go to plan and he will rather stand and scream through an argument than want to calm down. We desparately want to help him help himself so he can try and avoid unwanted situations but I don't know whether a) he's ready for it and if it would even work. I've just put together a timetable of daily activities that I hope will help him plan his day so we'll see how that works out. Anyhoo, just wanted to pop on and say Hi, will now start the process of reading others' stories and see what good advice I can pick up! Cheers all, Calum