Asperger S Syndrome - a Parallel Dimension?

ASPERGER’S SYNDROME - A PARALLEL DIMENSION?

I’M ON THE WRONG PLANET SYNDROME?

DO YOU: -

 Have difficulty in making friends?

 Feel rejected and ignored by people?

 Always feel alone?

 Have difficulty in getting started with your life?

 Often feel lonely, depressed and anxious?

 Have a hard time making folk understand where you’re coming from?

 Sometimes feel as if you’ve been plonked down on the wrong planet.

If you’ve answered YES to some or all of these questions then you may want to consider giving us a call. Together we can start the journey towards a more rewarding and fulfilling way of living.

 To give you the opportunity to develop friendships with like-minded people.  To build up your personal confidence with regards to potential occupation, social life, relationships, self-help, self-reliance, health and well-being and control of daily living and life direction.

 To enable you to develop coping strategies and learn techniques that will help you to address your depression, anxiety and any other emotional issues.

HOW WILL YOU BENEFIT:  You will be more likely to make friends and enjoy relationships

 You will be more likely to acquire your own home and enjoy independent living and making your own decisions about how you live your life.

 You will also be more likely to obtain paid employment and earn independent income.

 You will be more likely to enjoy your life without undue anxiety or depression or emotional issues.

 You will be able to better understand where other people are coming from and they will be more able to understand you.

CAN YOU BE BRAVE ENOUGH TO TAKE THE FIRST STEP AND GIVE US A CALL?

CALL: -

Babs McClellan, Case Manager Open Door. Albion Street, Grimsby, DN32 7DL 01472 722009 www.opendoorcare.co.uk

For more information about Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) and Autistic Spectrum Conditions (ASC) see below: -

WHAT IS AUTISM?

WHAT IS ASPERGER’S SYNDROME AND HIGH FUNCTIONING AUTISM?

WHY ARE PEOPLE WITH AS OR HFA AFFECTED THIS WAY?

AREAS OF POTENTIAL DIFFICULTY FOR SOMEONE WITH AUTISM

OTHER SIGNIFICANT CHARACTERISTICS OF AUTISM

WAYS TO SUPPORT PEOPLE WITH AUTISM

Asperger’s Syndrome and High Functioning Autism Service

This service is for adults (aged 16 and over) who have been diagnosed with [or suspect they may have] Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) or High Functioning Autism (HFA) without an associated learning disability. The service has been commissioned to help the many people who are affected by these conditions who do not meet the criteria for support from learning disability or mental health service providers.

WHAT IS AUTISM?

NAS Website www.autism.org.uk description says: -

‘Autism is a lifelong developmental disability that affects how a person communicates with, and relates to, other people. It also affects how they make sense of the world around them.

It is a spectrum condition, which means that, while all people with autism share certain difficulties, their condition will affect them in different ways. Some people with autism are able to live relatively independent lives but other may have accompanying learning disabilities and need a lifetime of specialist support. ‘

Descriptions and dialogues regarding autism often uses terminology such as ‘impairment/s’, ‘condition/s’, ‘disorder/s’, ‘disability/ies’ etc. Lots of people who are affected by autism prefer the term ‘difference/s’ or ‘neurodiversity’ whilst others claim they are disabled by the effects of autism and this should be recognised.

WHAT IS ASPERGER’S SYNDROME AND HIGH FUNCTIONING AUTISM?

These conditions are a form of Autism. The people affected usually have average to well above average intelligence. The conditions are often referred to as ‘hidden’ as it is difficult to tell if someone has AS or HFA by just looking at them. It is often their social interaction that makes them appear different from others. They often get called weird, or geeky and even rude or badly behaved because their social behaviour does not always fit the social norm. For some their social interaction is fine for most of the time, but can appear a bit strange when they face a challenging situation or unfamiliar environment.

Quite often they have had a difficult time at school trying to fit in and many young people and adults report they were bullied, ostracised and even abused. Work may also be difficult because they have problems with the social aspect of the working environment. Some may have issues with their working memory or ability to organise tasks or daily living without prompts from others.

A lot of people with AS or HFA state that they feel they are aliens from another planet – they don’t know where or how to fit in. Some say they feel as if they were viewing daily life from a different dimension and cannot work out how to communicate or interact with the dimension everyone else appears to be on. Some who have never had a diagnosis or an assessment of need tell us that they have always wondered why they were different, why they were judged the way they were. What did they do wrong? What was wrong with them? Were they ‘mad’ or ‘bad’? None of these things are true – they just view the world from a different perspective than most of us. When they do find out the ‘why’ they say it is such a relief to have some answers which is half the battle. The other half is developing strategies to cope and also making the non-autistic population more aware of the issues they face and to be a little more understanding and tolerant.

