I wasnt offically Dx, I did a self-dx, but when I read about it and found out more about aspergers, it seemed to fit so well that I could not even beleive it. It was not so much something that I could say, "I have an excuse," but rather something that could help me understand myself better. I found out when I had just turned 15. If I were them I would tell their kid. Maybe having it naturally introduced to him such as getting him to look up the site on his own so that it doesnt seem that they are telling him that there is something wrong, but to see that others think that it is just being different and that there are advantages.
leave information laying around where he will find it,the POSITIVE stuff.
leave pages about it open on the family pc.get him aware before you outright tell him.
when you do tell,do so in an open and honest matter.do not over stress that it is not a disadvantage,or he shall think it is so.
i was told when i was 14. heres how my mother ezxplained it: you have been found to have a diffence with a name: Asperger Syndrome,your not disabled just differantly abled. i had this done becuase if it was right it ould give us ammo to the battle((with my school) i had be out on med leave for now 3 monthes after getting very depressed and taken from it))
Odds are that by 13, the kid will know he's different. That's what's going to damage his self esteem. There's obviously been some kind of problem, or he wouldn't have been diagnosed (Assuming he really is!) - people generally don't go taking their kids to specialists unless there's some need for it. To not tell him is to deprive him of the information he needs to make use of whatever gifts Aspergers might have bestowed upon him - to let him know why he's different.
I didn't know I had Aspergers until I was an adult. I spent most of my life assuming I was defective, broken, crazy, worthless. Just because I didn't know.
I was officially diagnosed when I was 13...
I didn't know I had Aspergers until I was an adult. I spent most of my life assuming I was defective, broken, crazy, worthless. Just because I didn't know.
Same here, and (without making it sound like an excuse) my self-esteem took a lot of hits from not knowing "why I just don't get it."
I was sixteen, but had suspicions from thirteen, and knew that I was "different" - somehow - ever since I was eight. (A lot of which had to do with being bullied every day at school.)
I guarantee, it is far worse for an adolescent's self esteem to know that he / she is different, but not to know why. And I also guarantee - as mentioned above - your stepson knows that he is different.
Minimal brain dysfunction age 10, about 1980. Charles County MD public school system. (I also had hyperactivity, so today that would be called attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity), the last time I had troubling symptoms of that was 1998 (28) in a government job.
Asperger syndrome, age 25, 1996, Marshall University Psychology Clinic. Confirmed age 26 (1997) by the Clinic and again 28 (1998) by Maryland Department of Rehabilitation Services.
There are three possibilities:
a. I really have and have had ADHD
b. I really have and have had Asperger
c. I really have and have had both ADHD and Asperger
possibly, both can be less of a problem with increasing age
My neurological package seems to also include
d. major depression
e. obsessive-compulsive traits
f. anxiety and phobias (less so than in childhood)
presuming that neither can be acquired.
If I didn't run and hide after seeing a shrink( who was a friend no less!) I'd love to try some of those antidepressents you talked about. Sometimes my rage gets so blinding, I black out. and my euphoria, so high, I'm almost orgasmic. So naturally I'm more depressed than not! DUH!!
That sounds like Bipolar to me, which is a common comorbid of AS.
Odds are that by 13, the kid will know he's different. That's what's going to damage his self esteem. There's obviously been some kind of problem, or he wouldn't have been diagnosed (Assuming he really is!) - people generally don't go taking their kids to specialists unless there's some need for it. To not tell him is to deprive him of the information he needs to make use of whatever gifts Aspergers might have bestowed upon him - to let him know why he's different.
I didn't know I had Aspergers until I was an adult. I spent most of my life assuming I was defective, broken, crazy, worthless. Just because I didn't know.
Me too - I think this boy deserves to know what condition he has. Keeping it from him is not kind in the long run.
I was diagnosed at 8 but my parents refused to tell me and I only eventually found out when I was about 13 (not because anyone spoke to me about it but because I looked at a teachers register and saw myself listed as having AS). I think I'd been aware I had some social difficulties for a while but I hadn't suspected any particular condition, maybe because I hadn't read about any.
It's quite amazing to me, but no one ever suggested Asperger's or even said the word to me, once in my life, before I looked it up myself at the age of 25.
Is it possible to have Asperger's in this day and age without anyone suggesting it... including the three shrinks I've been to (who didn't mention it either)?
Perhaps it was the fact that I was attuned to the "NT act" all these years.. since I put so much on trying to seem like everyone else (normal.) It must have worked.
i was diganoed and told at 14.
Very early. Probably about seven years old however I didn't understand the diagnosis until I was about ten (my teacher got me and my two other aspie friends together to do a kind of meeting to try and undersand our aspergers)
I was diagnosed at 14 (several times), and I'm sure the word was used but wasn't really explained to me for several years. I remember hearing the word "autism" and "underlying developmental disability" and so forth but not knowing much if anything about what they meant.