Aspergers, schooling and frustration

April 16, 2008 — xanthippa

Many people with Aspergers have been treated as ‘stupid’, or – and this is the ‘teachers’ favourite’ – “Your child is co clever, if only he/she would apply himself/herself, he/she could do so much better!”  As if the world were not frustrating enough without such patronizing haughtiness!   

There are very many ‘things’ going on – and many will display themselves as various ‘learning disabilities’:  dyslexia and/or its auditory equivalent, sequencing difficulties, social rejection + + + … and an ever growing frustration.  And yes, this frustration can be crippling – it can ‘freeze’ the mind which is capable of complex reasoning, yet treated as an idiot because one can’t seem to express it!  

In North America, school tests are all written – a ‘double jeopardy’ for Aspies.  First, understanding the scope of the question is a challenge in itself.  Is the answer supposed to be one word, one sentence – or a paragraph?  During written test or exams, one is not supposed to speak – and so cannot ask and find out how big the answer is supposed to be.  Then, it is incredibly difficult for Aspies to write their thoughts down in a consistent, comprehensive manner.  The mechanics of writing itself are hard enough, formulating answers and then remembering them long enough to write them down is something that will take most Aspies years to master.  This difficulty in written expression is kind of the ‘hallmark’ of Aspergers!

I know of a child who was slipping into a deep depression and getting bad marks in school.  After a series of tests, it was shown that he was able to express himself so badly (on tests), he scored in the lowest 25% in general cognitive tests for his age-group.  (That means that 75% children his age were able to write a better answer.)  Yet, in oral testing (and with guidance – letting him ask questions so he assured himself he understood the question and how detailed the answer was supposed to be – and with no time limit), he was found to score higher than 95% of his peers!  He was able to solve math problems from grade 8 exams, yet he was almost failing grade 2!

Can you imagine the amount of frustration this lead to?  That disparity between one’s actual ability, and one’s capability to demonstrate that ability to others can lead to very, very destructive self-image.  Frustration, shame, self-loathing….not really something that will help make things better.  And because it is more pronounced when they are young and have not learned to compensate, early on into their schooling, many Aspies figure out that even trying is pointless.

The key question, of course, is:  so how to fix it? 

The simple sounding answer is:  by exercising the brain.  The latest research on neuroplasticity suggests this can be done, with great results.  In the next few posts, I will try to describe the exercises that I have seen work – though not all people respond to the same way to all the exercises.  I guess that even despite being Aspies, we are all individuals!

And speaking of being individuals:  I just came across a neat article.  Perhaps forms of self-expression like these futuristic tattoos just might help people with Aspergers read the emotions of others!  Perhaps a little silly, but worth the read!

Posted in Aspergers, education, human nature, language, society. Tags: , , , , , . 12 Comments »

Aspergers and Reading

April 14, 2008 — xanthippa

Teaching children with Aspergers’ syndrome new skills can be very trying and, at times, discouraging.  Perhaps because there are so many ways Aspergers affects children, no single method will work for all Aspergers kids.  If you have missed my introduction to my personal insight into Aspergers’ and a look at Aspergers and ADD, you can find them here and here.

Aspergers is something my family shares:  I, my husband, our sons, several of our nephews and nieces – we all have Aspergers in common.  Yet, each one of us exhibits it a little differently, each one of us needs to build up quite a different set of tools to help us function.

For example, my older son loved to be read to.  He had a favourite nighttime routine, and it involved about an hour of being read to.  And he soaked it all up, like a sponge.  He loved some fairy tales, some myths, but his favourites were non-fiction books. And he remembered it all.  I loved to tease him by changing a word here or there – and he always ‘caught my cheating’!  Once he learned that this was ‘humour’, we laughed a lot about it.

When it came to learning to read himself, it was not so easy.  He went to a Montessori pre-school, where the teachers thought that ‘making him learn his letters would discourage him from wanting to learn’.  So, they didn’t – they let him iron facecloths instead (it also fell under the ‘practical skills’ section, just as ‘learning letters’ did).  Needless to say, we did not continue with Montessori for grade 1.  It genuinely appears to be a good educational system, but the only children I personally have met who thrived in the Montessori environment were girls whose sole learning motivation was pleasing their teachers/parents.

