Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Compensating for AS?

He laughs when the other kids laugh (good superficial appearance of fitting in.) But then when I listen closely, his comments are a beat or two too late...the other kids have moved on (with their lightening speed) to another related topic and he is still stuck on the first item they were chatting about. He may get no response, or a snide remark like, "Nathan already said that!" The other boys talk about sports teams, Pokemon, Percy Jackson, and pizza in one paragraphs...while DS8 will join in for Percy Jackson and then try to add in something cool-to-him about math. Like I said, it is nothing overtly obvious to a casual observer, but when seen closely, his interactions are just a bit off.

In the structured classroom, he follows the routine to a T. Other kids are laughing and forget to get out a pencil, DS would be horrified to forget such an integral part of the assignment. But, he fits in perfectly with what he is supposed to do according to the teacher.

In other areas he is completely blind, and not just a little off. I have seen kids obviously snub him...turn away when he says hi or move away when he walks over...yet he does not even notice. I brought up one incident like this with him about 5 minutes after it happened, and he literally did not see it. The other kid made a face and turned away, my DS went up to him repeating his greeting and the kid walked away. DS still thinks that kid likes him and it was SO OBVIOUS that he does not. DS is blind to "subtle" body language and facial expressions that are completely apparent to us and to neurotypical kids.

I have no desire for him to be voted Most Popular...that's not what I'm talking about with "fitting in." But I'm hoping he will learn how to make appropriate conversation and recognize more body language/facial expression as he gets older. Over the summer, I always think he has grown so much in social skills, then I see the kids in his class in the fall and they have outgrown him by so much more.

Yes, he does get jokes (and makes them... and sometimes they are actually funny). Metaphorical speech can occasionally be an issue, but not really too often these days.

Our ds seems extremely mild in comparison. That's where I get confused about him, and that's why I was leaning NVLD when I read about it.


Therein lies my issue. I feel the need to have him in one or the other. I find it difficult to switch back and forth, though out of necessity (and the need to remain sane) I have relaxed just a bit recently.

Aha! I did it! I replied to you all. I cannot thank you all enough for these initial responses. I do so appreciate your time and insight.

I'm trying to say this gently... but it sounds sort of like you didn't get the outcome of the evaluation that you expected and that you were upset. I would guess any parent would rather hear differences were due to giftedness rather than Asperger's so that's not surprising. I'm wondering though, what sorts of evidence would you have expected the evaluator to provide for the AS diagnosis that was different from what you got? What would that evidence have looked like? It sounds like the evaluator has worked with many PG and many PG kids with AS - does that carry weight for you?

One thing I can say from personal experience with evaluations is that while it is easy to focus on little things from this test or that, at the end it is really much more about an overall impression than any individual test.


One thing you might want to keep an eye on is how he does in novel situations. That might be situations with kids he doesn't already know or in situations with very different expectations (much more or much less structure than he's expecting).

I'm a homeschooler too and I think it can be difficult to see your own child objectively sometimes and it can be even harder to get a really good idea how they compare to peers when they are typically in mixed age groups with many kids who may also have special needs (diagnosed or not).


I'm guessing many typically developing children would be able to observe the unwritten social rules of this situation and know what to do without asking. I don't think there is a single "Aspie" response because people are all different.


There are certainly gifted kids with Aspeger's that age who would, just like their parents do, say "Oh that's interesting, I didn't know that..." and stuff like that in conversation. I wouldn't at all see using those sorts of expressions as something that would rule out Asperger's.

PG kids with Asperger's often find ways to use their intelligence to compensate. So, if you read general descriptions of Asperger's he might not sound "that bad". It isn't the case that PG kids with Asperger's are all bumbling around being nonstop windbags who don't notice or care if they hurt other people's feelings. (Not suggesting that's what you are saying, but that often that's the stereotype of kids with ASD).

If he seems to be doing well and he's not having trouble with anxiety or attention, it seems like it would make sense to wait a little bit and then reassess. It would give him even more time to mature and may make the answer a more clear cut one.

I hope you find some answers. It is frustrating to be in limbo.

Our DS is loving, too. It's perfectly possible to have a charming, cheerful, loving child who also has AS. (My DS is the only fourth grader who'll still hold his mom's hand on the way home from school. Which means the mom has to gently discourage it, so he won't be picked on. Sigh.)

Sohn and Grayson have written a useful book called Parenting Your Asperger Child; they identify different types of children with Asperger's. Not all of them perseverate or lecture on one topic (the "little professor" stereotype); most are not mathy. Some have rich fantasy lives that it's hard to get them out of. Some get stuck on rules, trying to make other people conform to rules and build systems of rules for themselves to make the world make sense to them. Some are passive because they have the feeling that they don't quite get the subtext of what's going on, so they nod and agree and use small-talk language and go along for the ride without ever being full participants. It might be useful to you to do a little reading and see whether any of the types fit your DS.

I also like The OASIS Guide to Asperger Syndrome: good overview book.


I think it's great that you're aware of your hopes and expectations, and the way in which the diagnosis troubled you. It is not a fun process.

My experience is that having a diagnosis you can trust is quite liberating: it means the issues you see are not your or your DS's fault, and it usually means there are concrete steps you can take to make things better.

