Aspies For Freedom

I'm thinking of devoting an upcoming post of my PsychologyToday blog (http://blogs.psychologytoday.com/blog/aspergers-diary) to the subject "Asperger's Awareness for Assisting Professions."  

I, for one, had a pretty traumatic experience during childhood with a social services witch hunt that began with a teachers' dismay at certain traits and behaviors I now believe were caused by Asperger's (obsessions & compulsions, odd behavior).   I don't necessarily blame the officials involved, Asperger's wasn't really known in the US then, but that in no way lessened the difficulty of the experience.

In my Aspie Life post, "To Disclose or Not To Disclose", I talked about a similar situation in the making in which a co-worker of mine began speculating about the "odd" behavior of a neighbor kid, whom I suspect very likely had Asperger's.  

I'm sure there are others of you out there who've had similar experiences, and I'd like to get some other aspie perspectives.  Would any of you be willing to share them with me for possible inclusion in my blog?    

Have you or your parents ever been falsely accused of abuse or any other types of bad experiences with social workers, teachers, due to an official's misunderstanding or ignorance of the manifestation of Asperger's?  If so, what do you think can or should be done about it?  What do you wish that these people knew about Asperger's?

Hi Lynne
Welcome to AFF.  Your blog looks interesting--I've bookmarked it to get back to later.
(Love the post about the library card )

The worst I've been accused of (by coworkers) is being overly blunt and not "getting it" because of not reading between the lines both in terms of what people verbally say and what their bodies say.

To those teachers in school. A student who talks at inappropriate times, strays off topic, seems to have few if any friends is most likely to need support in these areas NOT the parents being critisised for poor parenting or the child being blamed for poor behaviour.

Especially watch out for bullying.

I had the above "habits" and was told to "toughen up" which included bullying. My son had support. It is a bit more enlightened nowdays but still seems to have some sort of stigma attached as if the child is some sort of "lesser" person. But at least times are changing.

As for me there was a sort of insinuation that my parenting skills may have something to do with it (not helping with homework, playing etc). This I was not amused with. That was quickly dropped when I explained a detailed description of behaviour of son and various techniques I taught to him to enable him to function "normally" without losing the advantages he has (computer programming)

I think that many times protecting your kids from the professionals who assert that their opinions (whether even based on even a small measure of real life experience or facts - the old adage "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing") should and do carry more weight than a parent - make for the possibly of a tumultuous relationship - bad for any child.  Having an actual Dx makes the schools (social services) think they have or must have even more control (they often DO subconsciously think it is a parenting issue). I have spent this year bringing the school around to the reality of my son ( a real live human being) and showing them - painstakingly - how easy it is for them to negatvely impact him with their inconsistency... They "intend" to do good things and casue a world of bad.  All children need there to be good communication and a consistency in approach but, aspies more so in the application of strategies or modifications. I cant get inot this at the moment - I have too much to say.