Erika Peterson

AS and I A.S. (and other people)

Erika Lee Peterson

Erika Peterson

Author’s Disclaimer

In this paper I use the abbreviation AS as an abbreviation of Asperger’s syndrome.

I use the abbreviation AS in a broader context to talk about general characteristics of the syndrome, not the diagnosis itself.

This is not an overview of the impersonal effects of AS.

Table of Contents My Story

Michelle Garcia Winner Sasha

Tamsin CIP

Conclusion

According to the medical world, Asperger’s syndrome is a name for a neuro- biological

Disorder, a label given to people who have trouble connecting with other people due to social cognitive impairment and so instead end up connecting with facts and objects. It is a very mild form of autism or an autism spectrum disorder. For someone who has it, can mean an involuntary isolation.

All throughout elementary school I felt like I could feel myself running into walls that weren’t there, tripping over things that no one else saw. My family had always known that there was something not quite right about me. I was tested at a young age. My mom always said that when I was about five I “played like a four year old and talked like a ten year old.� I was diagnosed with ADD (attention deficit disorder) in the second grade and put on Adderall (a stimulant).

In elementary school I noticed more things going wrong, like the fact that my

friendships did not last as long as everyone else’s or that at recess I would often go to the library and read or play in my imagination instead of talking to other people. In fifth grade, I got into a lot of trouble because I wasn’t sure if people were playing or not when they insulted me or because I would say the wrong thing. That summer, I got into a big fight with my cousins and after that my mom decided to take me in for treatment. I remember my parents saying “what should we do with you.” I suggested taking me to a shrink. I thought I was kidding. My parents took me seriously.

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11 I was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome in the sixth grade. I remember when it happened. I was with my shrink (I always called her my shrink because she had a way of making one feel small), Laurie Leventhall Belfer. She told me I had AS and showed me a picture book about a boy obsessed with the weather.

At the time I didn’t know what it was really. It took years of therapy to discern how this makes me different from all other children.

To me having AS means that I will always be a little remote, a little bit removed from the people around me. I will frequently forget to communicate with the people around me and thus create a plethora of misunderstandings. I am as headstrong and stubborn as a rock, and I get tired very quickly from too much social interaction. I had to be trained how to interact with people among a million other little things.

I am very lucky in the fact that I have rarely to never run into something that I am utterly

incapable of doing. I am unlike many of my (AS/NLD) peers in that way. Both Sasha as well as others have had difficulty in school, and my friend Tamsin had enormous trouble with the math portion of the high school exit exam. She told me about it in an interview. Tasks that most people take for granted are, for me, difficult and take up excessive amounts of time. I also can do things others can never dream of with the greatest of ease.

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Michelle Garcia Winner

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Michelle Garcia Winner is a speech-language pathologist who specializes in the treatment of students with social cognitive deficits, which includes diagnoses such as Asperger syndrome, autism, and nonverbal learning disorder. She runs a private practice in San Jose, CA where she works directly with clients, consults with families and schools, and travels globally giving workshops. Contact her by e-mail at michelle@socialthinking.com.

-Excerpt from Aspergers Syndrome Across the Home and School Day

In 7th grade my mom enrolled me in Michelle Garcia Winner’s (MGW’s) clinic for summer camp and we never stopped going. I have been in therapy there for 7 years now.

The clinic is not your typical support group. We do not gather in a circle and talk about our feelings. It’s more like school then like anything else.

Basically what goes on is that Michelle gives us lessons and we give her smart mouth. The lessons are things like, the four steps of communication, self-monitoring, and other things. Michelle sells books full of worksheets that she herself writes for the purpose of social cognitive development.

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We laugh, we cry, we suffer. In the intervening years, I have stolen her candy, gone to her house and met her father.

Many girls have come and gone through our group like food through a digestive tract. Six of us have ended up sticking around and form our society of the socially dysfunctional; Kristy, Kristen, Tamsin, Anna, Sasha, and myself. We all attend parties together and we all know each other, which is extremely rare for a social skills group. We have now been split up into two social skills groups but the whole remains unbroken. Not all of us have a diagnosis of AS. Tamsin and Sasha both have NLD (nonverbal learning disorder).

