Chaos and Cupcakes

April 2nd is Autism Awareness Day and April is Autism Awareness Month.  This is a wonderful time for people to educate themselves about autism and the autism spectrum.  Of course, the issue of autism awareness is important to me because my son Andrew (age 6) has Asperger Syndrome.

I have been reading blogs devoted to autism tonight while I pretend to watch Quantum of Solace with Jared.  I came across this article and am completely and utterly horrified.  In summary, an 8-year-old girl with Asperger’s in Idaho wanted to attend her school’s Christmas party.  She was told she had to take off her hoodie which had a cow print on it with a tail and ears.  She has a security attachment to this sweatshirt and didn’t want to take it off.  So some teachers took her to an empty classroom and the little girl got very upset and violent.  The teachers held her down and called the police.  The police took her from the school in handcuffs and charged her with battery.  Thankfully, the case was dismissed.

OH. MY. GOODNESS.  I sure hope this school has since taken it upon themselves to educate themselves about autism and Asperger Syndrome.  I am appalled at the way this school handled this situation.  The girl had an attachment to her sweatshirt.  Was it that big a deal that she didn’t want to take it off?  Did they not foresee that this would cause an episode characteristic to Asperger’s?   Newsflash:  Aspies develop strong and irrational bonds to objects.  They will get violent if you try to take that object away.  Does this mean that Aspies should get away with not following rules?  No.  Not necessarily.  But it is hugely important to choose your battles carefully when dealing with an Aspie.  Was this really a battle worth fighting?  Also, the school should have a procedure in place for dealing with situations where the child becomes agitated.  They called the police but didn’t call her parents?

This story really gets my blood boiling but it also frightens me.  Do you know how many times Andrew’s school has called to tell me that he was having an irrational fit and they couldn’t calm him down?  Or how many times he was having a fit and they were able to calm him down?  He has thrown chairs, run away from school, said that people were trying to kill him, etc.  The school has measures in place to try to help him when he gets upset.  He can go to the resource room and sit on a special bean bag with his Star Wars blanket that we leave at the school to calm down.  They ALWAYS call me or in cases where they were able to calm him down, they at least let me know about it later.  They have gotten permission from me to restrain him when he is violent.  They have taken the time to learn about Asperger’s.  The school had an inservice about it over the summer.  Andrew now has a one-on-one aide to help him.  Thank heavens Andrew attends this school.  Thank goodness I feel comfortable addressing issues with the staff at his school.  I had some frustrations and let the school know and a conference was scheduled to discuss Andrew’s IEP.  They addressed all the issues and took the appropriate measures (such as getting him an aide).  I feel so, so badly for this little girl and her family that this happened.  How traumatic for this poor girl to be handcuffed and taken away in a police car.  She is 8!  Shameful!

My goal for the month of April is to help those around Andrew understand autism and Asperger’s more.  I plan to have different posts about issues surrounding life with an Aspie throughout the month.  For example, due to this article and also to an incident that happened over the weekend with Andrew, I’ll be writing a post about how to deal with an Aspie who is having a fit.

Check back throughout the month for these posts!  You never know when your path will cross with someone who is on the autism spectrum.

Since Andrew’s diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome over a year ago, we (Jared and I) have become aware that there are a lot of misconceptions about Asperger’s.  I think that people tend to hear about one aspect of AS and fixate on that, without being aware that there are many, many facets to it.  For the sake of brevity, here is a short diagnostic procedural for AS.  It is by no means all-inclusive, as like I said, there are many different facets to AS, but this provides a good, short version of what doctors look at to diagnose AS.

GILLBERG’S CRITERIA FOR ASPERGER’S DISORDER

1.Severe impairment in reciprocal social interaction
(at least two of the following)
(a) inability to interact with peers
(b) lack of desire to interact with peers
(c) lack of appreciation of social cues
(d) socially and emotionally inappropriate behavior

2.All-absorbing narrow interest
(at least one of the following)
(a) exclusion of other activities
(b) repetitive adherence
(c) more rote than meaning

3.Imposition of routines and interests
(at least one of the following)
(a) on self, in aspects of life
(b) on others

4.Speech and language problems
(at least three of the following)
(a) delayed development
(b) superficially perfect expressive language
(c) formal, pedantic language
(d) odd prosody, peculiar voice characteristics
(e) impairment of comprehension including misinterpretations of literal/implied meanings

5.Non-verbal communication problems
(at least one of the following)
(a) limited use of gestures
(b) clumsy/gauche body language
(c) limited facial expression
(d) inappropriate expression
(e) peculiar, stiff gaze

6.Motor clumsiness: poor performance on neurodevelopmental examination

(All six criteria must be met for confirmation of diagnosis.)

So, as seen from this, all six criteria are met for a diagnosis.  An interesting thing with Aspies is that it appears that oftentimes one or both parents have some Aspie characteristics without necessarily having Aspergers themselves.  This is definitely true in Andrew’s case.