**AUTISM / ASPERGERS SUPPORT GROUP**

[doll*obsession]

A safe place for all members with friends or family with ASD

Come and have a cuppa, share your joys, and vent your problems with other people who understand.

[bella_again]

I wonder what is triggering off the behavior though Dolly. Is dad aware of what triggers his behavior. It's such a tough one for you.

I wonder if he just gets so over stimulated he reacts and can't calm himself down. Does school have some calming strategies they can use?

I just hope that something works for him and you its such a lot to have to deal with...

[doll*obsession]

i think a big part of it is the apparent lack of rules and structure at his fathers house, when joe is there, joe is the boss kwim? I also know for a fact they have given him lactose in the past when i have told them not to and why, i dont know if that happens still though. but he is always a little nutty when he comes home and for a few days afterwards and he gets overwhelmed easily.
another part is the overstimulation, he doesnt handle crowds or noise well, same with bright sunlight. then there are other issues to, like the time he dissapeard- it turned out that some little **** stole his lunch and left him with only a popper, so he flipped out and took off 😞
we are trying to teach him to recognise the signs of on oncoming meltdown, so he can tell the teachers he needs time out and go to either the blueroom or the special ed room. its not easy though 😞
I have told his teacher and principal that its ok to give him a big squeeze to help settle him, so that helps sometimes
He has a school excursion in a couple of weeks, I get to tag along, so that will be great. if he has any issues i can take care of it so the teachers can concentrate on the rest of the class 🙂

[atmkbjr]

doll, I feel for you, we had the same issues with my stepson with asthma, when they stayed with us, they were fine, but the week they'd spend with mum, they came back for the week with us always on the Predmix, on the edge of an attack because mum was so high strung and she couldn't see it was affecting him as one of his triggers was emotional. I can only imagine how much harder it must be for you with the mental (for lack of a better description) issues also.

((Big hugs for ya)) and in the voice of Dory from Finding Nemo, "just keep breathing, just keep breathing, breathing, breathing, breathing" !!

[atmkbjr]

On our side of the fence, we got in to see the OT, she had him cut out a cat, draw shapes, his name, did a memory game etc. Everything he did was well within age appropriateness ! She spoke to his teacher who gave a totally different result in the classroom situation. So the OT is going to do a classroom visual assesment to see how the class setting changes his concentration and skills.

I had an appoint with the psychologist, filed out a couple of scales questionaires, a couple for the teacher. Went back last week with master 5 for his first app. She did some play therapy with a naughty witch puppet and a happy monkey puppet, to give him some 'in his head' tools for dealing with his thoughts as such, how he speaks to people and his tantrums etc.
She also sat with him and drew a big bag on a piece of paper and asked him some things that annoy him, he mainly came up with situations at school.

I thought the assesments would be done all at once, didn't realise she was going to do play therapy at the same time, I think it should help in the long run, he has spoken about the happy monkey a couple of times, doing different things.

[bella_again]

((Big hugs for ya)) and in the voice of Dory from Finding Nemo, "just keep breathing, just keep breathing, breathing, breathing, breathing" !!

LOL that's a good one, I think I'll take it on board too lol lol

Ah Doll that makes sense my girls for a lo tof years were very similar having a behavioral outburst when totally over stimulated by visual or large crowds. Sometimes its not easy to notice the events before the outburst but when we could we were able to re direct the girls onto something else.

It really can't be easy having different rules at different houses, hopefully one day his dad will realise the issues that causes. Until then what can you do except keep plodding along and reminding yourself that are you are doing a terrific job.

I don't know if its any consolation but as my girls got older they did learn to handle over stimulation so much better to the point we have relatively few outbursts. This coming from the kids that at the sight of shops would lay on the floor and scream!!!!

You will get there as atmkbjr says just keep breathing!!! lol lol
HUGS:-x

[bella_again]

Hi atmkbjr

I really hope the assessment continues to go really well. We found with our 11 year old that she passed one lot with the school but after private assessment discovered she was indeed AS. I think it was the speech and OT assessment that gave it away, she did well on standard tests but when tested further it was quite obvious there were issues.

The happy monkey sounds like fun lol Play therapy is great, I think I need some lol lol :^O

Anyway best of luck with it all 🙂

[doll*obsession]

Hiya 😄
thanks for the support :-x joe went off to school quite happily, and no calls yet, so so far so good.. lol

atmkbjr, so glad the assesment is going smoothly, it tends to be a bumpy ride.
Joseph has quite bad asthma, but so does his dad so he knows all the do and donts. Joes father has only recently acknowledged that joe is not 'normal', up untill a couple of months ago he flatly refused to believe that the was anything wrong at all.

webby :-x most people i know with AS have become more able to cope as they get older,

[ashjoma]

Hi all, as some of you probably know, my son aged 10 was diagnosed with Aspergers in January

his behaviour has been difficult, (and that is putting it politely) today

-he has not eaten today (and his behaviour worsens when he does not eat)
-he has not washed for 3 days (still wearing same clothes)
-refusing to leave the house and won't leave the computer game his father bought him
-his father is away with work
-he swears at me when I try to get him to do something, such as have something to eat

what can I do with managing this ?

[islandretro]

I have been lucky in that my ds has never really been oppositional; I confess when he was younger if he "tried it on" he was disciplined the same as the other kids, with privileges removed, time out etc.

Wrt to food - mine has always been a finicky eater, I tend to feed him what he likes as much as I can and make sure he has a vitamin supplement daily. Often it is texture as much as taste that turns them off, they get weird idiosynchrasies happening, when my ds was younger he couldn't handle certain foods served together, it has certainly improved as he has gotten older, he is far more adventurous with food at 16 than he was at 10.

wrt to washing - mine is the exact opposite, he has a comorbid diagnosis of OCD so he has great contamination worries. I guess you may need to put your foot down with this one as his health may suffer.

Same with the computer game - if he won't stop playing it you have to take control - hide it or even toss it. He will recover! Depends WHY he refuses to leave the house? if it is anxiety then you need to talk to a professional about strategies, if it is defiance - and this goes for swearing at you when he doesn't get his way as well - he is still a kid and he has to learn boundaries, and you have to teach him, hard as it is 😞

Is he on any medication? Some people find this is a great help in making their kids calmer and therefore more open to reason. My ds has been on Zoloft since he was 13 and this takes the sharp edge of the anxiety and OCD; it is still there but he copes generally much better

Good luck with it

cheers
Rae

[krazy.kiwi]

We had to set a toutinr for computer games.

We made a checklist of what needed to be doen before he was allowed to have a turn - Homework, music practice, exercise tyoing practise etc.


When he has done all that he is allowed one half hour turn a day.

If he wants a longer turn, he needs to earn his turn, but not have it and "bank" it for another day.

We use an elctronic timer for the timing as he doesn't say it's just us "being mean" when his turn is over.



We broiught this in when he was 9. It took us 3 months of absolute hell for him to get used to it, but for the last 2 1/2 years have been easier.



My boy has the not eating problems too sometimes. even though I don't try to force him to eat stuff he "can't". Somedays he just won't eat and then I have major issues with behaviour because of low blood sugar.

For this I have explained to him that we are at very high risk of diabetes (we are) and that we need to eat regularly even if we are not hungry. Sometimes he will only drink a choc milk, but it is a food and it helps him get his sugars under control again.