Could It Be Aspergers?

[Music] uh we're going to focus on Asperger syndrome it's a very much a trendy term and we now know that autism spectrum disorders and aspas is a part of that affects one in 68 children so if you're at a school divide the number of children registered there by 68 will tell you how many aspis and that's the term I'm going to use it's a very positive term uh aspis actually originally coined by those who have Asperger syndrome themselves and if you're not aspy you're called neurotypical and neurotypicals have their own problems too and to be

honest my main concern is not aspis it's the attitude of neurotypicals to someone who's different and that's my concern now if we're going to get changes in slides Ah that's it I'm going to go through what are the characteristics we look for there's a textbook called dsm5 which goes through it in detail I'm a great fan of Harry Potter I would like a Sorting Hat so you just put the Hat on instead of Slytherin or Gryffindor it says ad OD ASD trouble is there's too many D's in life and you get a kid who's got

multiple diagnoses usually done in a very negative way from the child's perception but if we look at the criteria um that's it right uh first of all people with ASD have difficulty understanding other people and that's their biggest challenge in life neurotypicals are born pre-wired to make friends read a face socialize it's what they go to school for not to learn they're there for their friends and to play and socialize with them but there are some children teenagers who are not so good at socializing and some with Asbergers can socialize incredibly well but it's exhausting

and they do it by intellect and Analysis not by intuition and for many typical kids socializing is energizing for these kids it's exhausting now the first thing we look for is deficit in social emotional reciprocity the balance and there seems to be two groups there's one group that there's a group of kids playing over there and this kid says I don't get it I don't understand it I prefer Lego or Minecraft and become socially engaged and for this group my definition of ASD is someone who in life has found something more interesting than socializing but

have to be with social zealots so they are withdrawn isolated highly conspicuous but then there's a second group who see all the socialize and go right okay and instead of being introverted and withdrawn they're motivated and intrusive right okay and they join in you do this you do that no I'll tell the teacher Etc and I describe them as Italian drivers because they don't read the signals as I'm looking at you your faces are traffic lights if you smile a nod green light I keep talking if you got amber light slow down not speed up

if you burst into tears red light stop but they don't see the no tailgating signs or menot work signs and keep interrupting you and they're highly motivated and intrusive and abrasive and annoying to others because they don't read the signals and become very upset when it's pointed out the mistakes they've made so for this group they want to socialize but they're incredibly clumsy when they do now the next one is deficits in non-verbal communication that is the ability to read faces body language tone of voice and express those accurately themselves and especially the ability to

express feelings because often when you have a person with Asbergers and say what are you feeling now or what were you feeling when you through a wobbly or whatever it was they say I don't know come on you must know you can tell me every dinosaur in the Jurassic period what are you feeling now I don't know I'll now complete the sentence I don't know how to grasp the many thoughts and feelings in my mind hold one identify it and explain it to you in speech so you'll understand so there's a major difficulty converting thought

and emotion to Speech but not in the Arts in the ability to sing in Perfect Pitch to create music to take photographs and so they can get their personality and inner world through drawing music and the Arts more than speech the next one is deficit in developing and understanding relationships from classic autism of not really bonding with mom as much as you'd expect but then this is the kid who's desperate for friends and they say how do I make friends and how do I keep friends and when I see the teenagers it's how can I

get a girlfriend C can I buy one and I say no it's illegal although I must admit I could make a fortune running a dating Agency for aspis and and their mothers would pay me a fortune for them to leave home and get married and and and so that Mom can have a life now so it's understanding relationships it's friendships typical kids on a beach on a summer's day never met each other just very quickly they make friends playing together it's done and the kid with Asperger says how do you do that what signals say

