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Have you seen this article?
| Tue, 06-27-2006 - 9:36pm |
I was emailed this article from Parenting Magazine online. I haven't been able to read the whole thing and being new to this whole diagnosis, I thought I'd ask the 'experts'
http://www.parenting.com/parenting/child/article/0,19840,1207253,00.html
Anyone have any comments?
Stacy

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I love your take on the team sport thing. I always think of team sports being structured sports you pay to have your kids join. But you comment brought to mind the attempts we have here just to play a game as a family. I have 2 ASD kids and 1 who has some traits and the team sports is one of them, lol. Flying objects and cooperation with others, ROFL. That is a good way to put it.
Watching us as a family play 3 on 3 basketball (4 kids and 2 parents)is comical to say the least from the outside. Would be frustrating from the inside but we have just gotten used to our way of playing, lol. Any team anything, even board games are an experience to say the least.
Renee
It was actually the trait that convinced me that we have a strong aspie strain in the family. If you want to see my father in a state of barely controlled rage, all you have to do is ask him about his experiences in PE as a kid. He is still convinced, at age 75, that during handball games, the other kids had only one objective, to hit him with the ball. FTR, handball is not dodgeball.
My younger brother was convinced that the gym teacher deliberately tripped him up in PE. I was just a disaster and when I started reading about aspies, I realized why. When I see a ball coming, my first impulse is to duck or run away. I used to avoid the school yard for the same reason, the flying objects just scared the crap outta me. The quirk was most frustrating to my teachers, since I was otherwise athletic and had a good build for both volley and basket. Oh well!
You must have your hands full with that brood, but I hope you all have fun with the basketball.
I actually love Dr. Sears. His books were the absolute only support I had when Ian was a baby and toddler. His were the only books that touched on "high needs" children and the only one that encouraged parents to actively attach to their children. I often wonder where my aspie boy would be if I had ignored his strong need to sleep with us, nurse as long as he did, and if I had heeded the bad advice to "make him" more independent when he was clearly not up to it. My theory with Ian was that I became part of his autistic environment, maybe not a person to him, but a consistent force in his environment that he always wanted there. I'm thinking that autistic children are very observent of their environments, right? I think he learned to observe me carefully from a very young age. He models me TOO well, and unfortunately I have to be extremely carefull of how I speak and discipline him -- he's ultra sensitive. I do notice though, that he doesn't model his peers nearly so well. Regarding the article, since Sears has that whole philosophy of attachment parenting and has encouraged it within the families of his practice that it might not be so far fetched for him to observe modeling being important and fairly affective for *some* Aspie kids.
I think the article was very positive about Asperger's and to me there is a vast difference between Asperger's/HFA and classic autism. Clearly the article was not very complete, but anything general cannot delve into the various overlaps and differences within the spectrum. It's just too huge. I've read several books that had me scratching my head thinking, "Well THAT doesn't seem to fit!" I just keep reminding myself that just as there is vast diversity among NTs, there is vast diversity among ASDs also. I have a friend whose boy is very aspieish (undxd, but there are many, many aspie traits) and LOVES team sports. My aspie, not so much, but he does love gym class and dodge ball. In fact, in many situations he seems really typical but yes, quirky. I notice in some situations with peers he does very well, but not with all his peers. In some situations my heart absolutely breaks for him, so I thought the point about making note of which situations your aspie child fairs best in and which ones he doesn't was a very good one, as well as setting them up for success.
The other thing is, though, that my aspie also has ADHD. The ADHD is really, really obvious. I wonder if Sears is generalizing too much, but that my aspie seems to fit within that generalization, where again, others would not fit at all.
IMHO, I don't think any of the experts have their heads around ASD. AT ALL. I'm very dismayed that when 1/166 children in this country are being diagnosed with it, and we don't understand what the trigger is, that the pediatric community, the Center for Disease Control and the FDA can't figure out that adding progressively more vaccines might not be the best idea, particularly since some of the vaccines aren't that critical (I'm thinking VAR, HepB and soon HepA, for instance). Or how about all the dyes, sweetners, preservatives and flavor enhancers in so much of our food supply -- and it is almost IMPOSSIBLE to keep the kids from eating any of this stuff if you want them to be involved in main stream society. Sorry, don't mean to get off on a tangent, but my point is that no one really understands what's going on here, and it's so complex I'm not sure it will be understood before our kids begin their own families, meanwhile, more vaccines, more additives, more junk constantly being filtered in before all the variables can be accounted for.
Different strokes, which is fine. You are right that there are aspies who like team sports. The "ball thing" is though a fairly consistent quirk of especially aspies (as opposed to other autistics) and a superficial perusal of the literature should reveal that. Gillberg has even argued that it should be on the list of traits used for dx.
As far as the vast difference between Kanner's and Asperger's, I have to say that I am getting less and less sure of that as time goes by. There are many significant differences, but I am not sure they are as vast as we sometimes imagine.
In the end, each parent has to decide for him/herself how to approach the job at hand, and my take is usually that anything that helps you is a good thing. In that sense Dr. Sears is a good "thing," because he helped YOU do a good job as a parent.
As far as causation/triggers, I agree with you that more research is needed. I also know from my experiences with mental illness how hard that can be to establish. Sometimes the trigger can be something really counterintuitive, probably because we imagine that to produce such dire effects the trigger must be something very toxic or traumatic. In schizophrenia, for example, a known trigger is moving to a new house/environment/country. Once the illness has developed, a change in the close environment of the patient can often trigger a fresh bout of psychosis. Because some of the autism triggers (if not all) are likely to be equally innocuous to an NT, I think it is just as important to establish methods of screening those kids who are at risk through purely physical methods, genes, scans, bloodtests etc.
I like Dr Sears, his attachment parenting book from birth to two I believe, totally changed my mindset as to how I would feed and care for my baby. I loved the whole concept but wasn't sure. When ds was born, I did what felt right for me and a lot of it was what Dr Sears would recommend, baby wearing, breastfeeding, child led weaning and with eating as well. I like the idea that instead of putting strict limits on junk food at home, just don't have in the home to begin with. No fights! If you are hungry you will eat the dinner I cook or a healthy home made snack or fruit. This is actually how my mom raised us so it came naturally.
What I found odd about Dr Sears' books was the anecdotal evidence was taken so seriously. Their family was sort of used as a science experiment.
The books and advice were vague at times. As far as Dr Sears' as article, we aren't dxed yet but let me tell you, my son HATES team sports! And the article didn't even skim the surface as to the cause (genetic, neurological, etc).
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