how do you explain aspergers?

[hev]

i was talking to a mum at nursery and i said steve was AS and she asked what it meant,i felt such an idiot but i couldnt explain it,i said oh he has obsessions like eastenders didnt know how to explain it,how do you explain to people about aspergers in a simple way?

[mumble_rocks]

I dont understand people very well

I tend to insult people without intent or being aware of it

I cant read facial expressions or tone of voice

I dont get scarcasm

I say things I shouldt

I dont understand figures of speech

I dont understand that "you" (other people) have feelings

I come across as weird and strange as well as immature

I can real of all the bus times and numbers for Portsmouth and Southampton, as well as know all the dates of changes in the Scouting movement

I have an obbesion with counting

 

The good things are:

 

I see in pictures/3D

I am very observent

I can recall events very procisly even down to color and types of things

 

Hope this helps Hev

Edited June 9, 2007 by mumble_rocks

[pearl]

I usually say its a mild form of autism as most peeps have heard of autism, but I hate saying that really cos its not "mild" is it?

[Mumble]

I usually say its a mild form of autism as most peeps have heard of autism, but I hate saying that really cos its not "mild" is it?

No it's not.

 

Maybe some of the cards the NAS provide might help - they give a very basic overview so you wouldn't be over loading people but if they wanted to know more they could do.

[baddad]

i said oh he has obsessions like eastenders

 

 

Jeez Hev! i had to get a tissue then to wipe my eyes i laughed so hard! <'> <'>

Thank you

 

Probably easier to just say he has autism... you'll then get 'Oooh, he must have "special powers" then like that rayman bloke and be good at maths and stuff...' which is a PAIN IN THE BUM but at least it'll give you and them a point of reference to start talking from....

 

Or you could try punning on a literary quote... something along the lines of 'he's like a very rich person... different from you and me' (F. Scott Fitzgerald to Ernest hemingway over an egg Macmuffiin and triple thick shake at Macdougals, 1947, old sport)and just leave them speechless instead

 

L&P

 

BD

[wishingwell]

 

Jeez Hev! i had to get a tissue then to wipe my eyes i laughed so hard! <'> <'>

Thank you

 

Probably easier to just say he has autism... you'll then get 'Oooh, he must have "special powers" then like that rayman bloke and be good at maths and stuff...' which is a PAIN IN THE BUM but at least it'll give you and them a point of reference to start talking from....

 

Or you could try punning on a literary quote... something along the lines of 'he's like a very rich person... different from you and me' (F. Scott Fitzgerald to Ernest hemingway over an egg Macmuffiin and triple thick shake at Macdougals, 1947, old sport)and just leave them speechless instead

 

L&P

 

BD

I'd go for the literary quote this providing I could remember it.

It's nice to be nice sometimes.

[KarenT]

It's hard to put it into a soundbite, which is what most people want. Not many really want the full explanation. I usually say something like "J's autistic, he has a lot of problems socially" and that gives them something to relate to without going into too much detail which would probably bore them. If they want to know more they'll ask, but IME they usually don't .

 

Karen

x

[Guest Lya of the Nox]

my dd wont use the word aspergers

she says she is autistic

and like others u then get the ahh like

and then u can downsize it lol

i will see if i can find u something u can print off mrs to help u lol

x

[summertime]

Its so difficult to sum up quickly, I have to do a 5 minute presentation on 'what is an autistic spectrum disorder' and must have about an hours worth of material to try to condense.

 

We have a few children in school who are aware of their diagnosis and will tell others 'I'm autistic' or 'I have AS' then the others ask me what it is, I do some autism awareness but if its a quick question in the playground I usually sum it up with 'X has trouble making sense of the world and the people in it.' This is usually enough for a mainstream junior child but may lead to more questions with an adult.