I can join in what can I say what can I do so all those features are confusing nothing to do with intellect it's social understanding that's it now the next one is restrictive oh I hate the terminology this is academics for you say it in words that nobody can understand makes you seem intelligent okay they like routines they don't like change there are certain words that provoke quite severe agitation no weight change and not fair strong sense of social justice and so for this individual they don't like change the unexpected and surprises they like routine

and consistency and when there is a change they hit the panic button but it's a life of predictability is the one that they seek now another component is high restricted fixated interests now yes when they're young Thomas the Tank Engine it's not in the diagnostic criteria but they become incredibly knowledgeable in the volcanoes Minecraft I could have made a fortune if I actually a lot of Minecraft Pokémon and the other games are actually designed by aspis yes they are because they speak the aspy language and all the aspies are Ed by it from Steve Jobs

to build gates to all that group so there is an interest it may last hours it may last decades they collect information they have a phenomenal knowledge of it they're a walking encyclopedia but at school they're being taught lessons and I have to explain like I did this week as one teenager said why am I having to learn Pythagoras's Theorem which I think is the square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides I can remember it I was drilled it but from the moment I finished high

school I have never ever used it and many with Asbergers say what you're teaching me is a waste of time and it is but they want to know about their special interest the next area is sensitivity to sensory aspects of their environment now that can include auditory and when I talk to the teenagers and I say which teachers do you like or not like they say I hate teachers who shout and so sometimes they don't want to go into the playground not because of the social component but the kids shouting to each other running fast

and they might bump into you or not liking a birthday party because there's are balloons that could go pop so not only are they confused in the social mindfield of the day they also have major problems of sensory sensitivity it's tactile as I walked across from the hotel to here there are a lot of kids going off to prestigious high schools and I find it amazing that young men wear shorts cuz I come from England I think it's really quite weird however they're wearing ties now for those with Asbergers they can't stand things around their

neck they don't like labels they have that tactile sensitivity it's visual I hate Mrs Smith why cuz she wears bright clothing and it just blinds me Teenage asp uniform is black or all gray not Emos but why have colors I don't know how they go I don't know what to wear I'll just wear black and I also hate Mrs Smith not because of what she wears she makes me want to vomit what do you mean she makes you want to vomit she smells of coffee or her perfume makes me richet it's also position of the

body and movement skills they can be notoriously clumsy may not respond to pain as you would expect and may have a problem of a mindbody division that sometimes may self injure at a mild level just to get their brain in connection with their body now the next Criterion is symptoms must be present in the early developmental period but may not become manifest until social demands exceed capacities in other words for some of the kids in the early days of preschool primary school they can hold it together they can socialize but when they get to high

School the wheels fall off because life is now much more complicated they're trying to relate to toxic teenagers the most dangerous creature on this planet forget forget great white sharks trying to eat Surfers the most dangerous creature is a pack of teenage boys neither use nor ornament now what it means is that it's later on and often in classic autism diagnosed in the preschool years Asbergers boys primary school girls high school and Beyond but more on that in the moment but in other words the symptoms may become apparent later and must cause clinically significant impairment

in everyday functioning and that's where we've got to make a decision does this aspect affect that person's quality of life in childhood often very much now we do have what we call the Asperger personality type and that is um as the Americans would say the Apple doesn't fall far from the tree and in half the cases we see there is a parent with similar characteristics interestingly the highest level of having kids with ASD if we go through the professions yes Engineers are more likely to have kids with ASD even more likely are those in Information

Technology even higher is accountancy but the Supreme profession for having ASD kids is medicine wow interesting but that's another topic so there are personality characteristics it's always been here we've now got a label for it but what I'm now finding that early diagnosis and early intervention means that sometimes I'm actually removing the diagnosis interesting I saw a child when he was 7 years old classic Asbergers saw him for two years helped him with the development of friendship then didn't see him usually a good sign and then at 19 his mom said could you see him

because got a problem he's always wanted to be a police officer and he has a strong sense of social justice has done all the uh first aid courses and he really is dead set on being a police officer saying you make a great one however he's aspan honest to a fault and on the application form wrote down that he had to the police academy asgus they immediately sent back a letter basically saying how on Earth could you think that a person with Asbergers could be a police officer which is interesting because you then have to

dismiss about 15% of police officers from the dog Squad to the scene of crime investigators so she said he has no idea what to do could you see him CU he's very depressed in the whole process so in walked a very tall 19-year-old young man and I was chatting with him and I thought where's the Asbergers I I can't pick up any Asbergers right I'm going to redo the diagnostic assessment and on a particular test you need a score of 65 or more to have Aspergers and his score was 42 yipp so I wrote a

