Re: Re: Article~The Challenge of Driving With Asperger's

[Guest guest]

Helen and all... There are other issues present with young drivers and their families. One biggie is an understandable caution in many intact families that leads the parents to be "extra cautious" with many aspects of a young person's independence in the community. In some instances, parents encourage separate non-inclusive educational settings for their kiddos on the spectrum, but also can't see reasons to push for the child's integration into the ordinary and chaotic social life of their child's agemates. One of those often delayed rites of passage into adulthood involves the whole gamut of concerns about the child's judgment brought to bear under stressful environmental settings, and "the real life of the road out there" can, in many instances, be highly stressful for non autistic young drivers.

One thing not mentioned, yet, are the sensory and proprioceptive issues, both receptive and expressive. Some kiddos take what others believe to be unusual risks because they're not aware of where their body is (all parts) in relation to everything and everyone "out there." Sometimes this leads to all kinds of positional defensiveness. Sometimes it results in continued blundering without knowing what the "learning cues" are in re-casting one's perspective outside of one's own body boundaries. Sometimes the kiddo is cautious. Sometimes the parents (or one of them) is cautious to the point that the kiddo might be getting conflicting messages from both of them.

This is an area that is addressible through the judicious use of occupational therapists, because unlike speech-language pathologists, they're more used to working with a wider age range of clients. As many of you may know, OT's specializing in adult work operate in institutional or facility rehabilitative settings for stroke or traumatic brain injury clients, and/or with clients with a variety of movement and sensory differences. OT's trained in the best current practices for working with mature adults are often able to translate portions of their training to younger adults, or adolescents-becoming-adults easier than strictly pediatric specialists or OT's working in the "limited expectations arena" of public school special education.

So what may appear to be an easy decision of driving or not driving all of a sudden becomes far more complicated given all the limiting factors, the complexity of issues, and degrees of awareness and insight among all supports -- natural as well as institutional or agency -- available to young adults. Sometimes it's just a slow-maturation issue. Sometimes it's overcoming truly defective thoughts maintained not only by the young person, but his or her support system regarding the individual's capacity to make choices. Driving as a metaphor really does capture some of the complex attributes of adult decision-making that's expected of all drivers, because once on the road, we're all strangers to one another. And that's a reality that one can't dodge, as Helen has pointed out.

[i must admit I haven't mastered the mystery of searching the archives to know what others have already said before I wheedled my way back onto the list, and I'm still hopeless in matters of identities and passwords and what happens with the foibles of Yahoo as a host server for our archives.]

In knowing how differently we all learn (even Temple finally "got it" about twelve years ago that there was more than one way - her's -- of perceiving the world), even knowing how one learns to deal with the challenges and problems of driving may be less important to some individuals than others. If you're born and raised in Manhattan, ask yourself just how many adults really WANT to learn how to drive. On the other hand, if one is born and raised on a ranch or a farm, driving skills can become almost instinctual at ages we all shake our heads about. So, it isn't only the chronological or developmental thing. It's also about deciding, at different times and "ages" of one's life what is a high priority, and what things may encourage the individual to be the exception, but the smarter exception just for himself/herself.

Just as I've determined that I'm hopeless when it comes to learning new software because I do, indeed, have untested, difficult to measure specific learning difficulties, so others may come to different conclusions about what's important or necessary to learn, taking into the consideration their unique psychic and mental health rewards as well as the costs of such learning.

Just my take.

N. Meyer

Re: Article~The Challenge of Driving With Asperger’s > >Hi , >I read that with a skeptical eye too. I'm not sure that Aspergers (or even high functioning autism) in and of itself would be a hindrance to becoming a good driver. I tend to think that the problems would be related to factors which could be comorbid to AS, such as cognitive impairment, severe ADHD, severe anxiety, etc. > >I'd love to hear Bill's take on this, since on list and off, in spite of "evidence" I've tried to offer up and he has refuted in every case from the vantage point of his vast clinical background, even what some of us refer to as "slower processing" which seems (anecdotally) common to AS, if I understand Bill correctly, that is a separate issue. Bill? offered another interesting viewpoint about Aspie processing back in December and I'll just point y'all to the archive post here: http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/aspires-relationships/message/17042 > >ly I've ridden with some perfectly awful NT drivers, LOL. I'm no shrinking violet myself, but my observation is that my purely Aspergerish friends are better drivers on the whole. > >I do recall in the distant past that some members of this group reported that their AS young adult children remained reticent about learning to drive until they were much older than their peers. That may have been some wisdom on the young Aspie's part. Given some of the spectacular accidents some young people are in, it seems to me that some of them (here I am talking about NT youth) have not developed all the global skills needed, but may feel pressured to perform beyond their skill level so as to impress their peers. Spectrum kids (and adults) don't feel the same pressure to impress. >- Helen > > > >> > The Challenge of Driving With Asperger’s >> > NY Times > >> http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/27/the-challenge-of-driving-with-a\ >> spergers/