Yet, learning to read (much less write) did not come easily, even when we switched our son to a highly structured classroom environment with a very high teacher to student ratio.  His grade 1 teacher was most excellent, however, and dedicated to making him succeed.  She taught us many valuable lessons!

Our son was struggling to understand the written words.  His constant complaint was that by the time he decoded a letter, he could not remember what the prevoius letter was – or what the sentence was about.  He was trying, but it looked to us like the only things he seemed to be able to really concentrate on effectively were video games.

Seeing our opening, we pounced! 

A friend recommended ‘The Legend of Zelda – Ocarina of Time’ as an excellent videogame.  It is interesting, engages the child, age appropriate – and it requires reading in order to play!  From the very first moment, it captivated our son.  He was eager to play the game, as much as he possibly could.

At the beginning, we were very accomodating.  We read all the text which popped up, and without which he could not progress in the game.  Being a perfectionist, he liked to make sure he completely mastered each and every skill before moving on to the next bit.  The key to learning skills in videogames is repetition.  And so, he repeated the same sections, over and over and over.  He seemed to derive comfort as well as pleasure from the ‘variable predictability’ which came from this: he knew that if he went and chopped down the grass in front of a particular house, there would be rupees (gems which designate points) in several clumps of grass – but not which clumps!  It was the perfect combination of suspense and predictability – at least, for our son, at that time!

Slowly and over time, however, we stopped reading the text to him.  He had been over the same areas so many times, he seemed to have memorized them anyway, and so it did not seem to be much of a big deal.  And one of us was always there, whenever he explored a new section of the game, ready to read the new instructions.  Once, twice, three times.  Occasionally, more than that…and each time we read it, we were slower, and slower, and slower…

As he became more interested in the plot of the game, he became more and more anxious to decode the information quickly.  Having been read it once or twice, with the setting to remind him of the context, he found it easier and easier to remember the captions, with the aid of visual prompts of the text…  And, over time, we only needed to read the text the first time around – after then, he would remember/decode or decode/remember  it on his own. 

And, through it all, we would talk about it (while he was not playing the game):  what did he do, how, what it meant, how did he think things would go next…  When he could not come up with possible future scenarios (to be expected), we would supply some and have him tell us how likely it seemed, based on what had already happened.  This is an essential step – it connects the experience to the analysis centre of the brain, something which is not automatic, yet very important in the development of critical reading skills.  These neural pathways need to be established and reinforced, over and over and over.

Eventually, this decoding became reading in its own right!  Not just decoding text to sound, but really, really reading, with all the levels of comprehension this implies!

It is hard to know whether it was the repetition of the text, the motivation, or the context which stimulated the decoding of a message anticipated by memory.  My opinion is that it was a combination of all these factors.  Regardless of the mechanism, he learned to read!

But more than that!  Once he was able to ‘wrap his brain’ around the mechanics of reading, he became one of the most voratious, fast, discriminating readers I have ever met.  By the end of grade 1, he read several books, including ‘The Hobbit’.  Once he finished that, we -as a family – read ‘The Lord of the Rings’ aloud together, each of us taking turns to do parts of the reading.  Over the summer, he read the trilogy on his own.  Twice.

Just to give an example of the speed with which he now reads:  when one of the ‘Harry Potter’ books – the one that was about 1200 pages – came out a few years ago, he read it in under 12 hours.  Not only did he retain an almost encyclopedic memory of the plot, he also gained a deep comprehension of it.

Of course, this is just one story of one boy’s journey to learn to read.  It will be different for each child with Asprgers.  It certainly was for my other son!

Yet, it does seem to me (both from this, and many other experiences) that once an ‘Aspie’ masters a skill – and I really mean masters, not just ‘becomes profficient enough to hide their difficulties’ – it has an immense impact on all the other spheres of learning and experience.  It almost seems that acquiring a skill opens not just a door, but a veritable portal – a superhighway through which new skills and experiences can be routed!

Yes, it is much more challenging to teach an ‘Aspie’ child – but it is also incredibly rewarding!  Each step is a struggle, and it may seem overwhelming – both for the child and the parents and educators.  Yet, in no other group of children that I have worked with (voluneering, it is essential that I stress I have no professional credentials in this field and these are my personal observations) have the successes had such a tremendous impact on both the overall cognition and happiness of the child.

