My ASD Child

Hi mark, my 13 year old son aspergers. In the past and less so now he has felt extreme sensitivity to wearing certain clothes and shoes. He seems to be getting better with this. For the past 12 months though he seems to have a fixation on closing every door in the house. It either has to be wide open or fully closed. He cannot bear to think of it half closed and says this gives him pain in his head. This is driving my husband, my 9 year old daughter and I mad. He is up and down all day and night closing doors after us. My husband refuses to give in to his demands and it causes many arguments. I know this is genuinely upsetting my son but he said he cannot get out of doing it as it causes him pain. What can we do? Dear Mark Hutten, I am a Research Associate in Dr. Dennis Wall's lab at Harvard Medical School. We are months away from completing a mobile system for rapid detection of developmental delays and would like to discuss recruiting for our study through your co

"Any advice on how to deal with separation anxiety in a child with high functioning autism? Dropping him off at school is a nightmare!" You used to leave your high-functioning autistic (HFA) child with loved ones or drop him off at school with a kiss on the cheek and a quick wave goodbye. Clingy behavior seemed to be a problem only for other children. But, now your goodbyes trigger tears or tantrums – or both. If your youngster's clingy behavior seems intense or prolonged (especially if it interferes with school or other daily activities), you will want to address this situation sooner than later, because the longer it goes on, the worse it gets and the tougher it is to treat. Each youngster handles stress differently, so the causes of clingy behavior will be different for each boy or girl. A parent's job is to play detective and figure out what's causing clingy behavior. Sometimes clinginess may be triggered by situations such as: bullying family st