resources for Teens/Parents of teens with HFA

[finnishbiscuiteater]

Hi,

DS1 finally got an official diagnosis recently, and both of us have lots of questions!

Are there any active forums where we can hang out and ask a lot of stupid questions?

(main question at the moment is how crazy is a 60pt difference between top and lowest segment on the WISC-IV) - Would be go to know what scale of oddness we're dealing with.

Also - DS1 is now experimenting with being more free with his oddness, and would be good to chat about this with others - I'm guessing it's part of establishing an autistic identity. But it's weird how much more obvious his autism is, now it's diagnosed.

Dd got a diagnosis of ASD last year at 15. She is definitely being more obvious about her autism now - she was a champion masker before.
The first few months she seemed quite upset and anxious; not really about the dx more about the changes it might make (I think). She does seemed more settled now.
She did quite a bit of reading, some of it focussed on female presentation.
However she preferred the more parent/ professional orientated books to the 'my experience' type ones

Thanks Polter :) Yes - I think it's been great for him. He requested and arranged the diagnosis - we'd known for years, but it's great to have it confirmed...

DS1 is 15 too, NoHaud - so first year of GCSE. He's reading freaks Geeks and aspergers, because that's been recomended to him. I'm reading the essential difference, which the therapists recomeended to me - any other suggestions for reading gratefully accepted.

Sorry to keep on about wisc-iv results - but I'm really interested to know if your dd had a big discrepency - his dad is very much in denial, and I'm trying to find more info on the levels of discrepency within 'normal' and autistic populations. But google is failing me!

Tony Attwood 'Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome' is a good starting point.
She has also read some books on sensory processing and executive disfunction.
Can you remind me what Wisc-iv is? It rings a bell but I can't place it exactly.

Cross-posted. IQ stuff. Yes both dd and ds who is 19 and also has ASD have very large discrepancies. So much so that the EP and specialist teachers who did their reports couldn't give an overall IQ score.
They both had particular weaknesses in short term memory and processing speed. They do both have dx of dyslexia as well though.

Sounds like Tony Attwood is a definite then! I'll order both of them - I'm glad that you didn't like the Baron-cohen book - I'm struggling with the gender essentialism - esp as we suspect DD1 is also HFA (as probably am I...)

Yes - that's what they said about DS1 - that the overall IQ score was meaningless due to the huge variations - and it's working memory and processing speed that he's lowest in - so that all makes sense.

Also probably means that I shouldn't get so annoyed with a child that wins every argument hands down, but forgets to tie his shoelaces and trips over sigh

Any tips to help his dad and step-mum accept his diagnosis? DS1 is going for the NC approach, as he just can't be bothered with them... I know that they care about him, so think it's a shame if they stop seeing him because they can't accept his diagnosis, and he can't accept them not accepting.

Thank you - I really appreciate having two people to 'talk' to about all of this!

This depends on your ds's sense of humour but dd loved 'Why Johnny Doesn't Flap'. It is aimed at about 7 year olds along the lines of all those 'Anna has asthma'; 'Oscar has OCD' type books but in this case the main character has ASD and is trying to understand his NT friend.
Dd just found it amusing. If your ds has the same kind of sense of humour he might find it a good starting point to explain to others (but that would depend on their sense of humour too). Dd's CAMHS worker was very solemn about it but the psychologist got it.

That book sounds hilarious, and right where ds1's humour is (he spends many hours saying 'poor DS2, he can't help being NT)

Dammit- am spending a fortune on books at the moment!