My ASD Child

Question How do you discipline a child with Aspergers? Nothing I'm doing is working, and quite honestly, it seems to make matters worse as every attempt leads to a meltdown! Help!! I'm running out of options.   Answer Unfortunately, I see a number of teachers saying, "It's a matter of discipline!" Well, sure. Certainly having Aspergers (high-functioning autism) is not a license to do whatever you want to do, and there must be natural consequences. But with the youngster with Aspergers, one must spend more time explaining what they did that was wrong, why it was wrong, what he is supposed to do instead, and how to know when he is supposed to do it. Quite often, when the youngster is very emotional and upset, it is not a good time to explain these things. When the Aspergers child has emotion – he does not have logic. Look at love. Love is never logical. The same goes with anger or distress. So, that may not be the time to explain consequences, etc.

The primary aspect of Aspergers (high functioning autism) that characterizes it as autistic is the problem of human connectedness. The term most commonly used to describe this core weakness of human connection is “reciprocity.” This refers to the teen’s ability to engage other people in a way that makes others feel connected or not. In social conversation with a teen with Aspergers, eye contact is often poor, fleeting, or absent. Aspergers teens may not be able to read subtle gestures and facial changes or to interpret subtleties in language such as irony or sarcasm. They do not read or respond as most people do to small changes in body posture or to gestures. They seem either distant, stiff, or in other ways unconnected. Aspergers teens not only seem disconnected, but in some cases uninterested in being in relationships with others. They may generally have very little interest in the feelings, experiences, other human qualities, or possibilities of others and, hence, lack emp

Question Jack is attending speech therapy and we are trying to work on games without having a meltdown. If Jack is losing or sees another person is about to beat him at the game he completely loses control and has a meltdown. We have tried random games, board games (i.e., snakes and ladders). His meltdown would last a half hour before he can get himself back into control. Do you have any suggestions? He is obsessed about winning rather than playing for fun. Answer My Aspergers granddaughter (Kayla) and I played games most of her life when she was younger. The one thing I decided early on was that I would not "let" her win. I wanted to teach her that there are winners – and losers. I wanted her to know that sometimes she's going to be the winner, and sometimes her opponent will win. That's life! Some games are games of chance. So when we played, she had the same odds of winning as I did. Other games are games of skill. When we played, I didn&#