letter to the police department saying he had Asbergers he now no longer has sufficient to be of clinical significance in his daily life please consider him like any other Citizen and he got in yipp I was so delighted uh but then I got a few months later an email from him saying thanks for the letter Tony I got in but I didn't like it and he said so I've joined the Navy and I'm really enjoying it because I'm doing radar but then I saw him a few months ago and he said yeah but I didn't

like the living on board ship in close proximity to so many people so I'm now at University studying psychology yes because he started observing an analyzing people since he was three years old it was his only way to cope so longitudinal studies clinical experience suggest about 15% move out of autism spectrum disorder now there are certain language components it's um the pragmatics the art of conversation um it's monologuing it's not seeking repair of a conversation um the proy is odd for a lot of the kids when they're young this is an interesting fact that the

United States has fewer kids with aspergers than it should because it exports them to Australia because many of our kids speak with an American accent because they learn language not from parents or peers but television and Dora the Explorer so they speak with an American accent and can be so pedantic and they give you so much detail UNS spotting errors they are great at spotting errors and if you make an error they are the first person to point out your mistake and you should be grateful to them for your mistake being pointed out High School

principles don't like it when their grammar is pointed out to the whole school but their allegiances to the tooth and truth and correction to to look at patterns and look at inconsistencies that's one of the reasons they can be so good at maths because the maths is study of patterns and they are good at studying patterns motor clumsiness can include being clumsy unusual gate handwriting skills but in team sports they can be the last to be chosen because they're poor at balls catching skills and so on which means that often their preferred activities are solitary

sedentary activities often looking at a screen uh and handwriting waste of time 19th century skill you know just teach them to voice record now when I'm doing the diagnostic assessment I'll show pictures and I'll ask what do you see now uh a kid with asperos and looking at this Photograph may say uh she's got her hand in the jar her brother has his hand on her shoulder oh look and and there's some plants crawling down the wall and there's some magazines I wonder if there are any train magazines whereas typical kids will say she's trying

to steal a biscuit or a cookie he standing guard squeezes her arm if anybody looks she'll drop it they won't get into trouble but if she gets one he expects half cuz he helped her out you see it's not wrong it's looking at the world through different eyes and not really working out what may be going on this one kid with Asbergers what's happening he's giving her the ball the little girl have a look at her face how's she feeling uh Happy why is she happy because he's giving her the ball whereas typical kids will

say she can't understand why her brother is giving her the ball but she hasn't seen the broken window since she holds the ball she did it not me she's got the ball or a kid with asberg has looked at that for about 10 seconds silently and then he said no way no way would a ball that size make a hole that small that is physically impossible we do little stories uh for kids under the age of six uh you have a little kid wanting a birthday present remember my dad say what would you like for

a present she says a puppy comes the morning of her birthday she's so excited that she's going to get a puppy she walks down into the kitchen there on the kitchen table next to Mom and Dad is her one birthday present she thinks here's my puppy and she opens the box and inside she finds books lots and lots of books no puppy she's so sad her mom and dad say did you like your birthday present and she says thank you it was a lovely present why would she say that and the kids with Asbergers go

of course the books are about puppies that's why she said thank you and I thought yes or why would you say thank you for a present you don't want it's understanding those sorts of components and conventions now there are associated features I'm going to explore a bit about those a little bit further on but there's one thing that those with aspas are really good at worrying they have a high level of anxiety routines and rituals are imposed to reduce anxiety also an unusual profile of learning they're either hyperlexic or dyslexic they learn to read early

on to read about their special interest in mathematics they are Supreme at mathematics or they're hopeless at mathematics in drawing they draw in photographic realism or they have major difficulties and they sing in Perfect Pitch H like Susan Bole however I had one kid whose teacher said oh he's lovely and he loves music so I sing to him but he keeps hitting me why does he hit me when I'm being nice to him I said cuz you sing off key and he spots eras they make great conductors to spot errors and great engineers in sound

recording in studios because they can spot all the errors now one of the things we're starting to become more aware of is the diagnosis in girls and women the invisible end of the spectrum and they tend to fly under the radar of diagnosis because girls are smarter and more creative than the boys in coping with difference remember I said for reciprocity ignore turn away or intrude girls do the third option and that is okay I don't get it but I'm going to watch I'm going to observe who's popular Rebecca what does she wear pink right

