Through Aspie Colored Glasses

&@*% This is Complicated!

2011-06-16T03:06:00.000-04:00

From the Aspie Insiders, a group of intelligent young adults with Asperger’s Syndrome who have a lot on their mind and a penchant for making a difference!

Contributed By: Jay Asbury, Miles Bumgardner, Chris Koewing, Nate Anderson, and Kohl Hoffman

Edited by: Allison Lindborg

To **beep** or not to **beep**… that seems to be the question.

In our very language based world, swearing is a pastime that has taken centuries to evolve into its current state and there seems to be no stopping it as these words are popping up on T-shirts and posters all over our world, slurring the words that our forefathers left behind for us. When we learn of this cacophony of four-letter words as a child, the immediate temptation is generally to give these forbidden expletives a test run… which can result in a multitude of responses. Perhaps you will end up with a bar of soap in your mouth or detention after school, but if all goes according to plan, your greenhorn profanity will earn you the nod of approval from peers competing to stay above water in the dog-eat-dog social world.

Just like everything else in the middle school era, learning the do’s and don’t for appropriately peppering your speech with profanity is awkward and does not come without its fair number of major mistakes. For the person with Asperger’s Syndrome though, trying to make sense of this new rebellious vocabulary in the air can be a confusing, frustrating, and socially damaging experience.

With a diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome, a disorder with its roots entrenched in the autism spectrum, one tends to use language in an extremely literal way, following the rules that were taught and calling out those who deviate along the way for their faux pax, (which is not a good friend-making strategy). By the time that the Aspie gets to middle school, the rules are clear as far as their parents are telling them: swearing is bad. But their peers all seem to think differently and even manage to pull it off their peppered speech without too many consequences. So how does the Aspie deal with this conundrum?

The Aspie Insiders have wieghed in on their experiences growing up with the trials and errors of expletive speech and would like to help the rest of the world understand their view on this taboo topic.

In the Beginning
Ignorance is bliss, and for many in the period before adolescence, not having certain four-lettered words in their vocabulary is a means of staying out of trouble... but it seems that this period of just not noticing the worrisome words around them lasts a bit longer for the Aspie population, (according to our Insiders) than the neuro-typical adolescent.

However, the bliss of not knowing doesn't last forever and choosing the appropriate time and place to place that swear word that you realize is now seen as "cool" amongst your peers is a fumbling experience in which the Aspie may not have had the same level of practice or awareness of it's use. This often results in a misfire with their attempt at something that was meant to be slick, resulting in more that one of the Aspie Insiders having spent time in the dog house with authority and laughed at by their peers for fumbling the delivery of their lingual spew or misunderstanding the words used by another.

As the Insiders mused about their childhood mistakes, one admitted to picking up swearing by age 6, much to the rest of the world's dismay. He tended to repeat every word that his rock and roll father used, totally unaware of the social ramifications and forgetting that his straight-laced grandmother was not the right person to use these words with... followed by learning what soap tasted like. All of the Insiders agreed that figuring out the right time and place for these words was a tough task and is still occasionally challenging as an adult.

Give your maturing child some information to work with. Kids around them are going to start experimenting with their language and sheltering your child from it may not help them in the end. Talk logically, frankly, and concretely about the do's and don'ts. Perhaps make a list of acceptable words and unacceptable words for certain situations and ask that your child asks you what new slang words mean before they try to use it.

Multiple Meanings
One of the hardest things to grasp about swearing is that one word can mean a multitude of things. For instance, depending on their context, (a tough concept for the Aspie to think though quickly and in the moment), many of the "four-letter words" can each denote:

Happiness/Excitement
Fear
Pain
Surprise/Shock
Dislike
Insults

A story was shared with us recently about a young man in his first year of middle school who was told by a classmate to "go f*** himself." You likely read this line and think, WOW! that kid is a bully and needs to be punished. But, not understanding that these words can have multiple meanings, the boy looked back blankly at the bully and said, "What do you mean? I'm not anywhere near you, let alone on top of you." Guess that's one way to stun a bully, but clearly indicates that this young man had only learned one definition for the expletive as he did not know that the "F" word could denote anything other than sexual intercourse.

It can also be very confusing to the Aspie to understand that everytime someone uses a swear word in their presense, it does not neccessarily mean that that person is trying to insult them. In fact, a peer might use a swear word to show that they think that you are cool, which might make little sense to the Aspie!