Please, no matter how hard it is, do not give up.  Change your methods, try out your hunches and new experimental things – and see if they work.  Give them time – but not too much time!  If they do not work, regardless of the credentials of the person recommending them, try something else.  Because each child is different, and each ‘Aspie’ child is profoundly different….  And you, who spends the most time with them, are the one who is by far the most competent to judge what is or is not effective.

The brain is a wonderful and wonderous thing.  It can do way more than we ever expect.  Neuroplasticity is real, even if it takes a while to show.  So, as they say on ‘Galaxy Quest’:  “Never give up!  Never Surrender!”

Posted in education, human nature, language, society. Tags: , , , . 3 Comments »

Aspergers and ADD

April 13, 2008 — xanthippa

As promised, this the second one of my very personal perspectives on living with Asperger Syndrome.  If you have missed my introduction, you can find it here.

Not being professionally trained in these fields, I can only offer the most basic observations.  Many people diagnosed with ‘Asperger Syndrome’ are also diagnosed with one or more of other ‘problems’, such as ‘Attention Deficit Syndrome’ (ADD).  I wanted to link the ‘ADD’ bit to some good site that defines it, but, well, I could not find one that reflects reality.  My reality, anyway!

Contrary to popular belief (and the focus of most ‘ADD’ articles and treatments), this does not denote the inability to pay attention.  Rather, it denotes difficulties in contolling one’s ‘concentration’.  It’s like the ‘focus switch’ is very, very deep:  it takes a lot for something to trigger it, but when it does – it is just as hard for it to get un-triggered.  This is a much more complex thing than just being unable to settle down or to control one’s impulses. 

Rather, these are possible symptoms, not the causes of the problem.  Yet, it seems that no professional seems to want to see , discuss, treat or, indeed, acknowledge anything other than the symptoms…which is why they usually are not much help at all.

This is my personal suspicion of a small part of the causes:  it has a lot to do with ‘filtering’ the stimulae we are constantly bombarded with.  It’s like the ‘light’ and ‘medium’ filters are completely missing.  So, the only options the brain has is to use the ‘extra-strenght-don’t-let-anything-through’ filters, or no filters at all…

For example, I have a problem with my hair:  if it is cut short (or if I have bangs), the areas of my skin which are touched by the ends of the individuals hairs are constantly being stimulated.  I cannot, no matter how hard I try, control this continuous input.  It is constantly rubbing and I cannot block it.  The continuous stimulation to the skin results in a physiological response – exczema.  Mine is not a reaction to any hair product – this was tested for. 

It is a response to the constant, minor yet unceassing stimulation due to the hair-ends rubbing against my skin and it is something that fails to be filtered by the brain.  My only solution is to have hair long enough to pin up or tie back, so it does not touch my skin….then I have to rearrange it often so the ‘position’ of the hair does not become painful.  To other people, it looks like I am always fidgeting with my hair – like a nervous habit or a mannerism.  Yet, I am only relieving built up pain.

Compare this to a ‘normal’ (or, as many ‘Aspergers pride’ people refer somewhat condescendingly to the rest of the population, the ‘neurotypicals’, or NTs) response:  after being exposed to a repetitive stimulus for several minutes (less for some individuals), their brain automatically compensates.  An example is ‘getting used to’ the cool temperature of the lake, or the hot water in a bath.  The skin sends initial signals informing the brain of the new stimulus, but after a while, the intensity is decreased. 

For many people who have ADD (and most ‘Aspies’ do have some form of it), this ‘filtering’ does not always happen.  You are always aware of the clothing that is touching you.  You are always aware of even the minutest breeze rubbing your skin (I, for one, I experience even a tiny draft in a room as intense pain on my skin – I could never understand how people could stand in front of a fan, or go outside in the wind).

For me, it’s my skin (well, that’s one of my ‘things’).  Other people can have other things that they have trouble filtering out.  Bright light can make them feel blinded or anxious, or the light contrast between the digital display of a clock in a dark room can trigger such anxiety as to prevent one from being able to fall asleep.  Falling asleep in front of a TV would be unimaginable for these people.

