How to tell parents a preschooler has Asperger’s

I am an early years teacher and would like your expertise on this matter. I have a young girl in my class. She is 3 years and 9 months old and I have been talking to her mother in regards to her challenging behaviours. Her mother is not responsive and I have been attempting to get her a referral from the GP to a speech Therapist to help her with language.

Mum has asked her doctor and he said there is nothing wrong with her. Now the mother is angry and wants a sit down meeting to discuss what I obviously think is wrong with her child. I have lots of written reports which I can show her, but want to be really careful not to overwhelm her.

Here is a list of behaviours and development that I have noticed:

  • Resistant to change often screaming and will refuse to wear a spare hat if hers is at home but can’t understand that we need to have another hat to play outside.
  • Has a preference for male peers and often younger
  • imitates the actions/behaviours of others
  • clumsy gait
  • randomly hugs strangers
  • unaware of personal space
  • affection is over the top at times
  • pronoun reversal – even after explaining that Felicity is a girl so it is her hat will say his hat
  • Will scream at peers and adults without provocation
  • does not show concern when another child is hurt or sad
  • has trouble following routines and directions
  • has trouble sharing
  • will push over a much younger child and does not like to talk about how that would make her/him feel

Do you think I should take the wait and see approach, rather then distress the family who are already defensive?

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How can I launch my daughter with Asperger’s into adulthood

Hi – I just discovered your blog & feel excited + relieved to learn the potential joyful life for an Aspie woman. My creative, severely anxious yet improving child probably fits in the spectrum. There are about ten thousand events I wish to recount and then ask for analysis, but…

1 – What suggestions do you have for a part time time job for her? We live in rural northern NY State with access to a mall, fast-food places and parks/YMCA. My sense is that it’s time for my daughter to get more skill building, but it terrifies me that she might go into tailspins, experience traumas etc. I virtually force her to complete some tasks which come easy for most, have her repeat them and reinforce her success – such as pumping gas, using the self-checkout at Walmart. Need I add that she lives on-line, writing lots of fiction?

2 – How can I help her get into the school to sit for the SAT? No, she has no accommodations for her anxiety because she won’t go to a psych assessment (epic fail a couple years ago).

3 – Do you know any phone apps which would help with her executive functioning tasks? All that I have checked out seem only to help already-highly functioning people move from an “A-” to an “A+” whereas moving to a “D” would seriously be success for us.

Thanks a million from Mom of a Fabulous Daughter!

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Advice on daily decision making with Asperger’s

I am a college student with Asperger’s and I need some advice.

Daily decisions really wear me out and I am incredibly bad at making them. For instance, I had a wisdom tooth ache and I didn’t realize that it was causing all the health problems I’ve been having for years until I connected the dots yesterday. Also, I had trouble on deciding when to schedule my dental appointment because it would conflict with school. So, in making that decision, I had to weigh my own level of pain, the severity of the ailment and my personal schedule. It really drained me.

Also, I have a lot of trouble making daily snap decisions, such as whether to have lunch with friends or alone, where to study, what I should do with someone new I’ve just met, what I should do about an event/unexpected social plans that just cropped up but that may conflict with other errands that are in my schedule, when I should answer email or check my Facebook account, how I should behave when confronted with certain unique situations I’ve never encountered before, etc. etc.

I really don’t want this problem to keep me from living the life I want to live or stop me from doing what I want. Do you have any advice for me? How do you do it? Any tips would be extremely appreciated!

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My daughter with Aspergers doesn’t want to do anything

I have a daughter with Aspergers.  She doesn’t know that she has it and if we try to speak to her about it she will not accept it.   I read your article Don’t Miss Diagnosing Aspergers in Young Girls and my daughter also can’t seem to wash her hair properly, nor comb it . . . ever.

She is 14 and doesn’t have friends.  She says that she does, but they are all online friends who have never met her in person.  It is hard to find help for her since she thinks that there is absolutely nothing wrong.

She is not a good student, the only class she does well in is Language Arts. She is disorganized and will just lie on her back with her computer on her lap all day long if I don’t force her to do something else.  She can’t manage time.