The main difference between AS and NLD is that people who have NLD have more trouble in school then people who have AS. Most of us have the same or similar behavioral dysfunction and need the same or similar kinds of support. For the sake of convenience I interviewed Tamsin and Sasha.

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These are the hideous monkey puppet things Michelle bought in Tibet. Michelle’s books are known all around the world so she makes most of her money by doing conferences in far off places. after several sessions in her group you might start to see why this is appropriate. When someone is frequently interrupting and controlling your conversation you do start to feel the ropes of propriety closing in.

Michelle Garcia Winner has a very interesting personal history. Her mother was a descendent of one of the original settlers on the Mayflower. Her father survived the Holocaust by knowing about three different languages so the Nazi’s let him live. He came to the United States with the friends he made while being liberated from the concentration camps. He came here and became an architect. He now regularly embarrasses her at her lectures around the world.

In all my life therapy is basically the one thing that stayed the same. It’s the thing that got me my first and only job and it’s the one I have been to the most parties for, though they have all been therapy parties. Slowly but surely Asperger’s syndrome became a defining factor in my life.

It’s the extracurricular that defines me some kids have band others have drama or choir or charity.

Me, I have therapy.

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21 All of us are very lucky to

conversation to give critical

have her as a therapist since

feedback on how every

she doesn’t take on

body did. This gets ex-

new clients anymore.

tremely annoying and old

(Since she is supposedly

after a

world famous) However

while. Then we are graded

this is the kind of luck that

on body posture, questions,

you wish would pick up and

comments, how much you

annoy someone else. Most

participated in the discus-

of her sessions involve her

sion how much you didn’t

having us talk to one an

participate etc. She then

other, then interrupting and

teaches a lesson and re-

completely squashing the

views other, older lessons as we need them.

Michelle’s aunt painted this picture . Her brother blew the glass bowls.

This is relevant because most of the parents of children with aspergers are Architects, Scientists or Artists. Because so many parents of AS have visual gifts there is a high incidence of art. Both of Michelle’s daughters Heidi and Robyn are gifted artists.

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Sasha Desai

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“Well, its had a very major effect on the way I look at things and the way that I have grown up

with people. The way I have interacted with people sometimes; not been so friendly because I didn’t understand um the way I was supposed to communicate them.”

-Sasha on how her diagnosis affected her life.

My comrade Sasha has an experience not far removed from my own. Even though Sasha has

NLD (Nonverbal Learning Disorder) her childhood years bear a stark resemblance to mine. In this interview excerpt she tells what effect NLD has had on her life.

And they didn’t understand that I didn’t understand so I had a hard time getting

to know people. So, that’s kind of had a big influence on me. Ever since I realized that I had a disability I started working with therapists on strategies to cope with that. I’ve been able to make more friends more easily because I’ve realized now what I’m doing wrong so I can fix it. Before I didn’t know that I had a problem, but now I do so it’s easier. It’s also much easier for my family because they understand that its not my fault what I’m going through.

The last sentence of this testimonial and the phrase “its not my fault” give a pretty clear picture of the type of grief she has had to put up with over the years and the seven hells of grief that people with autism spectrum learning disorders go through in general.

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Yeah, like when I was little I used to fall off my chair or uh not look at my mom when I was when she was, not paying attention to my mom when she was trying to talk to me or get my attention. And she used to get upset, but now she realizes that its not me at’s trying to be annoying or rude its just the learning disability part of me.

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This is some of my art.

I drew this. It was originally supposed to be air head a head like a balloon but I didn’t have room.

I am very lucky in the fact that I have rarely to never run into something that I am utterly incapable of doing. I am unlike many of my (AS/NLD) peers in that way. Both Sasha as well as others have had difficulty in school, and my friend Tamsin had

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Tamsin Kearns

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Also I have difficulties in math especially uh basically every year in every class And of course it affects me with the math CASHEE exam that I have to take For the third time yeah Ill try to pass it but..... Yeah its really hard that part of CASHEE (cassie) I think I passed the first part and I definitely passed the English.