On the other hand, I know several people who can only sleep with the TV on:  the constant yet irregular changes in light and sound levels help block the regular cyclicity of the white noise of the heating system, air conditioner, and so on which seem to feed into the subconscious and cause bad reactions.  If the TV is turned off after they fall asleep, the cyclicity of the white noise will be enough to trigger some feenback loop, which keeps buildig up until they get an axiety attack while they are sleeping!  Not a pleasant way to wake up…

And don’t even let me get started on the rustling of leaves, crickets chirping or wind chimes!

On the other hand, when my brain focuses on something – and I mean, really focuses on something – external stimula have about zero chance of breaking through.  People can talk to me – and claim I made responses – yet I am not aware of it…not even a little bit!  Little things, like fire alarms, can go completely unnoticed.  And I am not alone! 

When my younger son was only a few months old, we became worried because there were times – but only some times – when we could make a very loud noise, directly behind him – and I mean LOUD – yet it would produce absolutely no response in him whatsoever!  Not even the tiniest twitch!  His brain was being used in processing something else – so it paid no attention to the audial input.  The physical reaction was the same as if he had never registered the stimulus at all!  I must admit, I am also guilty of this – as are both my husband, and my father….

But, here comes the interesting bit:  and yes, my father, my son and my husband all display this:  sometimes, you speak to them, they hear what is said and their brain stores it in some sort of a ‘buffer’ – but it never gets to the bit of brain that actually processes it.  They are completely unaware of whatever it was that was said, and appear oblivious to having been spoken to.  But, if you ask them to go back, they can ‘replay’ the message from the ‘buffer’ in their brain and ‘listen’ to it.  ‘Oh, yes’, they say, ‘I get what you want now!’

Hopefully, this will help give people a little bit of understanding of what is happening in those of us with ADD.

Posted in Aspergers, education, human nature, society. Tags: , , , , , . 2 Comments »

Aspergers

April 5, 2008 — xanthippa

Since mentioning in past posts that I had Asperger Syndrome, I have received many private messages on this topic….and requests to explain how it affects me – and what strategies I employed to develop coping skills.  So, every now and then, I will write a bit about my experiences in this area.

 However, before I start, some qualifications are in order…

I am not a physician, and the closest I ever came to being a therapist was an after-school job in a gift shop down the hall from the hotel bar with a pianist so loud, the bartender could not hear ‘life stories’ over the music – so I had to fill in!  Whatever I post about Aspergers are my personal experiences, observations and ideas – and are not to be mistaken for an expert opinion or the prevailing medical opinion -or, in fact, any respected opinion on this topic whatsoever.  These are just my musings!

Yet, I hope that it might offer an insight into how at least one ‘Aspergers’ brain processes the surrounding world, and help to relieve the frustration that people often experience when dealing with an ‘Aspergers’ child or colleague.  And it CAN be challenging!!!

Perhaps I am completely off on this, but it seems to me that what we call ‘Asperger Syndrome’ is actually several very different conditions.  They may present similarly, but have underlying causes…and if you read my rants, you know how I abhor it when people confuse symptoms with causes!  I can only address my particular variety.  ;0)

Aspergers has been described in many ways, given many nicknames:  the absentminded professor syndrome, the Silicone Valley syndrome, the uber-geek/nerd syndrome…there are more labels.  When I was in high school, I watched the original Star Trek series in order to figure out why some of my classmates kept addressing me as Ms. Spock…  Yet lately (and perhaps due to the success of people like Bill Gates – I don’t know if he has Aspergers, but he does have the appearance of a ‘nerd’, just as many ‘Aspies’ do), there has been a literary (well, as close as TV comes) explosion of characters who undeniably portray different manifestations of the Asperger syndrome – outside of the ‘Trekkies’.

This list is not meant to be exhaustive, rather, it is meant to demonstrate the very different ways (and severity – it is much more like a continuum than an on/off thingy) that Aspergers people behave  (or, at least, ones that we, Aspies, consider to be ‘our ways’):

Dr. Gregory House

Mr. Monk

Just about everyone (excepting Penny) on ‘The Big Bang Theory’

Dr. Spence Reid from ‘Criminal Minds’

Chuck Bartowski

 …and that does not even account for Mr. Bean!

So, if this topic is of interest to you, drop in every now and then – more on Aspergers is going to trickle in!