For instance, examine the examples below showing multiple meanings of the same explitive:

"S***! That's an awesome car you've got"
The speaker is actually showing favor of the car that the other possesses and saying that it is cool... although it's not a very eloquent way of saying it.
"S***! What is WRONG with you?"
The speaker is using the swear word to cut the other person down and is insulting them.
"S***! You scared me!"
The speaker is using the swear word to denote their surprise. They are not mad at the person that scared them, (most likely), just impulsively used the swear word like one might use "OH MY!"

Help the Aspie to understand that just because someone uses a cuss word around them, it does not always mean that the person is trying to be mean. In fact, the one can lose the respect of peers quickly, (especially in a middle/high school setting) by telling on their peers each time they use a swear word. You may need to clearly define the times that they should report the use of this language vs. the times that they will need to let it go and ignore their peers cuss words.

Body Language Confusion

If the multiple meanings of words aren’t enough to get the head spinning for the average Aspie, let's consider the dangers of traveling + body language... as it could spell disaster.

It's generally not too tough to figure out what a gesture means in America. After all, it's rather concrete and visual, but take that same gesture across the globe and you are in for a roller coaster of responses.

In Turkey, if you were to give someone the “OK” symbol that we frequent in the USA, they would feel justified in pumling you, as the “OK” in Turky is not OK… its synonymous with the some sort of homosexual slur. Apparently our symbol for affirmation is actually one the Turks find convenient for displaying dismay.... noted for your next trip to Istanbul.

To make matters worse, the Greeks have a hard time deeming any kind of outward palm gesturing as anything but bad. In fact, any American traffic signalers favorite gesture, the one hand, palm out pointed straight at you so as to bring you to a halt is one that would send any Greek’s blood pressure to record levels. It seems that this natural symbol for Americans is one that the Greeks don't gather the message "stop there" but rather, "eat s***!" Whoa! Who knew it was so bad!

Body language is hard enough for the Aspie to understand, but it would be advised that when traveling, one should spend some quality time researching the local social customs, as they differ greatly from place to place. "All I have to do is wave my hands in a certain way and all of the sudden I am insulting you, totally without my knowledge!"
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How Higher Education Failed Me

2011-05-19T13:51:00.010-04:00

From the Aspie Insiders, a group of intelligent young adults with Asperger’s Syndrome who have a lot on their mind and a penchant for making a difference!

Contributed By: Chris Koewing, Jay Asbury, Jay Mikush, & Kohl Hoffman

Edited By: Allison Lindborg

Each of the contributors to this article has tried out college life and met with more challenge than success, each dropping out of the college before completing a degree. One thus must wonder what the problem was, as each of these bright young men is extremely intelligent.

They are able to look back now and pinpoint some of the challenges that they encountered, but hope that by doing so, it may serve to alert others about the things that they need to fight for, be aware of, and work harder at in a college situation.

Examining each of the points concerning college challenges in the life of someone with Asperger’s Syndrome, it is apparent that there are some big gaps in the system set up to help them. It seems that there should at the least be a way to inform the institution of your challenges, (even if you are not at all intellectually challenged), gain helpful and systematic council on basic life issues, and a mentor scenario set up for new and veteran students to navigate through the tangled mess that is: COLLEGE LIFE.

“I felt like I was dropped off a cliff without a parachute!”
High School is hard enough by itself, but add in a little bit of Asperger’s and it gets a whole lot more interesting. If you are in a special education track, then at least someone will continually check in on you and make sure that you are doing what you are supposed to, turning in assignments, finding a quiet place to take a test, and what not… but college is a whole new animal.

Universities and colleges wait for you to come to them, not the other way around like it was in high school where teachers coddled you and made sure that everything was in its place. It’s hard to find the services that you need at a university, it’s hard to know what service you are in need of, and it’s hard to ask for help when you need it.

There is much less, in fact very little, teacher/professor support in the classroom and you have to approach them or suffer the fate of just another struggling face in the crowd.

Going into this new environment was as disorienting and scary as jumping from a plane without a parachute. There are many things that universities offer to support people with learning differences, they just need to be more obvious and pointed out to the people that need them so that we can succeed, too!

“I had time that I didn’t know what to do with.”
College life is the ultimate in changes from high school. There are much fewer restrictions and a lot of leniency in the way that you manage your time.

From scheduling classes in a logical way to knowing when it’s time to get up and leave the computer lab, where you can get lost in fascinating things, to go to your most dreaded class, Aspie’s may need some assistance in knowing when and where they need to be on campus.

Setting alarms on your phone, making weekly and daily schedules, and having people to check in with throughout the day would have been really helpful… but someone will need to be an outside support for this to be a success.