With our DS, the AS was apparent enough that we spent a lot of time remediating that first, and only somewhat later had room to give serious thought to his giftedness as a major factor in his education.

They were both present all along, of course. We still have "gifted" moments and "Asperger" moments (I dislike the term Aspie--you wouldn't give a nickname to any other disability...) and "combination of both" moments. That's just our experience. Blended. It's not possible to separate the giftedness from the AS in my kid-- the phenomenal memory, for instance, is an AS trait and also a gifted trait, all part of his wiring. "Both" is an OK answer for us; it might not be for you.

If you feel your DS has "overexcitabilities" (a term about which I am skeptical, as it covers up issues rather than revealing them), do they match to any extent the list of oddities that come with AS? Anxiety, poor perspective taking, difficulty with transitions especially in the early years, need to have others follow rules or direct their play? All of that and more can be written off as "overexcitable"-- or sometimes these traits are part of something identifiable as a neurological disorder. AS is a "syndrome," which means a person doesn't have to have the complete list of symptoms to be diagnosed, just a cluster of them.


That's how I see it. And if he has AS, it's to his advantage if he knows that and comes to terms with it before he's a teenager. My DS finds it very useful to be able to predict what's hard for him rather than just being frustrated.

If it takes another eval for you to get clarity on this, you can do it. Make sure they do the ADOS, which is the best test for a "yes/no" on autism. They probably wouldn't start from scratch, but would take the IQ and achievement testing from your previous report (assuming it's thorough) and just add whatever tests they want for ruling in or out.

If you pursue it, I'd seek out an autism center that sees and treats lots and lots of kids; it increases the odds that they've seen one sort of like yours, though the percentage of AS kids with DYS-level scores is very small.

And I wouldn't let them show me the door until I had not only an understanding of why they think yes or no, but also, if "yes," treatment recommendations that work locally and with your insurance.

HTH,
DeeDee

I'm really going to watch him over the next few weeks. This may be what he's doing. I have noticed that the conversations sometimes move on and he's not said what he wanted to say. That's the 'thinking' that I see him doing. By the time he gets the thought, the conversation has sometimes moved on. He doesn't do that with us at home, but I have seen this recently in his new co-op class. I don't think that anyone else would notice this, but I have and just assumed that he would have to learn how to keep up with the conversation.


This is the kind of thing that we saw a year or so ago when he first began interacting with a group of children at the YMCA. A few times after class I brought up incidents and he would tell me that he did know that something wasn't right, but he didn't know "why" the kid had acted the way he did toward him (and I didn't either, as I saw no obvious trigger... just kid behavior, I guess.) Yet there were other times when he did seem clueless. I chalked it up to lack of social experiences and the fact that it was a fairly unstructured setting. "It's all new to him," I thought. That was almost two years ago, and with the exception of the Einstein comment, he's not had any 'duh' moments that I've noticed. It seems that I've been viewing this all wrong.

Kate, I cannot thank you enough for sharing this info with me. This really helps me see this in a new light.

Alrighty then... I've apparently been thinking in stereotypical terms in regard to AS. The above sounds familiar to me.

Thanks for the book recommendations. I will see if I can get my hands on those. I have a few, but I've not found them helpful.

Sorry to offend. I don't normally use that, but in reading on the proposed DSM-V revision for AS, I ran across many AS people who seemed to love their "Aspie" label and name. I didn't realize it was offensive to some. Thanks for the heads-up.


Your advice seems wise. I hadn't thought of an autism center. Thank you for all of your recommendations. I think my eyes have been opened, and I'm thinking at this point that we probably should go ahead and see if we can find someone to see him again. I will try to remember to update this thread.

Thank you all for the wisdom and personal experience shared on this thread. We have a 9yr old DD who we are coming to realize may be on the spectrum. She's loving, happy, extroverted, can be thoughtful and empathic, and can be completely oblivious, has subtle comprehension problems trouble with sequencing.

She has friends and school insist she is doing fine socially. But I am increasingly convinced that she's doing fine in superficial / shallow situations and is lagging in complex preteen girl social awareness.

She's been very thoroughly schooled by us, and her schools, on appropriate behavior and has learned this mostly very well, but increasingly it's clear that there are subtleties that she doesn't get. There are behaviors and small incidents everyday where we correct her (and she often seems puzzled), but her 5 yr old sister would not need to be told.

Random example of not getting subtleties. She was a picky eater who, after YEARS of work, finally learned to eat what her hosts gave her or to politely leave it on he plate (or say no thank you). And not to ask for food on a play date, but to wait until it was offered (our friends will always offer children snacks or a meal as appropriate, I am not expecting her to go hungry, just to leave it to the host what and when they offer). Which was all fine until she asked me recently if it was rude to ask for a glass of water! A 9.5 yr old should know that asking for water is not the same as asking for cookies or fruit right?

For the record, I am an Aspie, and I like the term "aspie." It's a heck of a lot better than explaining to people that I don't have "A$$ Burgers." Just saying. I have a friend who refers to it as my "asparagus issues."

MumOfThree - I can really identify with the glass of water example. I'm not saying she's on the spectrum - hard to identify that from one example, but I've definitely had similar issues in the past.

Not offended, just alerting you... different people feel differently about this sort of thing.

DeeDee