Posted in Aspergers, education, human nature, language, philosophy, society. Tags: , , , , . 10 Comments »

Nature of ‘Faith’

March 27, 2008 — xanthippa

In the last two posts, I looked at an alternate explanation of some statements in the Bible.  As the feedback showed, some Christians believe these statements literally, others figuratively.  And they are all happy holding onto their very different beliefs, even though all of them are inspired by the same passage in Genesis.   That is great!  

People ‘hold on’ to their ‘profound beliefs’, regardless of what others think of them or anything else – and I would not want it to be any other way.  This is called ‘faith’.  I have learned about this phenomenon.  I do not comprehend it, but I am ready to accept that some people are capable of it.

Yet, people often ‘hold on’ to ‘beliefs’ or ‘opinions’ on trivial or non-profound points which are demonstrably unsupportable.  I have tried, but I really don’t understand this aspect of human nature.  Personally, I have a hard time with this 100% one way, or 100% the other way mode of thought…..perhaps because I’m not ‘wired just right’…but I don’t think there is anything I’ve invested a 100%, non-conditional ‘belief’ in.

No, I’m not talking about everyday life things, like knowing I love my kids and so on….emotional investment is NOT what I am talking about.  Nor am I talking about the ‘ought to’ kind of belief, as in “I belive all humans ought to be treated as equals in the eyes of the law.”

I mean ‘factual’ stuff:  like physics, chemistry, history…that ‘stuff’…. and global warming, political implications, someone’s culpability in something, superstitions, trust in actual physical institutions …that ‘stuff’, too.  For example, when driving over a bridge, I am reasonably convinced that the probability that the bridge will collapse under me is so low as to be negligible – or I would not have driven onto it.  Yet, I do not believe that it will not collapse….there is a difference!

OK, I ‘know’ gravity is a ‘force’ – yet, if someone presented me with substantiated evidence that it wasn’t a force, but rather an aspect of, say, space, I would be sceptical, yet I’d want to know what they based their claim on.  They’d need solid evidence, but….I could be convinced by it.   Knowledge, conclusions, opinions – these are all subject to change as more information comes in.  I get that!  I understand that process, and have experienced it many times.  What I don’t get is ‘belief’ or ‘faith’.

Perhaps this is a characteristic of us Aspergers’ people:  I recall some friends cutting out a comic strip in which a teacher is handing back a math test.  She reads one of the answers out loud:  “provided both trains are travelling in straight line, with no hills or curves, provided there are no accidents that slow them down along the way, provided we neglect to account for the curvature of the Earth, provided the clocks in both stations are synchronized, and that the whole path is along same height above sea-level and so no time diallation occurs, the trains’ average speed is XXX. ”  She hands the test to a boy, and he wonders:  “How did she know this was my paper?  I forgot to put my name on it!”

For some reason, my friends thought this was hillarious and wanted to show it to me….something about the comic basing a character on me… 

It seems many people have as much problems with ‘my’ processing of information into conditional conclusions as I do with ‘faith’.    This truly shocked me….after all, does not EVERYONE state the obvious limits under which any conclusion is valid?  Why do many people percieve such qualifications as ‘waffling’?  It certainly is not so!  Would not presuming such things be an oversimplification, to the point of error? 

Yet ‘belief’ and ‘faith’ seemed more natural to many people than my ‘conditional conclusions’!

What is it that allows one person to ‘believe’ or ‘have faith’, while another cannot even commit to a math-problem answer without stating all the assumptions and limitations?  Which one is the ‘normal’ one, and which the ‘anomaly’?  Or is this like a spectrum, where there are no discrete breaks, just a continuum….with my ilk falling squarely at one extreme?

These questions have haunted me, ever since I can recall formulating their cognitive pre-cursors in nursery shool.  Even back then, I simply could not understand the motivations and expected goals behind other children’s games – and when I asked, I got blank stares or the old ‘index-finger-making-circular-motion-by-the-temple’ gestures in return.  I can understand both the process and the motivation/expected goals behind a calcualted risk, problem analysis, conditional conclusion, that sort of thing….  But, for the life of me, I cannot understand either the process nor the motivation/expected goals behind ‘belief’ and faith’ – both profound and mundane.

