
Asperger Syndrome Support Group
Asperger syndrome - also referred to as Asperger's syndrome, Asperger's, Aspergers or just AS - is one of five neurobiological pervasive developmental disorders (PDD), and is characterized by deficiencies in social and communication skills, normal to above normal intelligence, and standard language development.

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Hi, my 14yr old daughter was diagnosed with NLD (which is very similar to Aspergers's), but she doesn't believe that she has it. How can I best help her?
She's not in any danger, but we are homeschooling here again this year after she had a couple of rough years in middle school and she has really only one friend that she sees maybe once every week or two. She *thinks* she has a lot of friends, if we let her go on MySpace she stays on as long as possible until we pull the plug and then we usually get hit. Of course 10 minutes later she doesn't understand why that might have upset us and acts as if nothing happened.
Her room is total mess - I mean crumbs, wrappers, dirty dishes with various food remains and mold, stuff covering the entire floor and bed, just a complete disaster.
She does like to look nice, so she showers everyday and gets ready which is good.
But I am worried about her, and her ability to be able to survive when she becomes an adult. I would like to help her, but am not sure what to do.
Any suggestions?
She's not in any danger, but we are homeschooling here again this year after she had a couple of rough years in middle school and she has really only one friend that she sees maybe once every week or two. She *thinks* she has a lot of friends, if we let her go on MySpace she stays on as long as possible until we pull the plug and then we usually get hit. Of course 10 minutes later she doesn't understand why that might have upset us and acts as if nothing happened.
Her room is total mess - I mean crumbs, wrappers, dirty dishes with various food remains and mold, stuff covering the entire floor and bed, just a complete disaster.
She does like to look nice, so she showers everyday and gets ready which is good.
But I am worried about her, and her ability to be able to survive when she becomes an adult. I would like to help her, but am not sure what to do.
Any suggestions?
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We had an incident this morning, where he punched me, full force and connected with my shoulder blade, which is now quite bruised.
I had to pin him to the floor with my knee, to his screams and accusations of us trying to kill him etc, yet our actions are always to protect him from himself, and to protect our 2 younger daughters, who were somewhat freaked out by all this, safe.
He locked himself in the bathroom for the next 3 hours, and is now in bed sleeping it off, mind you, his goal was to get out of school today, and he has won that fight so to speak.
it leaves the house in a state of egg-shells, everybody treads carefully for a few days, often weeks, until we can find normality.
We have him on Prozac, however he refuses to take it. We had an incident last week as well, but in public at the Psych's office, but we can go months without incident as well.
This may not help you with your daughter, but just be aware you are not alone out there.
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M66
I just wish she would accept that she has this and get either or both of therapy and medication. It seems like Concerta and Zoloft are helpful from what I have seen here. She did try Concerta for a while and it seemed to help. Then we had her on anxiety medication (Buspar) for a while (she was afraid to go to the bathroom on her own until about two years ago).
Now the anxiety is not as bad but she just doesn't seem motivated to do anything really, so I worry about her.
I tried explaining it all to him once when he was about 11, but I don't think he really got it and of course he kind of threw it back in his sister's face (ugh!)
You probably know about that dreadful feeling when your whole family is invited places I'll bet - we wonder if we can get our daughter to even go, and if she will wig out and demand to leave, look at the food in disgust (she only eats very specific things), etc. Sometimes everything goes great, but not that often. Now she is at least old enough to stay at home alone sometimes, and that has been helpful.
I had to give up on my idea of what a family is and it was hard (she is 14 and I have just recently come to this conclusion). We don't have very many family outings, but we do divide and conquer a lot with one of us each taking one child somewhere. That has worked out well.
I'd be interested how other families deal with that, or if they have the same kind of issues.
M
I know this sounds weird, but study your daughter. Find out what sets her off and what she will react to.
got to go now. Hang in there.
i like talking to people who are younger than me because they are usually going through or doing the same as i did when i was younger.
As far as the fed gov't soc sec is concerned, there is no support for autism spectrum who are experienced and lucid. I am educated (understated) and was a corp middle manager for a graphics/pub/advertising dept for a manufacturing company. So I am in the real world. Your daughter is where I was at her age. Although I was a recognized artist plus my graphics career, I was always poor at conveying and interviewing, but great (when hired) to train and oversee in my immediate area of expertise and, heck, actually be a team leader plus a very loyal follower for the higher up staff.
See... autism (I don't give a damn what niche in the spectrum) is almost like schizophrenia and kids have to navigate through life like this. The narrow line is the violence factor. When autism types grow up and function, they are not violent. Unless you trap 'em like a raccoon. Adult schizophrenics are violent unpredictably. The gov't doles sums to schizophrenics in SSI/SSDI to obviously appease the situation to prevent more harm and violence. We don't have a small population like Canada with miles of psychiatric hospitals like they do. Consequently it's real real rough in the USA for people like me who can't get any of their own SSI/SSDI which I paid into, like everybody else in soc sec funds.
Look...schizo and autism perception to the sufferers is like navigating on LSD daily, 24/7. Try to imagine the necessary energies expended on a task. Then compound this task logistic with the many perceptual distortions as I described. Then stretch your imagination that on a good day or a bad day, we work twice as hard, worry twice as much, nurture jobs twice as much, quadruple check all arithmetic and algorithms, dammit plus we can succeed at certain tasks better than ordinary procrastinating bombastic normal neurological people (NT) like yourself based on the merits of autism symptoms.
Life is hell for you... but life is way way overtime expended hell for any autism types.
Many of us achieve expertise. Many of us are never diagnosed, but are just eccentric artists (focused vocations).
See...
Life is fun too! The ecstasy of mounting an art show for public with all the trimmings is not impossible. It's real big fun! But don't forget most artists are NT and must train their eyes to see as an artist should. With autistic artists, the converse is true. We must train our eyes to satisfy the NT. Make our art for the NT. I am gonna send you a hug, now with an "add me" request, then you add me and read my journal, plus show your daughter and I will send you links to my paintings on the web for you and your daughter to entertain and learn.
There's lots in life that is nice and fun and stimulating in a good way for autism types.
Please.
yes, her being upset and rude is frusterating. try to rember that she doesnt no that she is doing it. wait for her to calm down, give her her space for a few minutes. then calmly explain what she did and explain what she should have done. and dont yell, that will just upset her.
as for helping her, treat her like a normal girl her age. but also try to rember that she does have NLD and it is harder for her. treat her just like you would any one else, but stay calmer with her. that might help her understand better.
all of this is working with me so it may help your daughter. message me with any other questions of concerns if you like.