- more siblings - did this help?
27 Jul 2010 Today I had a new experience and it was quite chastening. A mum whose younger son is diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome asked if I would talk to him and his slightly older brother about the condition. Older brother is quite unkind and irritated by Tom whom he calls Weird and Geek etc. No problem.
George is 11, Tom is 9. Tom came in with a sort of fixed smile on his face. The boys are both good-looking and much the same height, both were wearing holiday tshirts. Not surprisingly, initially George took the lead, answering for his brother and asking pertinent questions. I showed them a power point display describing the condition and glossed over long words and irrelevancies. Increasingly Tom got bolder. He agreed that he liked things very organised, all his toys are tidily arranged under his bed and he finds it hard to sleep if they are not a]there and b] tidy. He dislikes loud noises, and likes shiny things. He is good at eating and going to the toilet but likes to smell his food first.
We talked about taking things literally and I gave the example of a boy being told that in order to have a friend to play he would need to ‘pull his socks up’. Tom had no idea what I meant, and George could only give an approximation. Similarly, George was not entirely sure about ‘raining cats and dogs’ which goes to show that we don’t use phrases like this as often as we used to! So we talked about the book a father has put together with all these phrases in it and conversation moved on. But later, George was describing how Tom could annoy people and he said ‘He really gets under their skin’, and Tom suddenly looked with real worry at the skin on his arm.... then he laughed as he was reassured and said ‘Is that one of those phrases?’
Tom is being bullied at school, he gets called all sorts of names and is sometimes hit too. His brother has no idea how little Tom is able to understand from ordinary conversation and possibly aggravates the situation in that he has developed an interaction with him where Tom doesn’t understand and so responds strangely. George gets cross and calls him names or hits him, Tom hits him back. But Tom has the attention of his big brother and so, maybe, deliberately annoys him, and George calls him names or hits him. George has developed a picture of a highly annoying little brother who does not even try to be sensible. And Tom has a picture of a relationship in which his brother is always against him. We hoped that by helping George to understand how Tom heard and saw the world, we would give him some sympathy for his little brother. And that by helping Tom to see what Aspergers meant we would give him some confidence in trying to do things differently.
But George didn’t really understand what is a highly complex disorder. And Tom found it hard to concentrate on much of what I was saying – perhaps I didn’t explain it clearly. I shall phone Mum tomorrow to find out how she thinks it went, but I wish I had done better.
George is 11, Tom is 9. Tom came in with a sort of fixed smile on his face. The boys are both good-looking and much the same height, both were wearing holiday tshirts. Not surprisingly, initially George took the lead, answering for his brother and asking pertinent questions. I showed them a power point display describing the condition and glossed over long words and irrelevancies. Increasingly Tom got bolder. He agreed that he liked things very organised, all his toys are tidily arranged under his bed and he finds it hard to sleep if they are not a]there and b] tidy. He dislikes loud noises, and likes shiny things. He is good at eating and going to the toilet but likes to smell his food first.
We talked about taking things literally and I gave the example of a boy being told that in order to have a friend to play he would need to ‘pull his socks up’. Tom had no idea what I meant, and George could only give an approximation. Similarly, George was not entirely sure about ‘raining cats and dogs’ which goes to show that we don’t use phrases like this as often as we used to! So we talked about the book a father has put together with all these phrases in it and conversation moved on. But later, George was describing how Tom could annoy people and he said ‘He really gets under their skin’, and Tom suddenly looked with real worry at the skin on his arm.... then he laughed as he was reassured and said ‘Is that one of those phrases?’
Tom is being bullied at school, he gets called all sorts of names and is sometimes hit too. His brother has no idea how little Tom is able to understand from ordinary conversation and possibly aggravates the situation in that he has developed an interaction with him where Tom doesn’t understand and so responds strangely. George gets cross and calls him names or hits him, Tom hits him back. But Tom has the attention of his big brother and so, maybe, deliberately annoys him, and George calls him names or hits him. George has developed a picture of a highly annoying little brother who does not even try to be sensible. And Tom has a picture of a relationship in which his brother is always against him. We hoped that by helping George to understand how Tom heard and saw the world, we would give him some sympathy for his little brother. And that by helping Tom to see what Aspergers meant we would give him some confidence in trying to do things differently.
But George didn’t really understand what is a highly complex disorder. And Tom found it hard to concentrate on much of what I was saying – perhaps I didn’t explain it clearly. I shall phone Mum tomorrow to find out how she thinks it went, but I wish I had done better.