This small article refers to professionals across the board. I include in this - educational psychologists, psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses, social workers, educationalists.
As a result of my discussion with around 200 parents it seems that the professionals tend to categorise our children's problem behaviour as being caused by one or more of the following:-
- Manipulation
- Attention seeking behaviour
- Lack of parental boundaries
It is incredibly insulting to be accused of any of the above, and their opinion (for that is all it is) seems to carry an inordinate amount of weight, colouring subsequent attitudes to us and our children and worst of all cannot be disproved. Even more importantly it can influence the educational and medical approaches offered to our children.
Once your child is lucky enough to have one of the above labels, the professional need look no further and a treatment plan is duly drawn up. If the child (as is likely) fails to respond to the therapy, the parents are then blamed for the failure which is, of course, the logical conclusion from the flawed starting position. As a consequence many professionals do not feel it necessary to re-evaluate their initial hypothesis about the causes of the behaviour and you are left high and dry once again!
Of course we all know that this is nonsense, our children do not misbehave because they are manipulative, attention seeking or lacking boundaries (or at least no more than any other child). I feel that it is really important that we collect examples of bad behaviour that is not caused by poor parenting but are triggered by Asperger traits.
Below are just three examples of what can trigger distress or an outburst. Please send in your own examples.
Example one (Asperger trait -sensory integration and language processing)
Judy has normal speech and hearing. She has difficulty in processing the spoken word. Interpreting body language and coping with multiple stimuli is also a real problem for her. When asked a question, she has to interpret it as if it were a foreign language. This causes a delay in her response, the questioner then concludes that she has failed to understand their question, so they rephrase the question. Poor Judy now has two pieces of information to process and recall, as well as the overload of sensory stimuli and body language to interpret. This exhausting process can build up, leading to frustration and anger. The professionals involved in this case believed that she was deliberately not listening!
Example Two (Asperger trait – hypersensitive senses)
Jack is hypersensitive to sound, smell and light. During a family meal he asked his mum to turn off the kitchen light but his brother and sister who were reading wanted it to be left on. His mother told him that it needed to remain on for his siblings. Jack then asked for the extractor fan to be turned off because the noise was bothering him. His mother mentioned that he had complained about the cooking smells when he first joined them so she had put it on and as the smells had not yet cleared, she felt it should stay on. Jack then started to cover his ears and close his eyes yelling 'stop, stop it – it's hurting'. The mother fears that he is manipulating the circumstances and feels that his siblings needs must also be met. After a few minutes Jack can no longer bear the over-stimulation of sound, smell and sight and becomes aggressive because nobody has responded to his distress and request. Jack's behaviour is understandable once one realises that the way he experiences his senses is more intense than for normal people. In this particular example, unfortunately his mother, under the guidance of professionals, interpreted his outburst and request as manipulative and trying to dominate his family so failed to respond to his genuine distress.
Example Three (Asperger Trait – literal interpretation of language)
Many children with Aspergers have communication problems. James tended to understand language in very concrete and literal sense. James was around ten and often used to cook meals with his mum. On one occasion she gave him a can of corn and a strainer and asked him to drain the can. James followed her directions to the letter. He opened the can and drained the contents. What his mother had omitted to say was 'over the sink please!' It is hard to understand how someone with such a high IQ has such a literal response to language. He is incapable of incorporating the additional information that imprecise language omits but that most of us instinctively fill in. James had followed the instructions to the letter and was not being silly or inconsiderate.
Anna van der Post
HTML Comment Box is loading comments...