Is this just another aspect of my ‘faulty wiring’, one that makes me so very Aspergers?  Or, are ‘belief’ and ‘faith’ simply a label for ‘I don’t understand and am not worthy/willing to think about’?  Or is there something entirely different at play here?

Posted in Aspergers, human nature, ignosticism, philosophy, religion, society. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , . 3 Comments »

What Convinces Us: the corollary to ‘How We Argue’

March 14, 2008 — xanthippa

Often, I feel like an outsider looking in on how the rest of the world lives, bewildered by all these ‘unseen rules’ that guide human interactions.  The fact that I am heavily ‘Aspergers’ probably has a lot to do with it:  I compensate for my lack of intuitive understanding by obsessively observing and cataloging behaviour.

Noticing how people argue seemed relatively easy:  the evidence was ‘out there’.  But understanding what convinces people to change their minds….that I have found much tougher.  I can see the arguments ‘out there’, in the open, but the ‘convincing’ process itself is inside a person’s head – hidden from direct observation.  It was easy to see that some arguments were more effective than others, but it always puzzled me how come an argument could convince some people, but not others.  Do not all people undergo similar thought processes?

I’m still not sure I get it.  But, it seems to me that both how much of an ‘investment’, and of what type it is, is of importance. 

A few years ago, something unusual happened: I was wrong.  Yes, it does happen, occasionally….  :0) 

During a get-together, I got into a heated-yet-amicable discussion with someone on an inconsequential topic – and, not having proof for either side on hand, we came to an impasse.  Another person came in, who just could have had the answer, so we asked her.  As she began to speak, it became apparent that the information was not favourable to my position, but the general revelry of the get-together was beginning to drown out her voice.  So, I started to ‘shush’ everyone, so we could hear the rest of what she had to say.

My opponent, sparks of laughter in his eyes, commented that perhaps it was not in my interest to be getting her to speak, as she’ll only prove me wrong!  This puzzled me, and I said so:  I’d rather be proven wrong, than persist in an incorrect position.  It was my opponent’s turn to be puzzled – it seemed this approach, which I took to be the only plausible one, had never occurred to him.

This gave me a big clue:  some people cannot be convinced, because they value winning an argument (and not ‘loosing face’) higher than they value being right.  And if this could be true of an inconsequential thing, among friends – where laughter was the measure of the volume of the argument – how much more true this would be for ‘big things’!

One of the ‘big debates’ that is going on now centers on the veracity of the ‘Anthropogenic Climate Change’ model.  I was one of the earliest proponents of ‘global warming’ – it sounded reasonable to me.  However, over more than a decade of  reading up on the underlying science, the IPCC reports, and after speaking with some of the scientists (and an economist)who were part of the whole UN shindig about it, I have concluded that it is much more of a political tool for behaviour modification than it is a scientific theory…

Not that long ago, I got into a discussion about ACC with an intelligent, educated young man – and an excellent debater – whose positions fall far left of the centre.  I made an observation that most of the ACC’s proponents were left of centre, and he accused me of politicizing the debate.  Yet, he was logical, and challenged me to convince him that ACC is a load of dingo’s kidneys, without ‘politicizing’ it. 

So, I explained a lot of the ideas that the ACC’s proponents are using, and explained the underlying science behind them…and why this model does not fit the scientific evidence.  I also explained the IPCC’s process in writing the report, and how the methodology was used to exclude science to play significant role in the report.  I even pointed out a few bits where frustrated scientists used wording that acted as ‘red flags’ to other scientists, indicating the unsoundness of the statement.

Nothing seemed to work.  I simply did not know how to convince this man.  Frustrated, I made an offhanded comment about how the whole pseudoscience of ACC was started when Margaret Thatcher commissioned a report that would show ‘fossil fuels should be abandoned in favour of nuclear power’, in order to use it as a weapon with which to end a pesky coal-miners strike….

I was quite floored when he retorted:  “You might have mentioned Thatchers involvment at the start and I would have instantaneously lost all of my credible thought procceses and immediately jumped on your wagon.”

Perhaps it is beyond me to figure out what convinces people…

Posted in Aspergers, debate, human nature, language, philosophy, politics, society. Tags: , , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment »
Newer posts »