[Bard]

B loves his cat, and understands that his cat has a different sort of brain. Some things the cat can do better than us, some he does worse than us. When B got his dx, I explained that his brain was a human one, but some of the wiring and connections were different to most other human brains. So some things he does better, and some things he does worse.

He's comfortable with that, and has come to recognise many of the abilities that he has that others don't, and to understand that in order to manage with other people, he has to try and work out ways of managing when things go wrong. And if he can't manage, to find someone who is his interpreter/buffer.

 

I took this from another website, that mainly ASD people post on. It was written by an AS girl. B liked it.

 

Hmm... Well, let me put it this way. Let's say I had magical powers, and suddenly turned you into a wolf, and stuck you out in the wilds, and expected you to get into a wolf pack and survive there. Could you do it? What if I insisted on keeping your human brain, and didn't give you a wolf brain?

 

Well, first you'd be confused. You wouldn't know what the wolves were saying to each other with all their body language; because you wouldn't even see it as body language--just random wolves walking around. You wouldn't know to watch the ears and the way they held their tails and the way their backs arched and the way their whiskers and fur lie. And even if you knew it had something to do with those things, you'd be slow on picking it up.

 

If you were really unlucky, you might think they were just big dogs, and expect to be able to pet them. Well, guess what it means if you're a wolf, and you try to put a paw on another wolf's back? Yep. It starts a fight. The wolf sees it in a really aggressive way. Oh, and eye contact? Yep. Aggressive too. So is holding your tail too high, looking at the wrong wolf, sitting in the wrong place, holding your ears and body in the wrong way.

 

So, I turn you into a wolf and stick you into a wolf pack... and suddenly, you're "weird". What's more, your brain isn't wired to understand wolf-talk nearly as well as the average wolf, no matter how hard you try. Even if you begin to understand basic signals, you don't process them as quickly. All you can do, if you're lucky, is project submission and hope nobody bites you. Chances are, they'll bite you anyway, just because you're submissive and they're angry.

 

That's how out of place an Aspie is. We're the humans in the wolf pack, the people who don't get the signals. We can learn the signals, yeah; but we'll never be able to get them quite right. We'll always seem "weird", rub people the wrong way, be clueless about all the little complexities of human culture. It's like being permanently a part of another culture, maybe even a different subspecies of human. Culture is very complex; and our brains are built to deal with facts, ideas, and objects--not people.

 

We'll always be "weird". But one day, maybe, people will think that "weird" is OK, too. After all, if you're supposed to be a human, you'll be happier not trying to pretend to be a wolf.

[summertime]

thats great, I may just have to use it for some of my awareness training with our mainstream kids, thank you

[oxgirl]

I'd probably just say something along the lines of, oh, he finds some things difficult to cope with sometimes and finds it hard to relate to other children sometimes, something like that. I might say he finds some situations that we take for granted stressful and difficult to cope with.

 

~ Mel ~

[hev]

 

Jeez Hev! i had to get a tissue then to wipe my eyes i laughed so hard! <'> <'>

Thank you

anytime my petal,you know it makes my day if i please you

[Tally]

I normally say it's a type of autism, and it means that I find it hard to communicate with other people. If I go into more detail, I would say that it means I take things literally and have difficulty reading non-verbal communication like facial expression or tone of voice, and also means that my own non-verbal communication does not necessarily relate to what I am trying to communicate either. In many ways it's like being a foreigner, trying to learn the local customs. Then I would say that the diagnosis explains why I feel different to everyone else and have so much difficulty making friends.

[SallyAspie]

I usually say its a mild form of autism as most peeps have heard of autism, but I hate saying that really cos its not "mild" is it?

 

You're right it's not mild, I should know I've been struggling with it all my life. High functioning autism is a more appropriate description of it.

[pearl]

You're right it's not mild, I should know I've been struggling with it all my life. High functioning autism is a more appropriate description of it.

I dont like using that term though around my friends who have severely autistic children. Its a minefield isnt it?

