Tag: AS

Autism 101-Lesser known ASD’s

Greetings Earthlings! 🙂

Today’s post is going to be short and sweet exploring two of the lesser known ASD’s:

  • Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS)
  • Childhood disintegrative disorder (or Heller’s syndrome)

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I know… these are a bit of a mouthful, but once you get past the names they’re not that difficult to understand 🙂

Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS):

As discussed in my Intro to the Spectrum, a pervasive developmental disorder impairs normal growth and development of the brain resulting in a wide range of effects (i.e. autism). PDD-NOS is basically a catch all term to describe individuals who are on the spectrum, but do not fit the criteria for specific ASD’s.

So if you had some of the traits of Asperger’s syndrome for example, but didn’t fully fit the bill, you may be given a diagnosis of PDD-NOS.

This is often referred to as atypical autism.

Childhood disintegrative disorder/Heller’s syndrome:

Childhood disintegrative disorder (CDD) is a rare ASD, estimated to be 60 times less prevalent than classic autism. In comparison to other ASD’s, this low functioning form of autism is quite unusual in it’s late onset.

Children with CDD appear to develop normally before suddenly showing signs of developmental delay around 3-4 years of age. In some cases, there are even reversals in development with loss of speech, motor skills and social function- as if someone hit the rewind button in your brain.

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This is known as regressive autism.

Discovered 35 years prior to autism, to this day, doctors remain baffled as to the cause of this condition.

So there we have it- not quite as complicated as the names suggest 😉

As this is a little more clinical than some of my other posts, I’d like to end on an encouraging note.

Last year, some of you may have come across this viral interview with actor Channing Tatum:

In the video, Channing is interviewed by Carly Fleischmann- a remarkable young woman with non-verbal autism. As a child, Carly was diagnosed with autism, cognitive delay and oral-motor apraxia (the inability to properly coordinate oral movements for speech). At first, such a diagnosis appears devastating, but in this video, Carly proves an ASD diagnosis is not the end of the world.

Through years of persistent therapy and hard work, Carly found ways to communicate by typing with one finger. Although still confronted with the serious challenges of autism, in this video, Carly achieves her dream of becoming the world’s first autistic, non-verbal chat show host! 😀

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When a diagnosis of autism is given, it can be difficult to remain positive. Unlike Dante in Inferno however, we need not abandon hope.

It very much exists.

Whatever your spectrum diagnosis may be, Carly’s story shows that we can succeed in spite of our difficulties 🙂

Aoife

Abbreviations: ASD- Autism spectrum disorder

 

 

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Autism 101- Specialist Interests

Greetings Earthlings! 🙂

Today I’m going to expand on the topic of specialist interests (SI’s).

SI’s are one of the defining features of Asperger’s syndrome in particular. Hans Asperger originally described us as ‘little professors‘ due to our ability to talk about our interests in great detail- often droning on in lengthy lectures, completely oblivious to our bored audience….

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….so I’ll try my best not to bore you today 😛 😉

As discussed in the previous post, specialist interests are subjects which autists are intensely preoccupied with. These are generally associated with higher functioning forms of autism, but have also been noted in lower forms. Interests can be random items (e.g toilet brushes and deep fat fryers- I have genuinely come across these examples in a research paper!), subjects that are unusual to focus so intently on (dinosaurs, trains, Star Trek etc.) and finally topics that overlap with the hobbies of normally developing peers (horses, music, gaming etc.).

Women in particular tend to have SI’s akin to those of their peers, which can make it harder to diagnose them.

This would have been my experience of SI’s. My most intense interest growing up was that of Harry Potter. It would have been seen as perfectly normal to be ‘potty about Potter’ as a teenage girl during the noughties, but few would have shared my intensity.

This intensity is the major difference between normal ‘fandom’ and SI.

Unlike fandom, your interest can entirely consume you. It’s like an addiction- you are hooked on your interest. It’s not a case of want, but you physically HAVE to get your fix. If you don’t get it, your brain feels like it’s going to explode.

If I didn’t get to see the latest Harry Potter film at the first possible showing, it literally felt like the end of the world. I once made a phone call to my mother after seeing gameplay footage for Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets to say that I needed the game NOW (why Aoife!)…even though I knew it was under the tree for Christmas!

But I just HAD to have it in that moment!

Oh but when I got that game- what a feeling!! Even better when I got to experience TWO different versions of the game on both PC and PS2!!!

Talk about shooting up on dopamine! 😀

It’s a little difficult to explain the feeling in words. It’s not just a sense of happiness or excitement, it’s like the atomic bomb version of Beatlemania has gone off in my head- if that makes sense?

Let me try to explain the feeling with gifs, I think these sum it up better:

 

 

 

If you combine all of these at once- that’s what it’s like in my brain.

Kind of a miracle that it hasn’t full on exploded yet 😛

Your interest is more than just obsession- it’s compulsion. Every time that I saw a still from the Harry Potter films in a newspaper or magazine, I was compelled to cut them out to add to my collection. It didn’t matter that I had the same picture six times already, I had to have it! If I didn’t get it, I would genuinely torture myself about that one lost picture, or missed TV special for years afterwards! Even now the residual memory of those missed moments still bother me! 😛

As with all addictions however, you can take things a little too far to get your hit…

One of the most memorable examples of this was my dedication to reading the latest Harry Potter books. Determined to be the first to finish the book, I would read in the car! This doesn’t sound too extreme at first….however, I can get motion sick from looking down while travelling in the car… but I didn’t care!

I read until I threw up and then read some more!!

