Good luck with your daughter. This alphabet soup of labels is very confusing to me. I looked up the criteria for the various diagnoses, and found that AS is the best fit for me. My combination of strengths, weaknesses, interests, etc. point to a strong possibility of Asperger's. I believe I am pretty high functioning, except for lacking a driver's license (I have taken lessons and performed competently, although I failed the behind the wheel tests because of nervousness.) I have had a good job for four years that I really enjoy and perform well. I would say my main strengths are a good memory, good organizational skills, and use of language. My main weaknesses are shyness and nervousness. My strongest AS trait is that I possess strong interests, unusual both in type and intensity. As I recall from the inventory on Non-Verbal Learning Disorder, "special interests" aren't part of the condition.
I've been curious about Asperger's. But it seems that whenever I look it up on the internet, it always talks about children's symptioms... but are the symptoms that adults with Asperger's have similar to children who have it? I knew someone in high school who has it, and basically, he was just very socially awkward, and the kids always made fun of him. But I didn't know him well enough to know what other sorts of symptoms he has.
Because sometimes I wonder if I have a mild case of it. Mostly, my social skills make me wonder. I'm shy, but I seem to be beyond shy. I have a really tough time relating to other people, and meeting new people. I never know what to say or do in conversations, especially when I'm talking with someone I don't know well. I feel like I've acted in such awkward ways, socially, when I was younger, that I'm overly self-conscious of it now that I'm 24 years old. Does this sound at all like Asperger's? Or is it just Social Anxiety Disorder?
What other symptoms are common in people my age who have Asperger's?
Yes, the symptoms carry over into adulthood, though they may be less prevalent since you've learned to deal with them over the course of many years. All that you read about on the Internet will still apply most likely. It does for me. The reason I didn't suspect I had it was because I dont have severe social deficits, and that's all that articles tend to focus on. The other things aren't discussed as much, and that's what define it for me, particularly the "special interests."
-GatsbyLuvr1920-
__________________
"Not everything that steps out of line, and thus 'abnormal,' must necessarily be 'inferior.'"
-Hans Asperger
Hope i can be of some help. My daughter has aspergers, she is nearly 7. Before i forget to mention, she had a habit of picking the skin on her lips, they used to get so sore and would bleed, i was embarassed to send her to school! I soon learned that the more i told her not to the more she did it, i ignored it, she stopped, but is now walking around the house sucking her fingers until they go wrinkly.
She too has probs in school, reading and writing. One day she will know her spellings ,the next day she wont. She hates to write anything down but has such neat writing when she does.
Her social communication can be terrible at times, interrupting, being very loud talking on, on ,on and on!If she has something to say she sees no reason why she shouldn,
't go on and on about it!
I could go on forever, i am in no way a expert but i feel your daughter has many asperger traits.
Last edited by moderator2; 08-26-2006 at 02:56 PM.
Thank you for your post. The doctor felt that she showed a lot of Asperger's traits as well, but she doesn't really have a huge obsessive interest with one thing (as most Aspergers kids do). She really likes arts and crafts, but I would not say it was an obsessive interest. For that reason they diagnosed her with both PDD-NOS and NLD (nonverbal learning disability). I have to say though, I'm still not quite convinced. I still really feel like she is an Asperger's kid. Her personality switches like crazy too. One second she is the sweetest little girl you have ever met, and the next second she acts evil, mean, and bossy. Do any of these other things sound like your child? What about the obsessive interests?
The personality switching thing sounds like me! My mom has told me that many times: "One minute you're miserable, and then the next minute you're giddy!" I was (and am) a very difficult child to raise. My mom is so strong... I am very moody. It has lessened greatly since I've been put on the mood stabilizer, Lamictal, but still, I go into my random fits. I'll just suddenly be upset and yell at people, but then, two minutes later, I'm out of it, laughing. I've always been like that. The obsessive interests thing is what defines my Asperger's. Even though I don't have severe social deficits, anybody who knows anything about Asperger's could diagnose me just by knowing about my fixations.
-GatsbyLuvr1920-
__________________
"Not everything that steps out of line, and thus 'abnormal,' must necessarily be 'inferior.'"
-Hans Asperger
My daughter has no 'obsessions', she just has a love of animals which i consider normal.
She only eats certain foods, will only drink water, a good thing!-she hates the texture of gravy, jelly and custard as she says she can't 'bite into it'.
Will not let me touch her if i have wet hands.