[Bullet]

For me it presents as:

 

1: Often understanding perfectly, but being unable to get the words out, even though I don't feel nervous about talking.

2: Sometimes hearing the words but not understanding them, as though someone is talking in a foreign language.

3: Missing the cues when to enter a conversation with more than two people.

4: Not knowing when to stop when talking about a topic I am knowledgeable about.

5: Very good rote and long term memory.

6: Not able to plan and organise myself enough to remember to do basic everyday things like eating, drinking, washing, brushing hair etc. Can manage it with the lads but have to allow myself extra time with them as I will still get distracted/zone out when preapring things.

7: Difficulties with motor planning, often can't let go of something I am trying to throw.

8: Don't really do the accidental insulting thing often, mainly because talking is often quite difficult in terms of being able to get the words out. When I'm verbal I'm very verbal but I have great difficulty initiating talking and expressing my wants and needs a lot of the time.

9: I see everything I'm thinking of as though I'm watching a film. Memories are a little different, as I remember then how I was thinking and feeling at the time of the memory, so it's more like a return to my thoughts than what I could see, although I do remember what I was looking at as well.

10: I've got a long term (over 20 years) obsession with historical accounts of violent death, either real or fictional and milder interests in Doctor Who, capital cities and placing towns in their respective counties.

11: I score above average (120 +) on verbal iq tests and below average (anything from 90 to less than 50 as I have to literally guess at the answers) on non verbal iq tests.

12: I can say about the theories of how to do something very well, but co-ordinating and planning and organising myself and my body to do them is a different matter.

13: I like people and am happy to have friends but I don't fuss about it, I prefer one or two close friends than a load of acquaintances. Didn't have a proper friend until my late twenties and that is only because I met them on the internet and they live in the same town as me.

14: I am very clumsy, frequently mix up left and right, can't judge distances or time.

15: I have very little sense of hunger.

16: I hate the feel of water on my face and strokin some materials.

17: If somewhere is too crowded, either with lots of people, or lots of objects I feel bombarded and ened up getting stressed, irritated and anxious. Then I sort of shut myself away mentally and can't talk to anyone.

18: I've no wish to be part of peer pressure and network. I didn't have any concept of how important being part of a social cohesive could be to many people until my mid twenties when someone pointed it out to me and whilst I sort of understand it now I don't wish to be a part of it.

19: I don't use gestures or many facial expressions when talking.

20: I listen to the words a person is saying rather than what they are looking like when saying it.

 

There's probably loads more but I'll have to stop now.

Edited June 18, 2007 by Bullet

[TuX]

I dont like using that term though around my friends who have severely autistic children. Its a minefield isnt it?

high functioning does not mean the person is not severely autistic,high functioning usually means are aware of around self,can speak,read,write,but the autism can be severe.

[cmuir]

Hi

 

When I tell people about my son, I say that he thinks about things a little bit differently and that what he has as a disability. He has difficulty in social situations making sense of social ettiquete. He can have difficulty reading expressions ie when someone's happy/sad. He's has difficulty playing team games - doesn't understand rules. He also has difficulties with changes in routine and can be controlling and manipulative, purely because he feels very anxious when things are unfamiliar. In addition, he's much more able to process visual information than verbal information. Important thing is stress is that every person with an ASD is different. People can range from having a few to all of following difficulties:

 

NAS website gives a good description:

 

http://www.nas.org.uk/nas/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=458&a=5489

 

SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL

difficulties with

- friendships

- managing unstructured parts of the day

- working cooperatively

 

LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION

- difficulty processing and retaining verbal information

- difficulty understanding jokes and sarcasm, social use of language, literal interpretation, body language, facial expression and gesture

 

FLEXIBILITY OF THOUGHT (IMAGINATION)

difficulty with:

- coping with changes in routine

- empathy

- generalisation

 

DIFFICULTIES WITH FINE AND GROSS MOTOR COORDINATION

 

Caroline.