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Preparing Your Aspergers Child for Transition to Middle-School

Parents who have children that will attend middle-school for the first time in the fall of this year need to initiate preparations pronto! More on this crucial topic can be found here...

Place-Blindness in Individuals with ASD

Some children and teens – and even adults – with High-Functioning Autism and Aspergers frequently become lost because they can't remember previously seen places. An estimated 33% of people with Aspergers suffer from “place-blindness” (also called topographic agnosia), which causes them to become lost easily. This can happen even in areas they know very well if a familiar landmark has changed.

Place-blindness is a form of “visual agnosia” in which the individual can’t rely on visual cues to guide him directionally. However, he may still have an excellent capacity to describe the visual layout of the same place or location. People with place-blindness may have the ability to read maps, but often become lost in familiar environments.

A person with place-blindness could live in a neighborhood for years and not recognize local houses if he sees them out of context (e.g., a photo featuring the house on its own). When out on a hike, the place-blind child or teen may remember certain landmarks (e.g., a bridge, waterfalls, fallen tree, etc.), but otherwise be unable to find his way around the woods even on a route he has traveled many times.

Place-blindness can be extremely maddening. Even some adults with Aspergers may frequently take wrong turns and arrive late for appointments and social engagements, which cause them to appear inconsiderate or forgetful. In addition, they don’t have the option of changing their usual routes or trying new shortcuts without the risk of getting lost. Place-blind people tend to rely on specific landmarks (e.g., a billboard, telephone booth, a tall tree, etc.), but they may become lost even on a familiar route that has been traveled many times.

Place-blindness may occur in conjunction with “face-blindness” (also called prosopagnosia), but many Aspies with place-blindness have very good face recognition skills, thus, having one condition doesn’t necessarily mean that the person will have the other. Both conditions run in families, suggesting a genetic component. While many place-blind individuals have a poor directional sense or impaired map reading ability, some are strong in these skills and have only impaired place or landmark recognition.



Coping techniques for place-blindness:

1. Alternate cues may be particularly useful to a person with place-blindness. Alternate cues may include color cues or tactile markers to symbolize a new room or to remember an area by.

2. Check out any new areas that you will be traveling to beforehand to see if there is a nearby cafe or other place you can wait if you don’t get lost and end up arriving early.

3. If you have strong map-reading skills, bring a map everywhere you go.

4. If you will need to travel a new route in the near future and it is very important to arrive on time, do a dry run beforehand and commit as many landmarks to memory as possible to lower the risk of getting lost.

5. Leave early for appointments whenever possible so that time for getting lost is factored in.

6. Make a point of actively memorizing landmarks that are unlikely to change or be removed.

7. Memorize route directions (north, south, east, and west) and numbers of blocks, and carry a compass to assist with navigation.

8. Naming landmarks out loud or thinking about their features verbally may help in committing them to memory.

9. Use a global positioning system (GPS) device to obtain directions.

10. Using verbal descriptions of routes.
 
 

My child has been rejected by his peers, ridiculed and bullied !!!

Social rejection has devastating effects in many areas of functioning. Because the ASD child tends to internalize how others treat him, rejection damages self-esteem and often causes anxiety and depression. As the child feels worse about himself and becomes more anxious and depressed – he performs worse, socially and intellectually.

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How to Prevent Meltdowns in Children on the Spectrum

Meltdowns are not a pretty sight. They are somewhat like overblown temper tantrums, but unlike tantrums, meltdowns can last anywhere from ten minutes to over an hour. When it starts, the Asperger's or HFA child is totally out-of-control. When it ends, both you and your child are totally exhausted. But... don’t breathe a sigh of relief yet. At the least provocation, for the remainder of that day -- and sometimes into the next - the meltdown can return in full force.

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Parenting Defiant Teens on the Spectrum

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

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Older Teens and Young Adult Children with ASD Still Living At Home

Your older teenager or young “adult child” isn’t sure what to do, and he is asking you for money every few days. How do you cut the purse strings and teach him to be independent? Parents of teens with ASD face many problems that other parents do not. Time is running out for teaching their adolescent how to become an independent adult. As one mother put it, "There's so little time, yet so much left to do."

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Parenting Children and Teens with High-Functioning Autism

Two traits often found in kids with High-Functioning Autism are “mind-blindness” (i.e., the inability to predict the beliefs and intentions of others) and “alexithymia” (i.e., the inability to identify and interpret emotional signals in others). These two traits reduce the youngster’s ability to empathize with peers. As a result, he or she may be perceived by adults and other children as selfish, insensitive and uncaring.

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Highly Effective Research-Based Parenting Strategies for Children with Asperger's and HFA

Become an expert in helping your child cope with his or her “out-of-control” emotions, inability to make and keep friends, stress, anger, thinking errors, and resistance to change.

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