The positive side of AS and HFA is the ability to process lots of information (given sufficient time and the right environment) can prove very productive. There is a current fashion for posthumous diagnosis of some of our more famous scientists, composers, writers, philosophers and artists etc whose recorded life stories presented them as eccentric or having a very difficult social life and or relationships. It would appear (although this cannot be proven) that many would have been diagnosed to day with Asperger’s Syndrome e.g. Einstein, Newton, Darwin, Beethoven, Mozart, Van Gogh etc. Some eminent people still alive have a diagnosis e.g. Bill Gates (Microsoft). It is a reasonable assumption that the electronic technology owes a lot to people with Asperger’s who work within the industry. There are some businesses in the States and also in London who actively recruit people with Asperger’s Syndrome of the relevant calibre as they appreciate their high level of productivity. However, most people with AS or HFA struggle to interact with the social world on a day to day basis and although they may appear as if they are not in significant need of support, they are. They are the ones that got missed at school. They are the one who do not receive support from the statutory agencies because they do not fit the criteria. But they do need support, and with that support to help them develop coping strategies life would be so much more fulfilling and rewarding for them.

That’s what Open Door’s AS & HFA Service was commissioned to do and that is what we provide!

WHY ARE PEOPLE WITH AS OR HFA AFFECTED THIS WAY?

AS & HFA are conditions that effect how sensory information is filtered. Most of us usually filter out the vast majority of the information that we receive through their senses only attending to a few bits of information. Our brain automatically fills in the gaps – or takes short cuts as it recognises what it is perceiving and disregards (filters out) any information it does not need. This allows us to come to a conclusion or to take action within a short period of time. Those affected by AS or HFA do not filter out enough information and therefore need to process much more information than is usual.

Each individual is unique to the degree that they are affected in this way. This difference in sensory filtering can result in the individual as a young baby and child not acquiring some basic social skills that we all develop (unconsciously) at this stage in our development. Thereafter having to learn them at a conscious level and to actively work out what others really mean or intend. This often leads to social misunderstanding, rejection and discrimination.

Those affected also experience difficulties in their sensory perceptions often being overly sensitive or under sensitive in one or more of their senses. They can often be overwhelmed by what they perceive visually, or hear, touch, smell, taste or even messages from and to their own body. Again how each sense is affected and to what degree is unique to the individual. The result of this can mean being overwhelmed by busy environments, sometimes experienced as discomfort, sometimes as pain and almost always creating some degree of heightened anxiety.

For the affected individual on a daily basis they are trying to cope within social situations with often poorly developed social skills and feel quite often as if they don’t belong. They may have difficulty in forming friendships or maintaining relationships. This can be quite traumatic and often they withdraw from social contact and then face isolation and depression. Lack of understanding within society and communities of this condition and the affects it can have on each individual makes daily living even more difficult than it need be.

AREAS OF POTENTIAL DIFFICULTY FOR SOMEONE WITH AUTISM (see National autistic Societies website)

Communication

People with autism have difficulties with both verbal and non-verbal language. Many have a very literal understanding of language, and think people always mean exactly what they say. They find it difficult to use or understand:

 Facial expressions or tone of voice

 Jokes, Sarcasm, metaphorical speech

 Common phrases and sayings: e.g. ‘It’s cool’ meaning something is good, rather than the literal meaning that it is a bit cold.

Some people with autism may not speak or have fairly limited speech. They will usually understand what other people say to them, but prefer to use alternative means of communication themselves, such as sign language or visual symbols. Some people with autism have impaired receptive language in that they find it difficult to understand what people are saying to them. Some with more severe autism have difficulty in understanding that the sounds coming from other’s mouths are forms of communication. This is not the case for those affected by AS or HFA.

Others will have good language skills, but they still find it hard to understand the give-and- take nature of conversations, perhaps repeating what the other person has just said (this is known as echolalia) or talking at length about their own interests. They may also have difficulty in keeping up with a conversation, especially in groups. They may still be processing what one person has said when the conversation has moved on. The above is the case for someone affected by AS or HFA [with the exception of echolalia which is rare].

Social Interaction

People with autism often have difficulty recognising or understanding other people’s emotions and feelings, and expressing their own, which can make it difficult for them to fit in socially. They may:

 Not understand the unwritten social rules which most of us pick up without thinking; they may stand too close to another person for example, or start an inappropriate subject of conversation.

 Appear to be insensitive because they have not recognised how someone else is feeling

 Prefer to spend time alone rather than seeking out the company of other people

 Not seek comfort from other people

 Appear to behave ‘strangely’ or inappropriately, as it is not always easy for them to express feelings, emotions or needs.

Difficulties with social interaction can mean that people with autism find it hard to form friendships: some may want to interact with other people and make friends, but may be unsure how to go about this.

Social Imagination

Social imagination allows us to understand and predict other people’s behaviour, make sense of abstract ideas, and to imagine situations outside our immediate daily routine. Difficulties with social imagination mean that people with autism find it hard to:

 Understand and interpret other people’s thoughts, feelings and actions

 Predict what will happen next, or what could happen next

 Understand the concept of danger, for example that running on to a busy road poses a threat to them

 Engage in imaginative play and activities: children with autism may enjoy some imaginative play but prefer to act out the same scenes each time

 Prepare for change and plan for the future

 Cope in new or unfamiliar situations

Difficulties with social imagination should not be confused with a lack of imagination. Many people with autism are very creative and may be, for example, accomplished artists, musicians or writers. OTHER SIGNIFICANT CHARACTERISTICS OF AUTISM ARE:

Love of routines

The world can seem a very unpredictable and confusing place to people with autism, who often prefer to have a fixed daily routine so that they know what is going to happen every day. As some people with autism have difficulty in being able to predict others actions or situations they develop coping strategies and routines that helps them to control their daily lives and to some extent environment and therefore help them to predict what will happen next. Such routines can extend to travelling the same way to work or school each day, doing a task exactly in the same order every time, or eating the same food for breakfast etc.

