I can relate to the roller skating. In my case it was long solo bike rides where I would entirely map the valley out in my mind. There were very few places that I couldn't find, or didn't know about. This has helped me at work on service routes in my 20's.
I think that many kids go through the dinosaur stage. If you stay in that stage it might indicate more. For example, I collect things such as in my sig. First, coins, and now patterns and designs.
Hello. I've been officially diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. I'm not sure I actually have it, but I have. I've also been diagnosed with AD-HD (which I definitely have) and Anxiety Disorder NOS (if never worrying about anything is an anxiety disorder, this is spot on.)
When I was diagnosed I naturally consumed every book on Asperger's that my parents bought, which was quite a few. It was weird--I have some classic aspie traits, but there are others I don't have a trace of. For example, I do tend to get obsessive about things, particularly when I was younger. If you asked ten-twelve year old me what a Parasurolophus was you'd get an earful (it's a dinosaur, incidentally. I've forgotten the rest.) Now if you were to ask me about poetic metre... well, don't unless you have an interest in anapaests.
On the other hand I have near-perfect balance, an impeccable sense of direction (I spend much of my time wandering unfamiliar suburbs alone on roller skates), good motor skills both gross and fine (although my handwriting is appalling,) a good sense of rhythm and timing, good colour judgment, and at least a rudimentary ability to know when to talk and when to shut up in conversation. Also I understand eye contact bothers some people but it has less affect on me than on most NTs. I do stare sometimes but I'll recognise I must be bothering the other person.
My parents tell me I was very aspieish growing up--I started talking pretty much in complete sentences, acquired grammar very quickly and talked to adults exactly the same way I talked to kids. I'm also informed that as a kid I was once given the assignment 'colour in all the things that start with D,' which I didn't want to do so I scribbled all over it and told the teacher 'D is for DARK and I'm DONE.' This stroke of genius failed to get me out of the assignment so I sulked. I still don't like it when people fail to appreciate my cleverness.
I have a feeling I'm rambling and hurting the chances of this actually being read, so I'll summarize the rest. I love novels, I want to be a writer when I grow up. I have no problem with the big picture, and any time I notice something that doesn't fit it it's because it stands out from the things around it. I don't have any sensation-avoiding behaviors whatso--strike that, I don't like slimy food. On the other hand I think a lot, rock back and forward, play with my hair a lot (bits of it end up everywhere) and focus so intently on one thing I ignore the world. Then, I ignore the world by entering a completely non-distractible state, which is a very non-aspie trait. I'm good with numbers but I don't like them, and I suck at remembering meaningless strings, but song lyrics lodge in my head like, um, something that lodges in your head.
Finally, I took some of you're aspie tests and they all say 'no you're not an aspie.' So, assuming you care to read my tiny autobiography, do you think I am or not? I'm really smart, maybe I'm just aping normal behavior well.
You sound somewhat autistic to me. Actually, you sound similar to myself in some ways - my "strongest" autistic trait is strong interests, I have only minor sensorimotor problems, and I don't have an especially hard time figuring out when to talk or interpreting facial expressions (although I suspect that I do it in a somewhat different way than a non-autistic would). There is no line between "autistic" and "non-autistic", only a large gray area. You could be "weakly autistic" (which is how I sometimes describe myself), or somewhere in that gray area. Those online quizzes aren't necessarily right.
What online test results? IS there an online test? I think you may know that my John hsa been officailly diagnoses (and properly) with ASD, (we disagree with the ADHD, OCD, anxiety ). We had to have him diagnosed - even though we always knew he was in the spectrum- so the school could (be allowed/be forced) to treat him as an individual. Problem was, we had to "tell" john because "they" thought that would help him, and we did think there was nothing to hide. Knowing our son as we do, we knew he would not like to be labeled. HE knows nothing about Aspergers, the same way he knows nothing about other topics of which he has no interest. The problem is (I am sure you won't be surprised) he is resistant. We are working on (stealthily) bringing him around, so that HE can identify with being an aspie, not us identifying him as one. DO you know what I mean. This is tricky, he says "I think someone got their paperwork mixed up".
Maybe, if he took an online test, and he got the results on a computer screen, he would identify more.
By the way- John loves the abducted thread with the aliens, on this forum. I let him look over my shoulder - he doesn't know what this forum is about (yet) and he now says "Those aspies are really interesting". advice?
By the way- John loves the abducted thread with the aliens, on this forum. I let him look over my shoulder - he doesn't know what this forum is about (yet) and he now says "Those aspies are really interesting". advice?
Sounds as if that piece of information could be delivered to your son on a neat deed.
I mean like a membership card
hah... D is for DARK and i'm DONE.
Should of got a commendment. Nice.
i don't think aspies in general have a typicly bad sense of direction, varies through everyone AS or not. But on the balance thing no Aspie male i have met can dance. I tried... girls can though. (I think it's the limping thing in the left leg. gonna poll this.)
Sorry Yigal and Lucie, neat deed, card, huh? Going to get John now...
Really am trying to figure out how having been diagnosed is going to help John. He has a what's in it for me attitude on alot of things, I think that on the diagnosis aspect, he will be/is the same.
