Aspies For Freedom

I have a 9 year old boy recently diagnosed w/ PDD-NOS, I know that he is old enough to understand alot but don't really know what to say.  How did you tell your children about their diagnosis?

I have just been to the psychiatrist this morning. (my time is +1 GMT)

He said that i am not autistic at all, and not even Asperger's. Yet i noticed his - perhaps - old-fashioned way of fusing Autism and AS as if these two conditions were simply two labels for a common condition.

He said that i can express myself properly and without "bizarre" movements, and that I do talk (perhaps "too much"), and i do not live in a world of my own. But i tried to tell him that there is a dichotomy between Low-Functioning and High-Functioning, and that High-Funcitoning Autistics, thus Aspies, do talk (even at length) and are not secluded in a world of their own.

Well, the visit ended with him repeating stressfully: "You are not autistic". Yet my last word was that Asperger's is not exactly Autism.

I will be visiting him again in four weeks time. Does anyone of you know how i should present Asperger's to him?
He is a very professional psychiatrist yet a bit of "old-school" minded.

Jean-Pierre,
you have kind of hijacked this thread, but I will answer you anyway.  I suggest you make a presentation of some kind- prepare a speech, or something- and just talk at him.  Qoute your sources, too, so he knows you aren't making this up.  Teach him.
Of course, he may still not believe you, but you should try.

I don't have kids, I am a kid, but I know how I would say it.  Pick an oportune time, and tell the kid about how he is different from other people, but in a good way.  Then elaborate from there.  Stress the fact that different is not inherently bad.

I would maybe assume he has figured out some of it himself and ask him what he thinks about himself as different from the others and then go from there.

Here is a good article that might help give you ideas:

http://www.iidc.indiana.edu/irca/general...arted.html

That he was a lot like me.

My son knew throughout the evaluation process that we wanted to know if there was a reason our obviously very smart boy was having so much trouble with certain tasks.  He had always considered himself smart, but it also painfully clear to him that he wasn't performing in school like the other children.  He wanted to understand, too. So, once we had a diagnosis, we were able to tell him that the reason was that his brain is wired differently than most kids, that he will notice advantages and disadvantages to it, and that it has a name that is Aspergers.  We told him that his teachers would know of the diagnosis and would allow him some special accomodations in class for things that might be stressful for him, and that he would now be getting extra help with areas in which he struggles.  We told him that he would always have input into what adjustments would be made.

He has been accepting and totally happy with it.  I can't even begin to tell you how much his world changed once he had a scientific answer.  He's never had a lot of questions; all he seems to have needed to know was that there was a reason, that it had benefits, and that it had a name.

When my mom told me about Asperger's, it just randomly popped up in a conversation. Here is a paraphrased version of the conversation

"There is a kid in my class anemd Jerard and he practically behaves like a parrot, meaning he repeats what others say. According to my teacher, he has autism."

"You have autism, did you know that?"

"What?"

"Well, it's not REALLY autism. It means that talking to people is hard for you."

"No wonder why!"

"I'll show you the Wikipedia article later."