Rules can also be important: it may be difficult for a person with autism to take a different approach to something once they have been taught the ‘right’ way to do it. People with autism may not be comfortable with the idea of change, but can cope well if they are prepared for it in advance.

Sensory sensitivity

As described above most people with autism have a degree of over sensitivity (hypersensitivity) in one or more of their senses (sense modality) and may (subconsciously) shut down the over sensitive sense to such a degree that it becomes under sensitive (hyposensitive) in order to avoid being overwhelmed by sensory overload . This applies to all the senses, hearing (auditory), sight (visual), touch (tactile), taste (gustatory), smell (olfactory) and also proprioception (which is the sense of what the body is doing, moving and where it is in space – our brain is constantly being fed information from our muscles, organs as well as chemical messengers – so that our bodies can function properly) and vestibular sense which helps us with balance and gravity awareness.

Therefore they may be hypersensitive for most of the time but also experience transition into hyposensitivity. If we cannot rely on our senses it becomes very difficult making sense of the world, it interferes with our development, makes it difficult to predict potential situations and also cause extreme levels of anxiety. It is understandable how some people with autism develop phobias about certain places or types of places or situations and fear ending up in a place or situation where they may be overwhelmed by sensory overload. If one sense is in extreme overload it can result in shutdown, which prevents the person from processing information from other senses also. This can be a very scary place to be. Some people with autism experience such high levels of hypersensitivity that the sense stimulations can be actually painful. Many youngsters with autism find auditory stimulation very painful. Others may be only mildly affected, but still find it problematical.

Some writers and researchers of autism purport that sensory problems are caused by differences in how the brain filters sensory stimulators. The brain fails to filter out irrelevant sensory detail and tries to process everything. This it is argued is one of the main developmental problems of autism.

Special interests Many people with autism have intense special interests, often from a fairly young age. These can change over time or be lifelong, and can be anything from art or music, to trains or computers. Some people with autism may eventually be able to work or study in related areas.

Learning disabilities

Some people with autism may have learning disabilities, which can affect all aspects of someone’s life, from studying in school, to learning how to wash themselves or make a meal. As with autism, people can have different ‘degrees’ of learning disability, so some will be able to live fairly independently – although they may need a degree of support to achieve this – while others may require lifelong, specialist support.

However, there are some people who are so severely affected by autism that it is difficult to assess whether or not they have a learning disability (if they are intellectually impaired). There are cases of people who have been classed as having severe learning disabilities, who eventually learned to communicate in some way and have been found to be very intelligent and very aware of their situation.

Commonalities

 Anyone with an Autistic Spectrum Condition (ASC) can have average or above average IQ

 Learning disabilities and mental health issues are not necessarily present for everyone with an ASC although they can occur alongside any ASC. Mental Health issues commonly develop however, due to difficult or even traumatic experiences e.g. depression, high anxiety levels, poor anger management etc.

 Extreme sensory under or over-sensitivity is usually present in any ASC.

 Extreme adherence to rigid rules and routines is common in any ASC (needing predictability).

 Intense focus and obsessive special interests mays be present in any ASC.

 All ASC (excepting Rett’s Syndrome are more common in males than females (1 – 4 ratio).

WAYS TO SUPPORT PEOPLE WITH AUTISM  Explain what you are about to do, what will happen next and why.

 Do not assume that they will understand how you are feeling or your real intentions by your body language or facial expression.

 Give the person enough time to understand and process the information you are sharing and wait a few seconds for a response if it is not given immediately.

 Questions should be clear and direct using language that is unambiguous and easily understood. Do not use metaphors, sarcasm or irony as this may be taken literally.

 Because some people with autism may take language literally avoid words with a double meaning and humour that could be misunderstood.

 Maintain a routine – familiarity is often important to some people with autism. Try not to change routine suddenly if it can be avoided.

 Please do not be offended if the person does not make eye contact, or if eye contact appears inappropriate, or they display unusual body language or facial expression, or if they talk at inappropriate moments or about inappropriate topics or if topics are out of context.

 Repetitive behaviours might be a coping mechanism and therefore should be respected.

 The environment is important – some people with autism are particularly sensitive to light, movement, sounds, smell and touch. Try to keep the immediate environment as calm as possible to alleviate anxiety or be mindful that in busy environments the person may experience sensory overload which generates very high levels of anxiety. In these situations their cognitive processing may be affected and they may be less likely to understand what is being said to them or going on around them.  Always consider the person’s behaviour in terms of his or her autism, even if it becomes challenging. Do not assume that they should behave or respond in the same way as you would.

 Ask the person and or carer/advocate what support they may need.

 Please show respect and tolerance towards the person even though you may feel that their behaviour is provocative.