Guest guest Posted February 12, 2006 Report Share Posted February 12, 2006 Hi All: I want to introduce myself. I am the mother of a 15 year old boy who falls somewhere on the autistic spectrum. He is very verbal, has excellent decoding skills although very concrete comprehension abilities, and his visual/spatial skills and math understanding/reasoning are very poor although he has good rote memory for math facts. In addition to all this, he is a sweet, engaging and often funny young man. My husband and I, (I sound rather like the Queen of England there), are very proud of him and how he deals with what must be a very confusing environment. He takes Ritalin LA and has been on some sort of Ritalin variation since he was 5. It helps - at least we think it does. At one point, around age 7, he was experiencing very high stress levels and started having some difficulty with reality/fantasy and was put on Risperdal. It did help but I was hugely anxious about side effects (although I have to admit I loved the one where he took the medication at 8pm and was out for the count by 9pm). He was weaned off the Risperdal after about a year (and switching psychiatrists - long story) and has had no further episodes that we felt warranted medication, although from time to time, and always during stressful periods, we can see him begin to fall through that trapdoor at which point, we haul him right back. Up to now, we have been able to do so. If a time comes when we can't, we would not hesitate to try the meds again. My son has no friends though and doesn't seem to feel the lack of them. We have had him in structured social groups but he doesn't seem to quite fit in - even to the groups that are geared to children who don't fit in. He is too impaired in some respects and too high functioning in others. I know that this is probably a fairly common pattern among individuals with Aspergers although I have never met anyone - and I have met a large number of AS kids both low and high functioning - that even remotely resembles my son. He is quite empathetic but only in areas in which he himself has had some experience, e.g., if someone is sick, he is very caring and solicitous - brings drinks, blankets, makes sure everything is close to hand etc. Anyway, that is the story in a nutshell. I am looking forward to participating in the list. Regards, Trish Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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