Any adults here with Aspergers?

[bleedingheart]

I have a young son with Aspergers Syndrome and we are having difficulties trying to help improve his comprehension skills. He is great at math, and has memorized everything you would ever want to know about certain types of insects,....however his comprehension is poor and word problems are his undoing...both math and reading word problems.

So if there are any Aspies out there and you know of some reference books or great teaching guides please let me know! The school district is working with me but we are both trying to figure out how to assist him.


I have been online looking about but I would greatly appreciate some first hand info.

[MN ChimpH8R]

1. Yuppers

Didn't get diagnosed until Feb of this year. Knew I was very different since I was a little kid but didn't know why. Took a huge weight off my mind - now there's a reason that I am a somewhat antisocial loner who never fit in anywhere. :P

There are reams of info out there on the Internets about Asperger's, and lots of parent resources/support pages. Just Google it and you will find more stuff than you can read in a month.

This is a great place to start: http://www.udel.edu/bkirby/asperger/

Also, I recommend Temple Grandin's book "Thinking in Pictures" about life on the high end of the autism spectrum. I found it fascinating.

[bleedingheart]

2. I actually printed out the teachers guide from that site today for his

teacher.

We are reopening his IEP and the reading specialist at the school is going to look into testing just how "lost" he is regarding comprehension.


I will have to buy that book!

[MN ChimpH8R]

3. Good luck

I was just the opposite - math was a struggle for me, but I could read fluently by the time I was 3. I cannot remember a time when I didn't read voraciously, but it was incredibly hard for me to get through basic algebra, even in college. I can understand the most complicated theoretical abstractions in words, but numbers freak me out.

Asperger's manifests itself differently in each person. As someone said, if you've met one Aspie, you've met one Aspie.

:hug:

[KamaAina]

4. Yes indeed

actually researchers aren't sure whether to call it "Asperger's" or "high-functioning autism", but it's clearly one or the other.

Don't know of any reference books or teaching guides; maybe I should make one? I assume you've already found OASIS (no, not the band :-) ):

http://www.udel.edu/bkirby/asperger/

Maybe something's listed there.

What area are you in? There are Asperger support groups popping up all over the place, for instance this one in NYC:

http://www.grasp.org

[bleedingheart]

5. we have him enrolled in a local support group...he meets with other

Aspies...it is quite cute to watch them interact...

The problem is the comprehension issue.

He freaked me out yesterday...can't answer a math word problem ..answers the question too literally...but he can add lists of numbers in his head...

[tigereye]

10. huh

I think if kids can translate the word problems into more visual forms they have a much easier time of comprehending them. I'm sure you already know that, but that might be the way to go if not already happening. Maybe I'll dig around and see if I can find anything about that - I am very interested in Learning Disabilities and that can be a way to see what learning styles mesh with kids with ASDs, as well. I think that finding the individual child's learning style is critical since obviously not every kid learns the same way, i.e., oral, visual, taped, on the computer, what have you....

:hi:

[bleedingheart]

13. he is highly visual and yes I have used charts or pictures to help him

but I want to come up with some sort of method of helping him along with helping the teachers to help him.

I feel so bad for him ...he seems so out of it when it comes to certain types of problems.

:hi: back at ya!

[TrogL]

6. Yo!

Aspies lack a "theory of mind". I don't remember having any specific problems with comprehension of reading or "math problems". My downfall was social issues. Hence I did horribly in history and social sciences when it came to working out a person or country's motivations.

I was also horrible at group activities. The teachers often let me do a "group" assignment as a "group of one". I'd usually turn in better work than the other groups.

I don't have anything really constructive to offer other than to watch for bullying. Other kids will sense something "wrong" with him, even if they can't put their finger on it, and will take it out on him.

[MN ChimpH8R]

7. Yes, TrogL, you are right

That was my problem - I was and am almost completely mind blind and other kids pick it up very quickly. I was bullied unmercifully in elementary school until I made some friends who would stick up for me. I was always hyper-rational and couldn't understand why others didn't see things the same way I did when it was so obvious to me. Thankfully schools and mental health professionals are now aware that Asperger's exist and of how to begin to deal with it.

[bleedingheart]

8. so far so good on the bullying...

to some degree he is so out of the loop that he doesn't notice anything. Luckily for us so far he has actually had some of the "bully" kids watch out for him...I think they find his "quirkiness" a bit cool...sounds strange but I know that may not last.

[KamaAina]

9. The theory of mind experiments have been debunked

English researcher Simon Baron-Cohen made a big splash with his "Sally-Anne" experiments in which a child is shown a bag of candy, then she leaves the room, then the candy is switched. The Aspie child is then asked, "What does Sally think is in the bag?" and predictably replies with what is actually there.

But then other researchers tried the experiment with older Aspie children, and they got it right, demonstrating that the "theory of mind" is delayed rather than absent in Aspies.

[tigereye]

11. are you a researcher KA?

[KamaAina]

14. No, but I used to work with them at Yale Child Study

in fact I did the data analysis for the study that resulted in Asperger disorder being included in DSM-IV.

[sniffa]

12. very weLL known DUer

who i haven't seen here in way too Long. :(