Autisum and Aspberbers Parents Meeting

[ewamoon]

I WOULD LIKE TO START A GROUP OF PARENTS THAT HAVE AUTISUM OR ON THE AUTISM SPECTRUM . MY GRANDSON LIVES ON THE BIG ISLAND AND THERE ARE NOT SUPPORT GROUPS FOR PARENTS AND KIDS ..IF YOU KNOW A PARENT OF AN AUTISTIC CHILD OR ON WITH ASPBERGERS PLEASE CALL ME AT 808=689-7139[]

JENNY MANN

[unknownjulie]

bump

[OpenD]

I wish you well, Ewamoon. Please note the correct spelling is Aspergers.

There are 5 confirmed diagnoses of Asperger Syndrome in my family... mother, child, cousin, grandchild, and great grandchild, and several more suspected but never diagnosed... so I know quite a bit about the subject. Unfortunately the psychiatric profession last year decided last year to stop categorizing Asperger Syndrome as a separate diagnosis in their DSM-5 manual, and instead have folded it into a larger category called Autism Spectrum, which includes other, different clinical diagnoses. So for insurance purposes Asperger Syndrome no longer exists, although many clinicians and their patients and families still find the seperate distinction useful.

In any case, whatever you call it, it's real, it almost certainly has a genetic component, and although it typically takes many hours of psychological testing as well as an extensive behavioral history to confirm, there is a preliminary "screening quiz" for adults online in several places which gives a fairly good indication if someone might want to seek more extensive, professional testing.

Here's the original and still best of them... "Psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen and his colleagues at Cambridge's Autism Research Centre have created the Autism-Spectrum Quotient, or AQ, as a measure of the extent of autistic traits in adults." 50 questions:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.12/aqtest.html

Good luck!

EDIT to Add: Many adults come to be diagnosed as Aspies (nickname) because their child or grandchild is diagnosed due to behavioral difficulties in school. It's really only been a little more than a decade that awareness of Autism Spectrum and Aspergers Syndrome have really been on the radar, so many adults with these conditions have never been examined for it. That's why I included the test, because if one member of the family is diagnosed, I think it is very useful to at least screen the rest of the family members.

Also, an extremely useful activity for Aspies, recommended by many psychologists, is drama workshops and theater classes, because it is very useful therapeutically for them to be able to play at being different characters, with different ways of dealing with things. This is also why you see many Aspies attracted to acting and performing, such as Darryl Hannah, Dan Ackroyd, and Susan Boyle. And of course many high functioning Aspies have become famous in the computer fields, where unusual behaviors are more acceptable. Bill Gates is the poster child.

[unknownjulie]

Thanks for posting the link. Interesting test!