The basic idea lies in the story of Tony Attwod, who congratulates the children being diagnosed by him as being Aspergers.
If your son finds his interests here, you can congratulate your son of being officially allowed to be in this 'club', hence the card.
The deed carries the notion of the official piece of paper with the diagnosis written on it.
So, a mixture of these is some kind of a card for a lifetime membership in the fictive Aspie Club.
Or in short: make it the good news that it is!
I think (may be a controvesial thought) that alot of the kids classified as ADHD, are ADHD like, but not gentically born ADHD, the environment they are in makes them act as such. (parental techniques, starting a kid at school too soon, too much Tv at 1 year old etc., ) While there are many ADHD that no changes in parenting will change. Just an opinion. (whereas ASD is not a parent issue, in any cases, it has a physical/nuerological basis) Nurture Vs. nature.
I would tend to agree with this, in some cases anyway.
I've seen concern expressed in the media about the number of children dxed as ADHD and medicated when it may simply be the case that adults are failing to realise that children do have loads of energy and if they are denied the opportunity to run that energy off or express themselves as children should then their activities will become more destructive. They say that children are given much less freedom these days just to be children and to enjoy unsupervised, or minimally supervised outdoor play. Instead they are kept indoors and expected to act more like mini-adults than as children. Medication is used to keep them placid and more controllable. Better to let them run about in the park for an afternoon and burn off all that energy!
Btw, I'm not saying this applies to all children dxed as ADHD, but quite possibly to some.
I don't think TV has anything to do with ADHD, honestly. If anything, ADHD makes it easier to keep yourself entertained, or it certainly did for me. It was about a five minute walk to my elementary school, but sometimes there would be little streams from melting snow, or blowing leaves or little frozen puddles in the gutters and I would end up playing games like breaking the ice in a particular order (actually the order was always 'whatever I felt like) and then I'd arrive at school two hours late to the great distress and puzzlement of all adults involved.
Absolutely! There are such fascinating little details all around, there's really not enough time to investigate them all. I have always been baffled when people say that they are "bored". Of course, I think reading the cereal box for the hundredth time is still interesting, so...
I think of myself as more of an AS/ADHD hybrid, although my ADHD is predominantly inattentive.
Oddly enough, classic ADHD meds like amphetamines overwhelm my senses, make me paranoid, euphoric, and hyper at low doses. The effect I got from Ritalin was an absolute nightmare--the paranoia was extreme and would last for up to 5 hours.
I'm an AS/ADHD hybrid, too. My med experience was very different, though. I take Adderal 30mg 4x/d, and I get the classical ADHD paraxoxical effect with it - it calms me down. I was never physically hyperactive, though, just hyperactive in thought. The meds do not address the inattention, however - still as distractible as ever, just at a little slower pace.
This is another thing I wouldn't want to be "cured" of. If the "cure" is a sentence to be forever bored and to find most things uninteresting, why would I want that? 
I think it is non-Aspie. Personally, if you pull me away from my hyperfocused state, it is very hard for me to get back into it.
Is hyperfocussing a common Aspie trait? You are the first I see mentioning it and I find this quite peculiar since I do it almost always whenever I have to do something I suck at or whenever I want to perform better than usual. And yeah, it sometimes takes a lot of preparation and can easily be messed up by disturbances.
In a word: Yes.
Ack, what? I failed to get the tags right? I might die of shame.
Why didn't it stick the unfinished one at the end of the post, I'd like to know. That would have corrected the error.
Just a few weeks ago you reached the conclusion that you "don't think" you have Asperger's. What made you change your mind, apart from whatever discussion you had with your parents?
Well, I kind of recognized that a bunch of things I never considered unusual are aspie traits. Like, I can communicate just fine about things and issues and such, but not so well about personal stuff. Also, I really really don't care what other people think of me, which is kind of an empathy/theory of mind thing; I never think about what others are thinking. I think I just don't notice that I don't catch social cues; I can't figure out what others are thinking but I mostly don't care much either, so it cancels out a bit.
Also I realized that 'well the people who I hang out with are weirder than I am' is a terrible argument.' And even if they are poorer at communicating they mostly have much more social drive than me. And sentence fragments and repetitive structure are extremely cool.
For example, that was really hard to write. A short essay on the impact of the French Revolution would probably have been easier. Much easier, actually, I could just dig up my last one.
I find I can write fairly well about myself--introspection comes easy. About other people and trying to show empathy and concern for them, a lot harder. It just "doesn't feel right." I don't often know where to begin. I have a lot of trouble seeing things from another person's perspective, basically.
About what others think: I can't figure out what people are thinking, either, but I do care what they think about *me.* Because I don't want to embarrass myself and say the wrong thing, or be seen as an idiot. If I'm not careful, I can say weird or stupid things, and I don't want to give that impression to people. So I overthink things and analyze everything so I'm able to say the "proper" thing in social interactions, and this causes a lot of anxiety. It can be excruciating, the amount of "extra" thinking I have to do to stay on course.
But trust me, if I didn't do the "heavy analysis" in social interaction, I wouldn't have an autopilot to rely on and my "mask" would disappear. You can see the anxiety that comes from this.