Aspergers

 Aspergers

    He is 14 years old, used to playing video games when he was lying over sofa, barely sat straight on chair. He always ignores people around him and reluctantly answers anybody who asks him something. He was diagnosed with mild autism, tend to have Asperger’s syndrome, he has a difficulty with social interactions, hardly to express his own feelings, or making eye contact.

    Few years ago, I remembered he spoke rudely to his mother about chatting too much with the restaurant owner and then he could not play lesser time in his mother’s gym. He felt really upset and spoke it in impolite way. He really did not understand a lot of the social cues like small talk, or where whose turn to talk next or when to finish talking how long to talk for what the boundaries. I felt that his social situations really confusing, he did not how to communicate with strangers.

    He is my landlord’s son. He visited his parents since the summer vacation started from last week. I have a few lunches with him and his mother, he never asked us to take him to anywhere. Once, I asked him if he was willing to go to karaoke with him, he gave a concrete answer. Before I asked for a half day leave, I requested a permission from his mother, her mother agreed happily. And then, we rode a motorcycle together to there and we had a good time to sing a lot of songs. After that, he started willing to share his feelings to me and told me about his secrets sometimes. For instance, he actually wanted to play bowling but he did not ask his parents, so I invited them to play together on that night. Or his father would like to buy a pair of new shoes to him, but he told me the reason why he did not want to buy a new pair of shoes but he was reluctantly to inform his father.

There are some improvement ways to make him better:

1. Because he may have difficulty understanding language, he may respond better to pictures telling them what is expected, rather than verbal instructions. Visual countdown chart, when he has several homework, you could set alarm clock to countdown how long left.

2. Make every words predictable. Set the routine and keep in mind to keep the things go according to the plan.

3. Legitimately provide positive support to meet his emotional or behavior needs. Do not yell or threaten, it will not make behavior better because he will feel anxious, scared, angry, embarrassed, or sad.

Even though he has returned back to his home in Pingtung, but I felt that there is a lot of efforts need to be given to let him come to normal life. Every cloud has a silver lining, because I have seen a little improvement from him.