I'll get pink pink pink pink pink what do they talk about Barbies I'll get a hundred Barbies um how does she talk what does she do and they observe analyze and imitate it's a much more intelligent way I don't get socializing so what I'm going to do is see what's going on and copy it so it's the observation analysis and imitation now when they do that imitation for a brief while cured of autism but what she's got is a Surface sociability but a lack of true social identity the real self must be hidden I can

only be the person that people want me to be and who they want me to be is so successful but I'm ashamed of the real me it's masquer in it's watching and imitating to conceal social confusion and this causes anxiety and stress and a lack of SE self identity but one of the other issues can be in the teenage years she's either a goody two shoes puritanical nun that the teachers want the whole class to be or she says right I watched I analyzed I imitated I walk the walk I talk the walk what talk

talk the talk and walk the walk but it didn't work so I'm going off the rails and she goes through because it didn't work well promiscuity at least I'll be appreciated but appears say yeah I'll give it a try so one of the issues is going to be going off the rails because of nonacceptance and inconspicuous when they are the goody two shoes can lead to surpression of many issues they often read fiction because when you read Harry Potter you can can work out what people are thinking and feeling because herione in the text is

her thoughts and feelings and herione is the quintessential aspy girl at Hogwart she has no female friends many of the girls with Asbergers when young are tomboys or they watch soap operas home and away your neighbors because they haven't got friends and can't fit in watch TV as your documentary of socialization but prefer to be with boys than girls girls are mean two-faced and horri boys are fun engaging and I like to be with the boys cuz I get their jokes and we both like engineering Lego and Mathematics they decode social situations by doll play

so what she does is not Barbie getting married or Barbie doing retail therapy this Barbie's teacher this Barbie's her these Barbies are the kids and she replays decodes and unpacks the events of the day by playing with Barbie or rehearsing what say or do tomorrow she may also because she's isolated as far as she's concerned I haven't got any friends that's okay I'll have imaginary friends and imaginary friends are better than no friends and I had a 12-year-old girl that Mom said she's developing puberty and schizophrenia and I said I'll see her as fast as

I can but what do you mean by schizophrenia she's hallucinating in class she talks to someone called Sarah who does not exist but she talks to her aloud in class unaware of the effect it's having on other people I think she's developing schizophrenia she's hallucinating so I saw her as soon as I could and I said when you're talking to Sarah what do you talk about and she said well we we we we talk about the new school principle and and the new rules and and we talk about what books we going to need for

homework and and we talk about our favorite TV shows and I said to Mom that's not schizophrenia that's loneliness she's escaping into a world of imagination and she is so good at it of off with the witches and fairies she becomes a successful author and I know a number of authors with Asperger syndrome that that's their way of coping is to escape into an imaginary world you have control of that is safe and you can explore many aspects of life also girls tend to apologize boys rarely so boy makes a social mistake he gets upset

agitated he's referred for a diagnostic assessment the girl goes oh I'm sorry oh I'm so sorry I hurt your feelings and because she apologizes so profusely we forgive and forget but there's a pattern developing she didn't know or she appeases mom says you're going to a birthday party with your cousins you really don't know them will you be okay yes now you haven't seen them for 5 years you sure you'll be okay yes and and I got to take your brother to football I'll be gone for 2 hours are you sure you'll be okay yes

but look at the terror in her eyes she's much braver than the boys in trying to cope with that situation and she's a chameleon trying to adapt to different situations now there are going to be problems that develop early on in life and sometimes what will happen is that that may be camouflaged or not understood and the diagnosis occurs later in life in the adult years sometimes with a relative diagnosed um sometimes it's Mom or Dad and as far as the wife is concerned this explains my husband this is why it's like hugging a block

of wood this is why he's always criticizing me and never compliments me Etc so it can explain a lot of marital issues uh but it may be a cousin it may be a niece or nephew diagnosed with Asbergers that leads to a diagnostic pathway sometimes it's underachieving an employ mment because they can't get through the job interview because of difficulty with social skills or difficulty getting relationships and when the teenagers say how do I get a girlfriend I say quite clearly look as far as girls your age teenage girls are concern you're not cool you're

