Why am I different from the other kids?

The question of diagnosing and labelling a child with a disorder is an interesting one. The idea of informing the child about their diagnosis is another.
For a parent, it's an anxiety raising situation where you know you'll tell them one day, but how you'll do it and when is given more thought than some may realise.

I was working with a 12 year old student one day who was struggling to understand what we were learning, he was an Aspie, 'non disclosed'.
He had a label of Aspergers, however, we had been informed it was to reamain undisclosed to him. He'd been told he 'some things were hard for him', that was all he knew. His parents were doing what they felt was best for him and really, they knew him better than anyone so had the right to decide if and when they would disclose the information.

On this particular day he sat back in his chair and shook his head,
                     'I don't get it....nup, I don't get it'.
He said it over and over, and then he tried to explain it to me,
                                     'You see, I'm just a bit dumb is all,
                                            I just don't get things because I'm a bit dumb.'

At the time, it was one of the saddest things I'd ever heard a child say....he wasn't dumb, he was far from it.
          
What I wanted to do was gently explain he has something called Aspergers Syndrome. That this syndrome made some things hard for him BUT, made some things easy for him.

I wanted to tell him he wasn't the only person in the world with Aspergers. I wanted to share with him that some of the most inspiring people in history, who had invented the most amazing things, had aspergers just like him......but I couldn't.

Despite all his skills, his talent, his potential, he saw himself as dumb. :-(

When you listen to adults who are diagnosed with Aspergers in there 30's or later, they seem so angry.

The following is an excerpt from "Letter from an Adult Male with Asperers Syndrome" by Richard Rowe.

When my son was diagnosed as having Asperger's Syndrome, I was able to read some of the literature regarding his condition. Upon reading a couple of books it soon became apparent where the root source of my own problems lay and subsequent investigation proved these suspicions to be well founded.
At first my reaction in regard to myself was one of relief at finally having some kind of tangible definition for what I had been feeling all these years.

The relief was soon replaced by mixed feelings of remorse, frustration and helplessness. For a while I felt "ripped off". I felt that 40 years of my life had been stolen from me and that, had I known about ASD from the beginning, my life could have been vastly different. Maybe I could have understood myself a little before now and maybe others could have too.

http://www.aspennj.org/pdf/information/asd-articles/a-letter-from-an-adult-male-with-as.pdf

Knowing, is it better than not knowing?

and

Is it with knowledge that we can....

Take the Dis----out of Disability

and turn it into

Ability

What is disability really?

Are things hard for some people because we take care of the majority?

For Richard Rowe, knowing was many things, but it's his feelings of being cheated out of 40 years of his life that make me sit up and take notice. It's this that has me thinking, is it the sooner they know the better?

How must it be to discover there were answers to the questions he had?

Answers that made sense?

How would he have felt about himself for all those years if he knew there was a reason for his social awkwardness?

How would his life have been different? What would his perception of himself have been if he'd had this information?  What would his picture of himself have been like? 

What would he have done, could he have done, if he had understood himself better?

In his letter he says he thought of himself as socially retarded.
Would he have thought of himself as socially challenged if he had known?

Socially challenged seems like a positive way of looking at the difficulties he faced, socially retarded is such a put down.

Would it have been easier for him if he had understood himself, come to accept himself, at a younger age?

We made the decision to tell our son when he was ready, and we figured he'd be ready when he asked.

And so

He asked us one day......

Why am I different from the kids at school?

He was eight years old.

And so we answered the question.....

I sat with him and explained what Aspergers was, that it made some things tricky for him.

Then I began to highlight all the things he could do because his brain was wired the way it was.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't coat it in sugar, I let him know what it was, why he was like he was and how we needed to work together to help him grow up and be a part of the world.

I told him that was okay, because everyone found some things difficult and some things hard and the trick was, to use the skills we have, to help us with the skill we have to work harder on.

We talked for a while, he asked questions, I answered them.

When we were done he asked,   Mum, can you cure Aspergers?'

My heart skipped a beat. 'No', I answered, 'we can help you to learn things but we can't cure it.'

His answer was priceless.  'That's good then, because I like my Aspergers, if I didn't have it, I wouldn't be able to do the things I can do. I really good at drawing and I see things people don't. I hope I don't lose it.'

His image of himself was so positive and he understood his skills and talents so well, that Aspergers slipped into his quality world. He saw the ability, understood it. He knows, and still does, that while he has trouble with some things, mostly the social part of life, he can do some very amazing things and in that he sees himself as,
                                                   Able....