The Gifted Child with Asperger's

So, our #1 was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome a couple years ago. For those of you who are not sure what it is, just say it's like smartness, but with quirks. Actually, the reason we went to have him all checked out in the first place was by direction of his teacher and the school.

#1 was so so smart, but when he went to talk or write it was just terrible. He knew all the answers, but he couldn't get them out. He couldn't write fast or clearly at all, and when he spoke it came out in repeated phrases almost like a stutter, but in sentence chunks not just syllables. His motor skills were awkward, he walked on his toes, tripped alot, seemed oblivious to our talking to him sometimes.....

This was a long drawn out process to figure things out, but in the end we discovered that #1 might be genius as they test, but he can't process the information fast enough. It's like you can ask him a question and he'll raise his hand to answer, but when you call on him it takes his brain an extra minute to process it to make it come out in words. Or, if you want him to write the answer it takes extra time to process to come out by handwriting and even then it is almost unreadable.

SO---what does this mean? It means you've got a super smart boy who can't express himself and may appear stubborn, lazy, or even dumb at times.

We met with his new teacher early this year and gave her this great guideline we found on the web for teachers at
http://www.udel.edu/bkirby/asperger/teachers_guide.html

Anyway, all is great to have a smart kid, but how will he live up to his full potential when he can't write fast enough or neat enough, or he can't respond quickly enough, or keep up in class? It's not because he's not smart. It's this whole processing delay and a lot of other things (many social misunderstandings, not able to cue in on things, etc)....but what do you do? What can you do?

Everyday is a new battle to see what will work or not for him. It's just so tough to see how smart your kid is, but wonder if the world will ever be able to see it too.

For more insight on our struggles with Asperger's Syndrome, we've created another blog at www.ourlifewithaspergers.blogspot.com