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Permalink Reply by Brian R. King LCSW on October 10, 2011 at 6:39am

Hi Lynn,

 

I have Asperger's and ADD. There's a longer conversation to have here but one insight for you lies in your description of his abilities in "structured" environments. He's better able to succeed in those settings because the structure is provided for him.

 

When he gets home, however, he'd have to have a system in place to create similar structure to keep his mind engaged and focused. This is a start and I hope gives you something to work with. 

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Permalink Reply by DaRob on October 30, 2011 at 12:57pm

Hi Lynn,

 

I think that most asd comes with some aspects of add. I would be very encouraged that your son is able to sit in class and be attentive. That takes a lot of energy, and it means he is trying very hard :)

 So it probably is going to be more difficult to stay attentive with homework at the end of the day.The thing with add is not so much the mind wandering, although that is certainly part of it. It's the difficulty staying focused on things that are not necessarily interesting to him. As Brian points out, keeping the homework setting structured & free of distractions will help. Does he do better with a break after school before starting homework? Or breaks between subjects?

Difficulty attending to conversations is more the asd. Conversations are more for exchanging information, than for socializing in his mind. About the only time I get a conversation from my son is if I bring up a piece of information that is interesting to him. And even then, if it doesn't peak his interest, I won't necessarily get a conversation out of it. But other times he can go on and on about one of his games until my eyes are rolling into the back of my head. He doesn't make a lot of eye contact during conversations, but that actually helps him listen better, as the eye contact doesn't give him useful information.

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Permalink Reply by Brian R. King LCSW on October 30, 2011 at 3:05pm

Thank you so much for adding to this conversation DaRob. My wife and I were just having this conversation this morning. My 13 yr old son and I use conversation more so for information gathering and thus if we can't use the information to solve a problem it's very difficult to fake interest, hence the aversion to chit chat.

 

So much of what is taught these days seems to be information for it's own sake and little that can actually be applied. That is unless the teacher makes a point of demonstrating it's use beyond the fact that, "they're going to be tested on it."

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Permalink Reply by Michael Crosby on November 1, 2011 at 8:00pm

 

imagine what it`s like for aspies, who roll their eyes into the backs of their heads for most of the day.  or pretend not to.

 

i have asperger`s and add.  one of the main problems i had in school was that my questions to the teachers were usually scoffed at and ignored because they were either too advanced or too stupid.  i tended not to pay attention because i knew and understood the stuff they were teaching (it was all in the textbook that i had read the first couple days of class, and therefore useless and boring.  the homework was more boring repetition, and the tests were the same.  they were either directly from the textbook, or so poorly written that i could figure out the answer without having to know anything.

 

most autists are extremely good at recognising patterns.  i think this is partly hardwired and partly a survival skill we are forced to learn.  any pattern we can recognise makes the world that much more understandable and therefore more comfortable.

 

so the more predictable patterns you can introduce into his life, the more comfortable he will ultimately be.  however, you have to bear in mind the boredom factor.  some routines are comforting, and others are just mind numbingly boring.  this is especially true of those of us with more severe add.

 

of course you also have to remember that teenagers are by nature rebellious and challenging.  you may not see much positive results until after the teen years are over.

 

another factor that may be happening is anxiety.  so many patterns in an autist`s life are unpleasant and damaging.  there`s a tendency to develop anxiety about repetition.  in my case, this lead me to embrace chaos.  i`m not talking about true chaos; that would be overwhelming.  more like quantum chaos, where the patterns are there but much more complex.  for me this turned out to be a pretty good strategy.  i don`t know how you could apply that, but i thought i would mention it.

 

anyway, brian, school has always been that way.  it was originally created for the rich to have an exclusive club (think medieval scholar monks) and eventually became available to everyone.  most of the everyone in this case were farmers and other blue collar workers who had no time for school (farming used to require the whole family (pretty much all ages) for 12+ hours a day, especially at harvest time.  they also had no way to, or interest in, applying anything that was taught.  it was a big mess for a while.

 

i think the only real purpose of school now is to teach children how to work, even if they don`t like the work.  that`s kind of counter-intuitive to autistic people.

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Permalink Reply by Carrie on November 9, 2011 at 1:25am

Awesome comments. I am high functioning and add. My child is high-functioning and severe ad mild hd.

I tend to zone out of conversations if they are of no or little interest to me, or if they do interest me I zone out because I am lost in the storm of thoughts that it has stimulated.

I love to hear that you are communicating with your child, I could not have explained why I did the things I did when I was his age, but can now that I am older. Example, at age 16, I used to ask my mental health provider and parents - "How do I talk to people? What do I say? I can't think of anything to say to start a conversation." While I still have great difficulty with this, I now know why and just accept myself for that and learned to not be uncomfortable in my own silence. I also accept that once I am comfortable I can ramble on and try to self-monitor. The best, I can advise you, is to teach self-acceptance; it's okay to be different in some areas. Try sensory breaks during homework and rewards. Try to explain the logic behind it, not just because it is expected. Look into Gardners theory of Multiple Intelligence and try to adjust the assignments to make them more kinetically, or visually, or auditory, or whatever way will captivate him.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Crosby on November 9, 2011 at 7:36am

 

good point !  explain everything logically and be ready for logical arguments back.  the more logical and clear you are, the more successful you will probably be.  everything needs to be verbalised for autists.  we are very weak at nonverbal stuff.

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Permalink Reply by Lynn Mohr on November 17, 2011 at 10:34am

Thank you all for your comments.  I feel I have learned alot through Brian to better understand my son as to who he is and why he may appear to be inattentive, but to your point Carrie, I think if he does not value the conversation, he can't and won't fake interest. I need to get past the "hope" that add is effecting his behavior and just get us and him to understand how to best fit in with his own unique style. His anxiety has decreased so he is better able move closer to that "self-acceptance".  Yes Michael predictable patterns are good and then practicing what may happen if it does not quite go that way too is important.  A journey for us all.

 

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