Always has to have a toy with her whereever we go- has even hid them in her knickers to take one to school!
Any more questions i can help with? feel free to ask.
How is her personality? Does she switch from kind to evil in the matter of moments? At what age was she diagnosed with Aspergers? Does she have a lot of difficulty in school? Actually, I'm really interested to hear your whole story, if you are up to sharing. I really feel like my daughter is more Aspergers than PDD-NOS. How are your daughters social skills? My daughter is initially great on the onset. But then she overwhelms the kids too much by being too silly or too loud, and the kids shy away from that. She also has a difficult time reading social cues.
Happy to help if i can. she was diagnosed in july but it took a while to get that as i knew soon after she started school there was something 'wrong'.she is 7 in november. She can be lovely one minute and then change like the weather. Anything starts her off, she is like jekyll&hyde, but she does get easily frustrated over things. If she has anything to say she MUST SAY IT NOW!!!which often gets her into trouble at school.
It can be difficult as she hasn't got any visual signs that she is different so if she is 'on one' as i call it, people just see her as a brat, but i know different.
Many a times i have phsically carried her out of places as she wouldn't leave, a bit embarrasing at times!
SOCIAL SKILLS: she will play with other children but shes not actually taking any notice of them, hard to explain really. She just plays by the side of them, enjoys her own company.
She finds reading and writing difficult, she can do it but most of the time she doesn't want to.
I was told that she cant sound out words C-A-T ,D-O-G,if you know what i mean and has to learn to remember the whole word ? I find this hard to explain sorry.
She will keep on,on ,on,on,on, if anyone is having a talk and she wants to say something, v.annoying, v.embarrasing, but you can tell her everyday, allday and she still does it!!!
Is that ok for now, think of anything else and i will answer your questions, bye.lisa.
lisabad- Many Aspies are hyperlexic, meaning that they learn to read very early, but it's mostly just memorization of the words with little to no comprehension. That's how I was. I couldn't sound out words, either. I just knew that "cat" meant "cat" and that "C-A-T" spelt "cat," but if you gave me a word I didn't know how to say, I would have no idea where to begin on the pronounciation. I'd just hear the correct way and memorize it. I find your description of your daughter very interesting- I can see a lot of similarities between her and myself...
-GatsbyLuvr1920-
__________________
"Not everything that steps out of line, and thus 'abnormal,' must necessarily be 'inferior.'"
-Hans Asperger
That sounds better coming from you! thats how my daughter is . She cannot read though, but if you read her a story once or twice she will remember it word for word so it looks to others that she can read!
shes just remembering it and if you pointed a word out she wouldn't know what it was!
Im glad you posted!Any more tips please let me know, anyways i can help her with her reading/spelling?
I taught myself how to read at age four, so I've always been quite precocious in the realm of reading. I was, however, a horrible speller as a child. I, like many hyperlexic Aspies, knew the beginning and ending letter, but the inside letters were all jumbled up. I was good at spelling for tests, though, because it was memorization. Around third grade, my abilities switched, and I became very good at spelling- I was in the advanced spelling class. Ever since then, I've been (what I consider) an excellent speller, as well as being good in the rules of grammar. The latter comes from an inherent ability to just know that proper grammar "feels right," but for the more advanced principles, it, too, is memorization. While learning Spanish grammar, an obsessive fixation of mine, I'd note where commas were supposed to go and that certain words should be in quotations and such. I paid more attention to it in Spanish for some reason. It's natural now, but I really just have it memorized from seeing "patterns" that were written down. The funny thing is that I have discovered that I'm hyperlexic in Spanish. I can read and write fine because it's "rules" and requires the memorization of grammatical structure and vocabulary, but I cannot use what I know in a conversation... Do you have any more questions?
-GatsbyLuvr1920-
__________________
"Not everything that steps out of line, and thus 'abnormal,' must necessarily be 'inferior.'"
-Hans Asperger
My mom has told me that many times: "One minute you're miserable, and then the next minute you're giddy!" I was (and am) a very difficult child to raise. My mom is so strong... I am very moody. It has lessened greatly since I've been put on the mood stabilizer, Lamictal, but still, I go into my random fits. I'll just suddenly be upset and yell at people, but then, two minutes later, I'm out of it, laughing. I've always been like that. The obsessive interests thing is what defines my Asperger's. Even though I don't have severe social deficits, anybody who knows anything about Asperger's could diagnose me just by knowing about my fixations.