not trendy you're not risky you're not the type they go for cuz you're honest trustworthy and reliable wait till they become maternal in their mid 20s and and then they'll fall in love with you cuz you're a virgin now um another issue can be depression uh there's a high level of depression depression occurs for a variety of reasons one is you may early on seven or eight years old realize I'm different and then think I'm defective and the seeds of depression can be there because of rejection from your peers and you're different and so are

bad but when I analyze the inner thoughts and feelings by those with asperos who are clinically depressed what is your opinion of yourself and so on I go wow you didn't get that belief about yourself from your parents you didn't get that from your teachers you got that from other kids the tragedy is it was said so often you started to believe it and you didn't have friends to contradict it so the friend not acquaintances the rejection the bullying and teasing is a major cause of depression another cause of depression in this group the third

one is energy depletion because they use up so much energy managing anxiety processing facial expressions that they are exhausted and that long-term energy depletion leads to depression fortunately we have programs to help on this how long have I got oh 2 minutes oh oh a little bit longer oh good right so depression can be an issue for this group and to be honest when we've looked at I hope there aren't any psychologists in here because actually what we found was far better than Psychology was physical exercise is better than proac and it's better than CBT

but these guys don't get much physical activity really is very important so depression we also get referrals for relationship problems but there are other issues too and that is the high levels of anxiety if not dealt with effectively may lead the person and this is what happened with our son who has Asperger syndrome our son uh with his social difficulties at high school there's two groups Good Guys bad guys good guys closed door won't allow you unless you're socially skilled bad guys will always accept you as long as you're stupid silly risk-taking easy to see

that's the group he went to onset of puberty had a huge tsunami of anxiety coming in but that group when we look at William's anxiety from 0 to 10 he was always 8910 8910 that group were the first group to use alcohol and Mar marijuana and for the first time in his life zero and one and so self-medication with alcohol marijuana then it went on to speed ice and morphine and a whole range of things and he's been a drug addict now for 15 years if I could have turned back time I'd have tried to

get to him before he tried alcohol and marijuana that has been his standall despite his intelligence he's unemployable he's been in and out of prison getting money by armed robbery and so on for his drugs so what we're looking at is how do you get down to there by yoga and meditation and I'm encouraging schools today to teach kids in general yoga and meditation to experience that and for The aspers Who value intelligence highly it's not that you'll feel good it makes you smarter cuz if you are calm and relaxed you make good decisions if

you get upset your IQ drops 30 points yes it drops into the normal range so we also have issues of gender identity some of the boys will say girls are nice girls are kind girls have lots of friends girls have adopted me if I became a girl would I be cured so they think about changing gender or we had one girl who desperately wanted to be a boy and then we worked it out she was was bullied and teased mercilessly by a group of girls who didn't bully the boys so she thought if I become

a boy I won't be bullied and teased we also get Aspergers in anorexia nervosa and there it's a special interest in weight numbers control kogs and so on or I prefer to remain gender neutral and a tomboy I don't want to develop femininity anorexia Noosa will inhibit that we also get how do you react to being different and the kids know that they're different when they're seven or8 years old and when they're seven and eight years old they' got one of four Alternatives two internalizing two externalizing one internalizing I'm Different defective depression and the self-esteem

of aspis is based on the criticisms of peers with an absence of compliments so that whole self-esteem is based on criticisms from their peers and that leads to depression another group will escape into imagination and that imagination is so vivid so real so enjoyable and they're unaware of the context that they engage in conversations and interactions with what appear to be hallucinations that they're diagnosed with skitso personality disorder there's another group who do the opposite of depression and their way of self-comforting and com coping with life is to recognize their intelligence and see themselves as

Superior to others this is what I call the Sherlock syndrome Sherlock is classically aspy not a sociopath it's he's very good at logic because he's aspy he doesn't get emotions so he denigrates them as of no great importance and this group Comfort themselves with their intelligence and are diagnosed with narcissistic personality dis order because that's their way of coping but another group will copy and imitate and they win an Oscar for their ability to take on accents and to be successful in acting okay so is it Asbergers hopefully you now know whether it is okay

thank you [Applause] [Music]