What I am trying so desperately to figure out is what kind of help works?  What type of therapist works?  Especially for someone who thinks that they don’t need any help? We live in Raleigh, NC.  I don’t know where to go or what to do.

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How can someone with Asperger’s stop getting fired?

I live in São Paulo, Brazil. I came across your site researching social skills, interpersonal relations at work, etc.

The reason I was researching those items is because I am 41 years old and am stuck in a cycle of losing my jobs every one to two years.

In my most recent job I was a finance treasury manager in charge of a team of 15-20 people (I had to layoff some of them along the way – it was a family-owned, not-so-efficient company before a private equity firm took over).

I found myself overwhelmed by the amount of analysis I had to perform to my boss and could not take time to relate to the team. As time went on I felt that they disliked me, felt insecure, analyzed every word I spoke to other people in the company,  and events led to my discharge.

Nonetheless, I am very competent in finance, but the reason I am always discharged is for interpersonal reasons. My ex-bosses always say what my most recent ex-boss said, “It is not that you raise your voice, but the way you say it, the form.”

It took being fired seven times for me to realize that I have a problem. I have a good heart and I do care for others, so that makes the problem harder to understand.

Now that I am out of my paycheck, I found out that my wife is pregnant. I have other issues in my family currently that make this a very hard time for me, but I am talking to a total stranger oversees.

What could you advise me? I know you do not have much material to work on your response, but in your career you might have come across similar cases.

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Career change for someone with Aspergers

I am a freelance journalist in Los Angeles with quantifiable success but having trouble getting help moving into a new and more lucrative career, because I am too advanced for a lot of the disability focused state funded services and not successful enough for conventional headhunters and job coaches.

Job advisors I have worked with–both aimed at neurotypical clients and people with disabilities–tell me I am hirable but then abruptly drop me because nobody knows what to do with me.

I was the kid who was told to not set my sights too high. My parents were told that I would not be able to survive in a regular university and I should be targeted to vocational/factory type careers. We did not listen, and I have a Masters and BA to show for that. Before 2001, I spent my young adult life being bullied and fired at a variety of PR companies, and when I graduated, my university placement services would not help me get that important first job.

After a rough 18 months where I went through five jobs, and was told teaching was my only option because of my spotty job record, In 2002, I got lucky and found several freelance writing jobs that led to a freelance career, and supplemented my income with work as a substitute teacher. I got bullied and fired from one of my two districts this past year, but have no recourse and may lose my credential if the woman who fired me plans to place a spurious report with the California Teaching Credential office on why she fired me (this woman is known for trashing past employees and getting away with it, and she breaks a lot of state labor laws and gets away with it). I am still in good standing with another district which I have been with a lot longer, and can probably get good references there.

I tried out for and got turned down for several media jobs, because of my age (46) and the editors admitted to me younger people are more appealing for their looks and willingness to accept low pay. I have reached out to all kinds of Autism and Asperger’s organizations and university programs and nobody will do anything for me unless I pay thousands of dollars I do not have. While friends encourage me to apply for disability, lawyers in the field tell me I will probably not be “disabled” enough to qualify.

My 86 year old father is pressuring me to go into a business though he cannot articulate what that business is.

There is shockingly very little information on good mid career options for journalists looking for more stable work. I was advised paralegal may be a good option, but am not sure if this is another inherently ageist field, and cannot get any help or direction.

If you can offer ideas or suggestions please let me know.

 

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How can I succeed at a new job with Aspergers?

I’m a diagnosed woman with Asperger’s heading into a job in customer service. The environment I am heading into is like high school, according to many of the reviews I read on Glassdoor and other sites. Any direct advice for this type of job so I can succeed?

In my town there are no other jobs. The actual unemployment rate is really high and among the disabled it is even higher of course. I want to work, very badly. I also want to be a success in my own eyes as well as the eyes of my parents and my friends.

Any wise words would be appreciated. (Did I phrase that right?)

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Best career launch strategy for someone with Aspergers

I am simply overjoyed to have found your site. The resemblances in our paths seems uncanny, but you’re some years ahead and exactly where I want to be. I am a 21 year old with Aspergers, can’t keep a job to save my life, rarely change, shower or brush my teeth, and the only thing I’ve managed to make work for me is working in my parent’s bookstore.

