My ASD Child

You're trying to find things for your child to do all summer that are safe, entertaining, and maybe if you're lucky, have some educational value. If you're like most moms and dads, you're trying to hold down a job at the same time. Now, add “Aspergers” (high functioning autism) to the equation and things have just gotten exponentially more complicated. Your Aspergers youngster needs structure and routine during the summer, and you're at a loss to think of activities that can give it to them. You fear a summer full of meltdowns and regression. What can you do? Not to worry, the list below will include plenty of tips for ensuring a successful summer for both you and your youngster with Aspergers or High-Functioning Autism: 1. Ask your Aspergers youngster about what he plans or expects to happen when out of school or on vacation. Doing so will help clear up any misconceptions about the things you either agree on or disagree about. 2. Avoid springin

Aspergers and High-Functioning Autistic kids are noted for having an obsession with just one or two activities – and homework is usually NOT one of them. Some moms and dads have great difficulty in getting their youngster to shift from their “obsessive interest” to “homework.” We recently took a poll here on MyAspergersChild.com . Moms and dads (300 in total) of kids on the autism spectrum were asked about homework-related problems. Here are the results: 8% said that their youngster hated school because of homework 10% had no problem getting their youngster to do their homework 16% reported that homework often caused a meltdown 18% had to remind their youngster to do their homework 48% said that homework was a daily family battle What are we to do if our "special needs" youngsters hate homework? Unfortunately that answer is not straightforward. It depends on the reasons WHY your youngster does not want to do homework. Here are five reasons these children ha

A meltdown is an intense emotional and behavioral response to “over-stimulation” (a form of distress for the child). Meltdowns are triggered by a fight-or-flight response, which releases adrenaline into the blood stream, creating heightened anxiety and causing the Asperger's (AS) or High-Functioning Autistic (HFA) child to switch to an instinctual survival mode. Common Features of Meltdowns— after the meltdown, there may be intense feelings of shame, remorse or humiliation, and a fear that relationships have been harmed beyond repair children in the middle of a meltdown will likely become hyposensitive or hypersensitive to pain cognitive dysfunction, perceptual distortion, and narrowing of sensory experience are associated with meltdowns meltdowns are a reaction to severe stress, although the stress may not be readily apparent to an observer meltdowns are caused by sensory or mental overload, sometime in conjunction with each other meltdowns are due to overwhelming

Question Will my Aspergers child’s symptoms get worse over time? Answer It doesn't actually worsen, but when a child with Aspergers (high functioning autism) reaches puberty, he/she can come under tremendous pressure and stress. So even though there is no actual cure for Aspergers, it can be made less noticeable if the Aspie is taught the correct ways to behave. This can mean going to occupational therapists, speech therapists, or the like. The more positive work you put towards helping your child, the less noticeable his/her Aspergers traits will be. Click here for more...

Interventions for Children with Aspergers (High-Functioning Autism) — All people in the Aspergers youngster’s life need to accept the diagnosis of Aspergers and understand its impact. Interventions are driven by each youngster’s age and individual needs and will vary, however, listed below are commonly needed interventions for kids in all environments: 1. Advocate for your youngster to have the school program that they need. 2. Be patient with your youngster and yourself and prioritize what to focus on first. Just focusing on today builds a better tomorrow. 3. Be prepared with your response to a difficult behavior or cycle that will calm the situation so you can react from your plan and not from your emotions. 4. Determine what a tolerable social and physical environment is for the youngster and provide it. 5. Don’t forget to nurture your spiritual side. 6. Educate yourself about Aspergers. 7. Learn how and when to talk to others for help, both profe

Intestinal dysbiosis is common to many kids with an Autism Spectrum Disorder. Living in our intestinal tract are trillions of cells of microbial organisms such as bacteria, yeast and viruses (called "flora"). There are friendly flora that are an asset to gut function and there are unfriendly flora that are harmful to the gut. Under normal conditions all these organisms live in competitive balance and synergy. Problems occur when something happens to upset the normal balance between friendly and unfriendly flora (e.g., antibiotics). Antibiotics kill friendly bacteria in the gut but do not kill “unfriendly” bacteria such as yeast. With the friendly bacteria compromised, the yeast flourishes. Thus we have dysbiosis. Dysbiosis leads to leaky gut wherein undigested food, toxins, microbes and all kinds of things we really don't care to know about are leaked into the blood stream. Leaky gut is involved in numerous health conditions. We are most interested in food allergi

Aspergers (high functioning autism) is a developmental disorder, which was first described around 1940, about three years after the introduction of the first main commercial antibiotics (i.e., sulfa drugs). As antibiotic usage grows, so do rates of Autism Spectrum Disorders. Aspergers is really a disorder of the antibiotic era. Why? Simply because antibiotics help the yeast Candida albicans grow within the intestinal tract. Candida albicans makes toxic chemicals, which hurt the developing brain. The yeast Candida albicans can be discovered inside of our intestinal tract, mouth and in the female genital tract. Occasionally this yeast overgrows and the doctor recognizes this overgrowth of yeast as a yeast infection of the female genital tract or in the mouth, where this infection is commonly known as thrush. Bacteria are also resident inside the intestinal tract, sharing space with the yeast. Antibiotics kill bacteria, not yeast. After the use of antibiotics, the yeast grows

The vast majority of referrals for a diagnostic evaluation for High-Functioning Autism  (HFA) are boys. The ratio of males to females is roughly around 10:1; however, the epidemiological research for HFA suggests that the ratio should be 4:1. Why are girls less likely to be identified as having the characteristics indicative of an autism spectrum disorder? Click here for the full article...

Does your baby have Aspergers? Early detection of Aspergers is difficult because kids who have this disorder are high-functioning . Here are some signs and symptoms reported by parents with children who were later diagnosed with Aspergers: • As their language develops, Aspergers kids often have pronoun reversal, such as saying, “you want help” instead of “I want help.” • Aspergers infants are often described as having been “serious” and or “thoughtful.” • Aspergers kids often do not wave “hi” or “bye” when expected and do not use a pointing gesture to share items of interest. • Kids with Aspergers begin to talk at the expected age, saying their first words around 12 months of age. However, their actual first words are often unusual (e.g., such first words as palm pilot, sheetrock, clock, mountain, fish, hammer). These words are generally used before the youngster says “mommy” or “daddy.” • Language is often interpreted extremely literally (e.g., one 4-y

Kids with Aspergers seem to evoke either the maternal or the predatory instinct in others. Aspies often lack subtlety in retaliating. Other kids may wait for an appropriate moment to respond without being caught. The youngster with Aspergers can also lack sufficient empathy and self-control to moderate the degree of injury inflicted on others. The Aspie is in a blind fury that gets him into trouble. The teacher sees the Aspergers youngster being aggressive and may not be aware of the taunts by his peers that precipitated the anger. Click here for the full article...

Parents often assume that their teenager with Asperger's (AS) or High-Functioning Autism (HFA) tries alcohol and/or drugs to rebel or to "fit in" with his peer group. However, teens with undiagnosed depression often use drugs and alcohol as a way to relieve their frustrations. A depressed teen on the autism spectrum may self-medicate with alcohol to escape the terrible sense of hopelessness. Unfortunately, alcohol only exacerbates the problem. Some drugs may even make him feel "normal," when for weeks he has felt miserable. The impact of such drugs on serotonin, dopamine and endorphins (i.e., chemicals in the brain that regulate mood) can be devastating for these teenagers. The damage they do to receptors in the brain can make the road back from depression even harder. Often parents approach the issue of drug and alcohol use as simply a discipline issue for a teen who is "bad." However, your "special needs" teen may be sick. He may be