“I fall asleep or just don’t go to classes that are boring and pointless... It’s easy to fail those classes.”
Often, first year classes are not of pertinence to a particular major, but general education classes required for all students… and these classes always seem to be in the wee morning hours for some reason.

Between not getting enough sleep and trying to motivate yourself to get to a class that you hate, it’s easier to give up on the class than to face the boredom.

Explaining the rationale of a hated class more concretely, other than just, “you just have to take it,” might be helpful, as well as connecting with the instructor of that class. If possible, working around times of day when the student is least alert would also be favorable, but not always an option. In this case, anyone is not motivated to go to a particular class is going to need an outside force to help motivate and create accountability.

“Grading is not universally consistent and therefore confusing.”
In both high school and college settings, each teacher can often set their own grading system up, which can be very confusing for someone expecting that everyone is scored on the same criteria, every time.

If schools can make an attempt to standardize the grading systems in each class so that there is less variability from teacher to teacher, it would help not only the Aspie learner, but all students as they need to spend more time learning and less time trying to sort through each teachers requests.

“It is easy to be a nuisance and not know it until it is too late.”

Stimming is a real behavior that not many people understand but that many people engage in each day. The word stimming can be defined as any kind of repetitive body moving that is designed to stimulate the senses. Everyone has tapped their foot or pen to pass the time, chewed a stick of gum in hopes of distracting yourself with chewing… but the Aspie may not understand that these behaviors that they engage in to keep their body busy while their brain tries to concentrate, might actually be really annoying to other people.

Helping Aspies brainstorm alternative ways to stimm or “fidget” can be very helpful in succeeding academically in the classroom and not turning into the class nuisance. The key is for the activity to be as silent as possible and distract no one, (including the person fidgeting as it is a way to STAY engaged, not disengaged their brain from the class focus).

“Everyone seems to already have a social clique.”

Humans naturally subdivide into peer groups with people that they identify with, but it can be hard for the Aspie to see how they might be able to fit in as well… let alone approach one of these groups in hopes of friendship. Many schools have made efforts to introduce new students to the social life on campus with special events, but it may take more than that for the Aspie student to engage socially.

It would be helpful if each Aspie at the school had a mentor to help introduce them to the social adventure that campus life can offer and personally engage them in activities that would be of benefit to them. With the bombardment of information that college offers, it can be really hard to know where to go when, so a buddy system in which the mentor can help to guide the Aspie student could be of infinite value to them.

Remember that most Aspies desire to be social and are very aware that they might not be as socially successful as their peers, so it is necessary for a holistic college experience to include this type of learning.

“It’s really hard to say no to peers.”
Many people have a hard time disappointing other people, but for the Aspie student at college, it may be an especially difficult challenge. It can be very challenging to know who to trust when and how much, in addition to not wanting to lose a friend by saying no to something that you disagree with.

More support programs need to be in place to help the Aspie learner to meet others that they can identify with and make friends with in a supported environment that will lead to real learning that they can transfer to less structured scenarios.

“It can be hard to control emotions when really upset.”
Emotional control is key to social success, but through the eyes of an Aspie, when something happens to raise the hairs on the back of their neck, fight or flight seem like the two best options. However, our society generally demands that we stifle these intense emotions and instead of fight or flight, we must talk and communicate, (which is generally a tough concept for an Aspie).

Having a support system in place when emotions run high is essential for the Aspie student and helping them to inform their professors of their challenge, (if they choose to do so), is essential to success, in addition to finding therapeutic means to aid the student in managing their emotions near their campus.

“There is little academic support from peers because everyone has their own schedule and is much more interested in the parties than their homework.”

College is a lot like a playground for a lot of students, but for a student who is there to learn and in need of peer support to do so, it can be a struggle to succeed. All students have their own varied course schedule, unlike high school where all of your friends generally took similar classes. With roommates out partying and your friends not necessarily able to help you with understanding your courses, it can be a challenge to stay focused and organized.

“When I run into adversity, I tend to try to skip over it, rather than fix it.”

None of us like when things go wrong, and many take the path of least resistance as often as possible, but it can be a huge struggle for someone that does not deal well with adversity and change to confront a problem. Often problem solving requires investigating multiple sources, pulling together a multitude of opinions, changing your routine, planning multiple, strategic steps, and using the best of your executive functioning skills, which is a huge challenge for the Aspie student.

Rather than face the problem, an Aspie student may simply give up and never tell anyone about it, leading to failure in school. It is thus essential for the institution to have a stable support with whom the student can confide in at the college level. The parents of the Aspie learner generally acted as that natural support at the high school level, but they are are less welcome in the college setting.