Guest guest Posted January 13, 2011 Report Share Posted January 13, 2011 It seems my 13 y.o. son with Asperger Syndrome is unable to differentiate one person from another - even people he has known for a long time. I am sure that this is a very important key to his social issues. I mean, how can you talk to someone that you may or may not even know? Is this "mind blindness"? Is it visual processing disorder? What type of treatment or therapy should I be looking into? Thanks for your help! Joy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 14, 2011 Report Share Posted January 14, 2011 Oh my goodnes, I was just telling my friend that I have the same problem with my 6 1/2 year old. It's crazy that he can memorize the names and identify in a second military airplanes, trains, all of NASA shuttles, types of ships, trains and cars (since transportation is his fixation) but can not identify his teachers, aids, peers, cousins, grandparents, and even confuses my husband and me with strangers sometimes!!! I think part of it is the fact that they do not look at people in the face and do not have interest in people and my guess is that their facial characteristics and expressions don't make sense to them so they just don't process them properly. My son's memory is awesome for most things except faces. I would also love to hear about therapy ideas, sorry I can't provide any! Ida > > > > It seems my 13 y.o. son with Asperger Syndrome is unable to differentiate one person from another - even people he has known for a long time. I am sure that this is a very important key to his social issues. I mean, how can you talk to someone that you may or may not even know? Is this " mind blindness " ? Is it visual processing disorder? What type of treatment or therapy should I be looking into? > > > > Thanks for your help! > > Joy > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 14, 2011 Report Share Posted January 14, 2011 Hi, Joy-- The inability to recognize faces is called prosopagnosia and isn't really part of autism. People can have prospagnosia, and not be on the spectrum. "Mind blindness" or lack of theory of mind is the inability to see situations from another person's point of view, which is a huge part of autism. I've read people with prosopagnosia learn to recognize others by context, clothes, hairstyles and their voices. Dr. Oliver Sacks writes a lot about his prosopagnosia in his book "The Mind's Eye" which is fascinating. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 14, 2011 Report Share Posted January 14, 2011 I haven't tried it, but the Lets Face It, computer program is supposed to help with this. When my son was small, I took photo's of family and friends and wrote their names on the photo's then played matching games with my son where we put the cards out face down. We took turns turning over 2 cards at a time. When we got a match, we would say the name of the person and say something about the photo (i.e. - brown hair, dimpled chin, big nose, etc.) When we finished the photo's were put in an album, and as we put them in, we would say this is Aunt... and this is our friend... When my son started school, I used packing tape to tape photo's of his teacher, his aide and his speech therapist in the top of his lunch box. Their names were written on the photo's and he would read it when he opened the lunch box and just before closing it. My son seemed to develop a way of remembering their names by the time he was 10. He once told me Mrs. s has hair that goes up on the end (it flipped up a little) and that reminds me her name starts with J and I remember her name. He used cues like that for other people too, but I never really figured out his methods. Hope this helps. Glenda > > > > It seems my 13 y.o. son with Asperger Syndrome is unable to differentiate one person from another - even people he has known for a long time. I am sure that this is a very important key to his social issues. I mean, how can you talk to someone that you may or may not even know? Is this " mind blindness " ? Is it visual processing disorder? What type of treatment or therapy should I be looking into? > > > > Thanks for your help! > > Joy > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 14, 2011 Report Share Posted January 14, 2011 Joy: I would take him to a Behavioral Optometrist and have him evaluated. You would be surprised what you don't recognize how these children actually see developmentally. Rick is in West Boca and is very good - 562 451-0524. It seems my 13 y.o. son with Asperger Syndrome is unable to differentiate one person from another - even people he has known for a long time. I am sure that this is a very important key to his social issues. I mean, how can you talk to someone that you may or may not even know? Is this "mind blindness"? Is it visual processing disorder? What type of treatment or therapy should I be looking into? Thanks for your help! Joy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 14, 2011 Report Share Posted January 14, 2011 I just read an article about this. Its called prosopagnosia. The woman writing the article had this condition, and even people like her stepson or fiance were beyond her grasp to recognize. She said she often would recognize people only by some distinct feature they had, like red curly hair or a port wine stain. But facial features were beyond her. This is from wikipedia: Prosopagnosia (Greek: " prosopon " = " face " , " agnosia " = " inability to recognize/identify " ) is a disorder of face perception where the ability to recognize faces is impaired, while the ability to recognize other objects may be relatively intact. The term originally referred to a condition following acute brain damage, but recently a congenital form of the disorder has been proposed, which may be inherited by about 2.5% of the population.[1] The specific brain area usually associated with prosopagnosia is the fusiform gyrus.[2] Few successful therapies have so far been developed for affected people, although individuals often learn to use 'piecemeal' or 'feature by feature' recognition strategies. This may involve secondary clues such as clothing, hair color, body shape, and voice. Because the face seems to function as an important identifying feature in memory, it can also be difficult for people with this condition to keep track of information about people, and socialize normally with others. Janet Miami > > > > It seems my 13 y.o. son with Asperger Syndrome is unable to differentiate one person from another - even people he has known for a long time. I am sure that this is a very important key to his social issues. I mean, how can you talk to someone that you may or may not even know? Is this " mind blindness " ? Is it visual processing disorder? What type of treatment or therapy should I be looking into? > > > > Thanks for your help! > > Joy > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 15, 2011 Report Share Posted January 15, 2011 Glenda--That was a very clever way you devised to help your son recognize the people in his life. The common name for this condition is "face blindness." Here is a cool Website that offers a link to an online test you can use to see how well you can recognize unfamiliar faces (and some other tests, too). It might not work so well for younger kids--the computer-generated faces look kind of creepy to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 15, 2011 Report Share Posted January 15, 2011 Oops, sorry everyone. I forgot to include the link!http://www.faceblind.org/facetests/ --- In sList , "mcboingmom" wrote:>> Glenda--That was a very clever way you devised to help your son> recognize the people in his life.> The common name for this condition is "face blindness." Here is a cool> Website that offers a link to an online test you can use to see how well> you can recognize unfamiliar faces (and some other tests, too). It might> not work so well for younger kids--the computer-generated faces look> kind of creepy to me.> Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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