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Hi,

While we are on a waiting list for therapy for our son, I have been looking

around to see what elase I can find out on my own.

About 6 months ago, our 5yo ds was dx with Aspergers. All along, I thought I

was just a bad parent, and that my son, the middle of three boys, was just VERY

immature. Watching him at the playground, and the way he talks to people, and

the impulsivity, I finally realized that he wasn't just going to grow out of it.

At 5yo, he is reading, writing, and proficient in math (four basic operations),

but has a hard time with spoken words...he speaks tons, but he is at right

angles to the world in the things he says, and his inability to answer

questions, even about things he knows. I didn't know until the evaluations that

he wasn't understanding pictures well either, and now that he is reading, I feel

like we finally have a way to help him. We could talk about something 3,000

times, and not have it stick, but now when he sees the words, he understands.

It is kind of creepy as the parent, since this kind of wiring seems so

backwards.

He is an information junkie, especially if it contains numbers. He knows all the

presidents, all the states, the multiplication table, etc., and every so often,

I have to try to find a new, compatible special interest for him to memorize or

I will go stark raving mad if I have to hear about all the presidents (or

whatever it is at the moment) one more time.

Because he has mastered much of the academic stuff he needs without anyone

teaching him, I am keeping him at home for school two days a week and working

almost exclusively on language and vocabulary development with him this year. I

feel like we are making HUGE progress in this area. The therapists at the

school were kind enough to show me a lot of the materials they use, and help me

get started in researching what to do with him.

Each problem area with my ds goes through cycles, and right now he is having

major oral stimulation issues again. He has always chewed, licked, eaten almost

anything he gould get his mouth on. Instead of the usual stimming

things-rocking, headbanging, or what have you, his seems to be biting things.

He bites things, adn himself when he is under duress. And sometimes he just

bites, licks, eats everything for no apparent reason. As a toddler he was very

stressful to deal with... he could figure out how to get and eat the plants on

top of the fridge. There was nowhere high enough where he couldn't figure out

how to get it, so I felt like I was always callig poison control for something,

even though I made sure we didn't keep any terrible chemical cleaners around. He

chewed holes in the vacuum cleaner hose, and he licked any liquid on the ground

outside, so we could never let him out of his stroller. He was always eating

everything off the bottom of his shoes (while he was wearing them), always

picking things out of the carpet to eat, and so on. He would climb to get

nails, tacks, and pins to put in his mouth. He drank any liquid he could...fish

tank water, dirty dish water, toilet water, and many others. He is always

licking doorknobs, cars, playground equipment, etc. As a result, he used to be

sick all the time, but at least thankfully, his immune system seems to have

caught up with him, and he doesn't get sick quite as much. His latest thing is

chewing wood. He is chewing his bed rails, and the back of his guitar. There is

a major chunk of his bedrail missing. We keep putting tape over it to cover it,

but he chews through the tape. This is one area where i really wish I knew what

to do.

He seems to be very much of a sensory-seeker...loves flying through he air,

jumping off things, loves loud noises (think setting off alarms, mic feedback),

etc.

For us, it feels like figuring out the language problems are about 1/3 of the

battle, and the sensory issues the second third. It seem s like the meltdowns

diminish in proportion to how we figure out how to deal with the language and

sensory problems. But also, the theory of mind bit seems to cause a lot of

problems. I feel like if we could get inside his head and help him understand

things, that would solve a lot too.

Besides all the craziness, he is a really sweet and fun-loving little boy...when

his world isn't being disturbed by any of 10,000 possible irritants ;-).