Now I don’t get hours anymore and I am expecting a child, wondering how on earth to make it work. My partner and everyone around me says I would do best at creating my own job, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what that should be, or focus my energy on one thing long enough to take a project to fruition.

So my question is, when you were first figuring out how to get started at running your own projects instead of finding jobs to get fired from over and over, what was the most valuable advice you received or, alternately would in hindsight have hoped to know then?

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My wife thinks I have Aspergers

After reading through some of your blog entries I took the personality test. The results I received are ENTJ. I’m not sure this is right. After poring over the page of different personality types and I’m leaning towards ISTP.

Coincidentally, your Feb 4th blog post “How to balance your business and your family” really resonates with me. My wife just quit her job in September to start her own business, and I have been the sole breadwinner. I really understand the costs involved, as she has also developed a website using a third party developer, and I try to support her need to have a “low burn rate” when building the business. The description of your husband as an ISTP seemed more in line with my personality. Barring any further chameleonic tendencies…

Even more coincidentally, I stumbled upon your website after having what is probably the twelfth conversation with my wife on the topic of I probably have Asperger Syndrome. I don’t know, I may or may not have AS, I don’t really care, other than the fact that my wife is having trouble connecting with me.

We’ve been through couples therapy a couple of times, and she’s been trying to figure out why I’ve been so pessimistic and possibly depressed since leaving an awesome job designing airplanes in Atlanta to move to Idaho to raise our two kids. She has a support system here, but I have some adjustment anxiety (psychiatrist’s words). Having relocated to the Midwest from an urban area, you probably understand the adjustment.

So yeah, I’ll probably follow your blog from here on out, mostly because you seem to be able to articulate things my wife is going through in a way I can understand them. And I can use some of your techniques to better connect with her. And some more of your techniques to further my career. Thanks for doing what you do.

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How can I tell someone they have Aspergers?

I am a police supervisor and I have an officer that I truly believe has Asperger’s. I also have a nephew that my wife and I strongly believe has Asperger’s. The problem is: neither my officer nor our brother/sister-in-law will admit nor knows that Asperger’s is the likely issue in their lives.

With my officer, who is young and new to the job, at first his behavior was just annoying. I want so badly to yank him up and ask him “What are you doing?”, but reflecting on it for a second leads me to see that he’s doing the RIGHT things, it’s just the way he goes about them.

Example: Every call that goes out, he has to respond to. Even with the presence of the beat officer, Matt will take over and apply his own problem solving to resolve the issue. On the one hand, many people wouldn’t mind at all if someone else stepped in and took over their problems, but it seems as if he thinks he’s needed everywhere to solve the problems that we all have to deal with, but his is the only “right” way and if he doesn’t take care of it, it won’t get taken care of the right way.

I, as the supervisor, usually direct the troops to take certain actions at a scene and I will look into specific information or details to determine further actions that we as a squad or the department as a whole will take to resolve the situation. If I radio that I’m going to go talk to a certain person or look into a certain thing, Matt has to beat me there and do his own looking into or talk to the person I need to talk to.

Is it WRONG? No. Is it inappropriate? Kind of. Is it NOT what I wanted to happen? Yes. Do I have specific reasons for wanting Matt to maintain or continue on the path that I’ve set him on (stay here, watch that) while I go and investigate further? Yes. I have specific questions and information for the people I intend to talk to that Matt hasn’t considered and doesn’t have the experience or knowledge to know to ask or know what to do with the info when he gets it.

I can’t outright say, “Matt, you have a personality/emotional disorder”, and I can’t deal with him in his present state, and I most certainly can’t deal with him the way I WANT to deal with him. His typical response to criticism is to shut down, tell others that “Sarge doesn’t want me to (do whatever I criticized him for)”, and then he manufactures an emergency to have to leave without dealing with the problem.

I really like your examples and your perspective and I really need some advice on effectively dealing with this instead of chopping his head off (figuratively) and rendering an officer with good intentions and ability ineffective.

Can you help?

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