Re: Newbie - 11 year old son only just diagnosed with Asperge

[Guest guest]

Hi - yes I am in Melbourne. We live bayside but will be moving to casey

area next year. We get the final report on 16 April, but am coming to terms with

the diagnosis. What's annoying me is the fact that he will need OT, speech

therapy, social skills training and no help is offered at all. It is all so

overwhelming and very isolating if you don't have the money for those services.

Which CAMHS unit are you with. We were with the Alfred one in moorabin, but to

be honest after six months of psychotherapy (no assessment was offered at all) I

was left feeling like I was a poor parent. It was a very dark time for me.

However, I believe some Camhs units are very good.

Thanks for your insight. He does get obsessive about certain things. I was just

confused as I would not describe him as a little professor. We are still coming

to terms with the diagnosis and what it will mean for him and us as a family. I

am all clued up on ADHD, but know nothing about aspergers. There seems to be a

lot of misinformation. A friend was telling me how her friends son has AS and he

was a 'nightmare' (her words not mine). She said he was 21 and that her friend

couldn't leave him alone. When they wanted to go away they had to leave him with

their elderly parents for no longer than a week. Now, we sent our children to

the uk for five weeks to visit my parents. Whilst it was challenging for our

aspie, he managed ok. This was

before we were aware of his diagnosis and I am not sure we would have sent him

if

we had known, but what it has proven is that he can adapt and cope.

Anyway we'll wait and see what is offered. I thought of getting in touch with a

parenting group in the mean time. Not sure if there are any around, but I'll

check.

Take care,

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> From: MacAllister <smacalli@...>

> Subject: Re: ( ) Newbie - 11 year old son only just diagnosed

with Asperger Syndrome

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> Received: Thursday, 4 March, 2010, 1:49 PM

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> My son sounds more like your son and he has Aspergers.  There has never

been one thing that he constantly obsesses about, but there have been things

over time that he perseverates on.  Does that make sense?  He went through

a major train stage where he loved to watch trains on tapes, play with trains,

read about trains, etc... but he was also open to other things too.  He just

preferred trains when given the choice.  Then it moved to Harry Potter,

Yu-Gi-Oh cards, and now video games.  But I can still get him interested

in other things (he likes to build w/ legos, for example.)  I wouldn't

discount this possibility just b/c he doesn't have a main

obsession.  From what you wrote below, it does sound like he tends to

perseverate on some things, just not severely enough to call is an " obsession. "

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> " Over-optimism is waiting for you ship to come in when you haven't sent one

out. "

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> From: <sarahcox41gmail (DOT) com>

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> Sent: Wed, March 3, 2010 12:51:13 AM

> Subject: ( ) Newbie - 11 year old son only just diagnosed with

Asperger Syndrome

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> Hi there. My 11 year old son was diagnosed with ADHD/ODD when he was 5 years

old. He has been unmedicated in that time although this has been very difficult

as his tantrums and rages have been incredibly difficult to manage.

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> With him starting secondary school next year, we thought it prudent to get him

reassessed in order to identify any special considerations he may need in terms

of his learning. He has difficulty socialising, writing, has speech problems and

a few other things that worried us (mainly behavioural) . We attended our local

children's hospital (in Melbourne, Australia) where he underwent a full days

testing of IQ tests, personality tests, depression tests, ADHD stuff etc. He was

interviewed and we were also interviewed extensively about his infant, toddler,

younger and current years in terms of developmental milestones, behaviours, etc.

It was exhausting and extremely thorough and intensive (far more so than when he

got orginally diagnosed six years ago).

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> At the end of the day, the psychologist took us aside and asked if we had ever

been offered any other diagnosis other than ADHD/ODD. We said we hadn't but we

had been worried that he might have Bipolar since my sister had recently been

diagnosed with Bipolar and he did fly into such rages. She said that he

definintely didn't have Bipolar and in fact did not have ADHD/ODD either. She

said that whilst they had to scrutinise the results and furnish us with a report

and official diagnosis, she was convinced he had Asperger Syndrome. This came as

a total shock to us, although in fairness, my husband has always said that he

felt our son was on the autistic spectrum because as a young child, he was very

ritualistic and went ballistic if things weren't done in a certain way, and he

has multiple sensory sensitivities which still affect him today.

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> What is worrying me about the diagnosis is this. Everything of the seven or

eight DMV-IV criteria for Aspergers fits except for the special interest thing.

It is true that Jordan is obsessed with playstation, computer games and Nintendo

DSI and will oscillate between the three, opting to forgo all else to play them

(including food), if allowed to. But does that constitute a special interest?

Currently, his obsession is racing and wrestling games, but he will play others

if nothing else is available (usually after a tantrum when he can't get one of

his favourites to work). He collects crystals, but doesn't have an obsessive

interest in them i.e. he doesn't know the names of all his crystals, how they

are made, etc., but will always gravitate towards the crystal section of a shop,

if they have one. He will always browse the playstation area of a shop too - to

the point I can leave him there, go off and do a bit of my own browsing and know

that he won't

> have moved. He is not interested in anything else, other than those things.

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> My worry is that they have jumped the gun with the diagnosis because he scores

so highly in the other areas - eye contact aversion, social isolation, social

skills problems, etc. But he doesnt have this innate ability to collect facts on

his special area of interest. For example, he can cream anyone at the games that

he loves, and he can tell you which cars are the fastest, but he doesn't rattle

off endless facts about each of the cars. He just plays the game incessantly,

simple as that.

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> Is there varying degrees of aspergers, because the term 'little professor'

really doesn't fit my son. I have watched you tube videos of children with

Aspergers and they all seem to be super intelligent and rattle off these endless

facts about stuff. Jordan scored average on the IQ scale and really isn't

'geeky' at all (sorry for the use of term but I couldn't think of anything else

- don't mean to offend).

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> Can anyone shed any light on this for me.

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> Thanks

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> S in Melbourne.

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