My ASD Child

Although Aspergers (high functioning autism) is at the milder end of the autism spectrum, the challenges parents face when disciplining a "special needs" teenager are more difficult than they would be with an average teen. Complicated by defiant behavior, the Aspergers teen is at risk for even greater difficulties on multiple levels -- unless the parents' disciplinary techniques are tailored to their child's special needs. Click here for My Aspergers Teen eBook

Not until the middle of the twentieth century was there a name for a disorder that now appears to affect an estimated 3.4 every 1,000 kids ages 3-10, a disorder that causes disruption in families and unfulfilled lives for many kids. In 1943 Dr. Leo Kanner of the Johns Hopkins Hospital studied a group of 11 kids and introduced the label early infantile autism into the English language. At the same time a German scientist, Dr. Hans Asperger, described a milder form of the disorder that became known as Aspergers. Thus these two disorders were described and are today listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV-TR (fourth edition, text revision)1 as two of the five Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD), more often referred to today as Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). All these disorders are characterized by varying degrees of impairment in communication skills, social interactions, and restricted, repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior. Aut