–noun Psychiatry .
a developmental disorder characterized by severely impaired socialskills, repetitive behaviors, and often, a narrow set of interests;now considered one of the autism Spectrum Disorders.
When Minion 2 was about 2 years old, we realized he was... let's just be safe and go with the term "different". He was a very difficult child to manage. He was an escape artist, and could unlock dead bolts, chain locks, windows, and more. Baby gates were no match for his super ninja baby skills.
When he was 3, we had some issues with him escaping the house. It was a blink of the eye type thing. I'd walk into the kitchen, refill his sippy cup, and he was out the door. Minion 2 was kind of a boy genius in many regards.
After Minion 3 was born, she displayed a lot of the same traits as Minion 2. Not all of them were the same, but there were serious oddities, none the less. When M2 was probably 6, we started to seriously look at it. M3 was about 3 at the time. The reason we hadn't looked at it earlier, was we felt that it was likely just ADHD, and we didn't want to rely on medications until they were necessary.
When he was 5 in Kindergarten, towards the end of the school year, the teacher approached me and asked if we have any difficulties with him at home. Of course we do, I told her. He's into everything, he's very high spirited, and while he listens, and knows there are consequences, he's extremely impulsive, and tends to just do what comes to mind the moment it comes to mind, without thinking ahead to what will happen.
She explained to me that for almost the entire school year now, he's been so difficult to manage in class, that he spent a good deal of time every day sitting by himself in the hall. I was floored. We'd talked dozens of times through out the school year, and sat through 3 school conferences, and it was never once brought up that our son wasn't getting any sort of education at all, except in how to sit in a chair.
She wondered at his ability to handle 1st grade. At that point, I explained in a "shocked as hell, and totally BRASSED THE FUCK OFF" mommy voice, that we would put him through to 1st grade, and give him the chance to prove that he was ready. Mostly because she was the only Kindergarten teacher at that school, and no way was I subjecting M2 to her ever again.
Come 1st grade (and every single grade since then), I talked with the teacher right at the start of school. I told her about his experiences in Kindergarten, and told her that he is ever an issue to the point where he's disrupting class, I was to know about it immediately. You can't help a problem unless you know it's happening. We went through all of Kindergarten thinking he was doing great. His grades were fine (this actually goes hand in hand with Asperger's Syndrome), and aside from a few notations that he could sometimes be loud in class, there was no indication he wasn't doing well in class.
By November, he was on his first ADHD medication, and the change in him was astonishing. He went from barely struggling to learn how to read, to reading at a 3rd grade level in 2 months. He shot ahead of the class in math, and stopped being so fidgety and disruptive. His grades were all the highest he could get. It was profound and amazing, the changes we saw.
Over the years, M3 has had many of the same difficulties, and because of M2's mess, I have the same talk with her teachers each year- if there are problems, I need to know so I can help when it IS a problem, not 5 months later.
When M3 was in 1st grade, we got the news that due to budget cuts, the school building she and M2 were in, was closing. This didn't effect M2, as he was off to Middle School the next year anyway, but it did change what school M3 would be in, and a better decision was never made.
The school she wound up at had been used in the past for most of the more serious special education cases. There used to be 4 elementary schools here in this rinky dink town (each hosting about 50 kids per grade, from K-4th). They funneled most of the Special Ed funding into 1 building, so that it would stretch further, and give them a bigger amount of resources.
This included a very nice Autistic program, designed to integrate high and moderately functioning Autistic kids into regular classrooms. They worked with teachers, classmates, and parents to ease these kids into normal day to day life.
As such, many of the teachers in the building have worked directly with both Autistic and Asperger's (AS) children. When Gillian was in 2nd grade, the teacher and some of the special Autism speakers, started to recognize that she had a lot of the same characteristics as the AS kids. The teacher started to work with her in the same ways she would work with the AS kids, and saw very positive results. She didn't approach us immediately, but at one point in the year, they were watching a short film that featured kids with AS- it was the kids talking in their own words about what AS meant for them. How they see things, feel things, how they look at the world around them.
After that, they called me in to watch the movie. At least a year before, I had started to explore AS as a diagnosis for M2 after someone suggested to me that it sounded similar to what her child was like. I read online a lot of descriptions, and I did bring it up with our PED, but at the time, neither of us felt it was accurate.
After watching that movie, it was like something inside clicked. The descriptions online suddenly made a lot more sense when I was seeing those traits up close, and seeing exactly what some of them meant.
From there, all that was left was to get testing done. The school district actually did all the work for M3, testing her, having teachers who have worked with her fill out assessment forms, etc. It was a long process, it involved a lot of meetings, a lot of going over things as old as when did she first smile, how old was she when she spoke her first word, was there anything odd about the pregnancy, etc. As we went over things, it became clear that she exhibited a lot of the tendencies from the time she was born.
Many kids with AS have sensory issues, such as being very sensitive towards light. When she was a newborn, she didn't tolerate light much at all. Our house was a dark tomb, curtains drawn tight, blankets tacked up in some rooms, and the lights were kept to a bare minimum.
She was also a self soother- from the time she was big enough to sit up on her own, she started rocking. She tore through 3 crib mattresses doing that, because they rubbed constantly against the bottom of the crib, and tore through. She would hold the bars of the crib, and rock. We knew when she was awake not because she cried, but because the crib started thumping loudly against the wall.
We are in the process of getting M2 diagnosed now. While it won't change who he is, it will help him at school, and give him a fighting chance.
Both kids are smart- almost scary smart at times. Both kids are super stubborn- especially with each other. They both have a sense of rigidness when it comes to rules. If there's a rule given to them, they expect that everyone else is following that rule 100%. But, at the same time, they rarely recognize when they themselves are not following it, but are eager to point out to the other if they notice the other isn't.
They are quirky. They are very socially awkward. Neither has many friends, and likely won't make tons as they grow, either. They'll be more likely to have 1 or 2 close friends, than to be included in a large group of people they are friends with.
Both of them are super comfortable making friends online (though, I'll be honest, it scares the daylights out of me, and we lay down strict rules on where they can make friends online at, and what they are allowed to give out, information wise).
They both can be very loving, and emotional. That's one of the things that's hard to explain. In the proper defined symptoms of this syndrome, it talks about how apathetic this people are. But that's not exactly the case. It's more a case of people who have no idea how to immediately recognize and react to unexpected emotions. If someone is crying, they will probably empathize, but not know what to say, or how to react, so they'll take a few moments before doing something. They may not do anything at all as they process the action, and try to form the correct reaction.
They also don't always know how to react to their own emotions. If they are angry, they may overreact. They might scream at someone for looking at them because it bothers them, instead of simply saying, "Could you please stop looking at me."
All in all, it means that M2 and M3 have a harder time in social situations- school, family gatherings, trips to the park or beach, etc. They have issues that can't be cured. It just means that their brains are wired a bit differently that neuro typical people.
So- that's the basics when it comes to my kids, and why my life is completely chaotic at times. This post shouldn't have been so freakin long, but as it is, I will be cutting it off now, and letting you know that part 2 should be much shorter, and will be about me, and why I think I have Asperger's Syndrome as well, and why that makes me really fucking socially awkward, and someone that should never be allowed in public.
