The future for your child with Aspergers

This article looks into what every parent worries about for
their child – the future. I know it’s a scary thing to think
about but all parents have to think about it at some point.
Your child’s success as an adult will depend on their
ability to read their own behavior and adjust accordingly.
By this I am talking about the need for the child with
Asperger’s to “learn” how to react and adapt in different
situations. Most people are fortunate enough to have a
pretty good idea what the expected social graces or
responses are in different situations. Think about how
many times this happens in a day – maybe hundreds of times.
Having breakfast with the family, chatting with work
colleagues, going to the store, driving to work, going to a
social group, attending church, catching public transport
– to name but a few. But for a person with Asperger’s
understanding the correct response isn’t something that
comes naturally - it needs to be “learned”. For this very
reason, it is critical that you are honest with your child.

Provide them with the feedback they need, in behavior
specific methods, so that they may be able to generalize
from one situation to another. So for example role play
or go through how your child may react to someone in
the store who is trying to serve them. They are not likely
to understand emotions naturally, in any given situation.
But there are some useful software programs out there
that can be used to help your child get a better
understanding of facial and emotional recognition.
One type of software is called “Gaining Face” and you
can have a free trial of the software at
http://www.ccoder.com/GainingFace/

When giving your child feedback ensure that it is
specific to things that they can change and things that
they have control over. So for example if they said
something that many people may take offence at
or adopted a particularly aggressive form of body language.
Those things are likely to be identified in their response
to certain situations. But the great news is that so many
Asperger’s kids grow and develop and have great lives
with all of the “usual” trappings of life such as employment,
relationships etc. You only need to look as far as Silicon
Valley in the USA to see a great number of people with
Asperger’s and related conditions having profitable
careers at the cutting edge of the software industry.
It is rumoured by many that Microsoft’s billionaire owner
Bill Gates has a form of Asperger’s – so the sky can be the
only limit. And obviously this is just the material view and many
Asperger’s children are able to grow into pillars of the
community with happy and fulfilled family lives too.
But obviously what you do from now on will help your
child enormously with that future progression.

This article can be summarized by saying that it is
essential for parents to help their child understand
the behavioral cues and expectations of society as
openly and plainly as possible. Your child with Asperger’s
is very capable of learning a whole range of social skills
if taught in the right way.

Copyright © 2007 Dave Angel