In addition to NLD, Tamsin also has perceptual problems. She thinks things are farther away or closer then they actually are. Tamsin’s hobby is school. She is a very hard worker and is usually very busy doing various kinds of studying.

Tamsin used to have a hard time understanding when people were being funny and when they were serious. She used to get into a lot of trouble with that. Tamsin works at a preschool during the summer and does a lot of volunteer work. Tamsin is 18. Like me she also can not drive a car. Tamsin is also very serious. If tamsin did not have NLD she would probably be an honors student.

Tamsin is very stubborn about her schedule. She tries not to let anything interfere with the schedule.

Tamsin plans to go to foothill college’s workability program, where you do manual labor and take easy classes.

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47 This year, two programs that support and aid independent living are starting up here in the bay area.

My mother does not think I am mature enough to survive on my own when I go to college if I go to normal college. None of the other girls who are over eighteen have moved out of their parents’ homes.

I always thought I would live at my parent’s

house and go to the local junior college and take the bus there and back. Now I am not so certain of what I am doing. This is Michael McMammon, an adult with Aspergers Syndrome. He is designing one of the independent living programs.

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McMammon drew these pictures. I got to get to know the people from the college internship program (CIP) and we had a blast. Unfortunately CIP costs 70,000 dollars and my parents are remodeling their kitchen. It was too expensive for me.

Now I am not so certain of what I am doing. I now have the option of life away from home. If I try this I will be the first in our group to attempt to step out into the big bad world outside of therapy. Once again I will go forth. Next year will be my first time in seven years with no therapy.

McMammon wrote this at a poetry slam he went to with his brother. Its about Aspergers syndrome.

It’s called Synchronicity. It says Understanding how you feel seeing your emotions and relating enjoying listening to it all the creativity the honesty the empathy the emotion wanting to relate more and on a deeper level to absorb to learn to share to be with

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You can’t talk about Aspergers syndrome learning disorders with out talking about the support network. It takes a massive amount of help to be successful when you have a disability that no one understands. It is something you can’t do without a lot of people who love you.

McMammon has a donkey rule for AS style stubbornness.

If you ask five people and they all say the same thing then you are wrong and need to change your ways.

Our mothers are all friends and they have formed a mommy (friendship) network. (Guess what they have in common. This mommy network is where I get most of the information about the others. Our mothers go to dinners, give each other and Michelle presents and Christy’s mother actually makes quilts for all the girls in the group. They gossip about all of us and my mom tells me a lot of it. This is one of the quilts Christy’s mom, Diane, made for Sasha.

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59 All the girls in our group live with their parents. Some are as old as 20 or 21. Everyone in our group is over 17 years old. People with AS mature more slowly then most other people.

All the other girls in our group live at home go to junior college, even going to junior college they still sometimes have lots of trouble in school. They work and have jobs, although most of them do not have cars or drive.

AS and Animals People with all kinds of Disabilities benefit from animal therapy. People with Social Cognitive Disorders are no exception. Because People with AS have longer attention spans they can spend greater amounts of time with animals and not get bored.

McMammon writes verse about his furry friends.

Because animals don’t talk, many communication barriers are re

moved. I don’t know if any of this is proven, but almost all the girls

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61 Sasha’s dog Toby. He is new and Sasha has been begging for years to get him. He is now a

puppy.

A dog shaped pillbox from Sasha’s collection.

My mom is excited and thrilled for me to be joining the real world. She believes these programs will help me train for the rest of my independent life. I long for the chance to declare in dependence and build the house of my own life furnished with my own choices decisions and skills. I want to leave my home and test out the independent living facility of my choice. Sasha is going to join me at an independent living facility next year. We must all now face the ultimate challenge, breaking free and supporting our selves as individuals. We must become fully functioning members of society, with none of the handicaps we are used to having. I can only hope for the best as I am separated from everything I have ever known and hope that the skills that I have learned here will be enough to get by on for both Sasha and I when we depart for the real world. Wish us luck.

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The End