In addition to this, I was also caught sneaking into my mothers room in the dead of night to nab the Half Blood Prince from her after the midnight opening! 😛 Luckily, we had the sense to buy two copies for the Deathly Hallows midnight release 😉

Such are the lengths we are willing to go to for our specialist interests. You become so intensely focused that you are often blinded as to the lows to which you sink…

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In addition to subjects, people can often become SI’s- especially in women. I’ve definitely been guilty of this at times.

You connect with a person, and like other areas of interest, you want to know everything about them- even the things that are socially unacceptable to ask! When you spend time with that person, it’s never enough. If you see them hanging out with other friends on social media, you feel a pang of regret/jealousy that you weren’t there- as genuinely irrational as you know your feelings to be. I suppose it’s like any other interest, every missed moment with your friend feels like a missed concert for your favorite band- a one off event that can never be recaptured.

You know you’re obsessing and that you shouldn’t feel like this, but you just can’t seem to stop yourself.

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Even worse when you inadvertently cling on so tightly that you end up smothering your SI…We don’t mean to act like crazy people, but sometimes it happens.

Word of advice to human SI’s: Just wait it out. We’ll move on to our next interest before long. Just try to understand and love your friend as they are 🙂

So why are we so inclined towards these interests?

Scientists are of the opinion that SI’s reflect some of the heightened abilities unique to autism such as systemizing- the drive to explore, analyze or construct a system. SI’s are also thought to correlate to the severity of social impairment in individuals with autism, serving a role in reducing stress and anxiety.

For me personally, I find that SI’s provide a source of comfort. Life can be pretty overwhelming for people with autism, and sometimes we need to escape. In my own life I have found that some of my more intense interests were born of the flames of turbulent times.

When I was 11, we sold my childhood home and I was completely knocked out of sync. This simple change combined with the joyous trials of puberty had a devastating effect on me. My world was, to my mind, spinning out of control, and I wasn’t coping very well. Around the same time, the Hogwarts Express was just leaving the station, and I jumped on board to escape. The books, the films and the games transported me to another world away from all of my problems. Harry Potter gave me a sense of control, an oar to navigate the rapids of life- which is kind of ironic given the intense hold that SI’s can have over us! 😛

For any parents out there reading this, don’t worry too much about our SI’s. This is perfectly normal behavior! 🙂 And if you’re sick of hearing about your child’s subject- they’ll move on eventually 😉

Top Tip- Experts in the area recommend using  SI’s to encourage your child in other areas they may struggle with. I really struggled to study for my exams when I was a teenager, so my mother encouraged me through an SI- gaming. For every hour of study I managed, I was awarded with an equal amount of gaming time. Before long, I was studying without any incentive at all!! 🙂

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Have a good weekend everyone! 🙂

Aoife

 

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Autism 101- Asperger’s Syndrome

Greetings Earthlings! 🙂

In continuation from my previous post, I’d like to introduce you properly to Asperger’s syndrome or AS. More and more frequently are we hearing of the condition, but very rarely is it explained to us. I  myself knew relatively little about the disorder upon diagnosis, and that was with a degree in physiology!

So what exactly is Asperger’s syndrome?

Asperger’s syndrome is a form of high-functioning autism. As with all ASD’s, the normal development of the brain is impaired in AS,  however, the symptoms are considered less severe. For example, the social communication difficulties experienced by those with AS are much milder than other ASD’s. We may struggle to communicate our intentions, to empathize or to make eye contact, but much of this can be learned and improved with time 🙂

Unlike classic autism, individuals with AS show relatively normal intelligence and language skills. AS is in fact often associated with higher IQ’s, and in some cases savant skills (mathematical genius, eidetic memory, musical/artistic genius etc.).

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Stereotype alert!!!- The majority of Hollywood portrayals of autistic individuals depict us as having savant skills. This is a RARE condition affecting between 0.5 and 10% of autists. (So no- I can’t count cards in Vegas with you like ‘Rain Man‘ 😛 ).

Motor development can also be affected in AS. In comparison to my peers, it took me a lot longer to hit some of my finer motor milestones (nearly 3 years to master shoelaces for example). Additionally, people with AS are often quite clumsy- something that I may know a thing or two about…

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It’s gotten to the stage where I fall down the stairs so often that my family rarely come to my rescue (I’ve learned to fall with style sustaining minimal injury)! I’m also quite adept at falling over my own feet…the worst fall of my life came after tripping myself up, and not letting go of the Alsatian I was holding…

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…at least we were still in the driveway! 😛

Unusual use of language is also associated with AS. This doesn’t mean that we create our own language or anything weird, but that we have a tendency towards unusual turns of phrase.

I, for example, am particularly fond of using big words- ruminate, cornucopia and ethereal are particular favorites! In my head I can’t see why you wouldn’t use a fancy word like ephemeral or fleeting instead of temporary! 😉 Although this did get me into trouble once with my supervisor for using the word ‘multitudinous’ in a research paper…

Restrictive and repetitive behaviors (like OCD) are additionally found in cases of AS.

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These can manifest in a number of ways. There is a tendency towards routine in AS for example- we don’t like change and the uncertainty it brings. In a world that doesn’t always make sense, routine offers stability and control.

One of the most striking features of AS is our tendency towards having a specialist interest. These are intense areas of interest in which we accumulate mountains of information about a single molehill! If you stumble upon one of my interests in conversation, advanced warning- you could be there a while! 😛 😉  I’ll write a separate post discussing specialist interests in detail on Friday 🙂

So there you have it- a quick overview of Asperger’s syndrome! 🙂

These are just some of the typical characteristics associated with AS. If I were to fully explore the symptoms today, this post would likely be the length of a book! But I’ll do my best to break everything down for you as I go along 🙂

Aoife 🙂

Abbreviations: ASD- Autism Spectrum Disorder, AS- Asperger’s syndrome, OCD- Obsessive compulsive disorder

 

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