Sunday 31 July 2011

Inside the mind of an Aspergers child

Today N, me and the doggies drove down to Grandma's in the Forest. Grandma loves seeing the dogs and always has lots of treats for them.

Grandma has lots of treats for N too, and one them was a packet of Maltesers. N opened them up and said it reminded her of something that happened in the past.

Grandma or Great Grandma (she can't remember which) bought her a small packet of Maltesers and told her not to eat them all at once. N opened the packet and ate them (after all it was only a small packet). Grandma or Great Grandma then told her off for eating them all at once.

N asked me today "How could anyone eat them all at once?"

I explained that whoever had given her the sweets had not meant 'don't put them all in your mouth together' as she had assumed but don't eat them all in one sitting - perhaps save some for later.

Since N has been diagnosed, I have been doing a lot of reading, trying to understand what has been 'going on in her head' over the last 9 years. There is so much that we just take for granted, we know what people mean. N did not really know what was meant by 'don't eat them all at once' and as far as she was concerned she had not done anything wrong.

I wonder what would have happened if N had told me that story a few months ago, before we really knew anything about Asperger Syndrome. What would have been my reply?

2 comments:

  1. Hi, Thanks for posting - very insightful in a simple way. We have been home schooling our 4 children for 2 years now largely due to my son's (now 9) anxiety with school. We suspect he has Aspergers and we are reading and informing ourselves and trying to work out what we can do next to help our son. Thanks again for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi, thanks for your message. I find it mind boggling (in a good way) trying to understand the way in which my daughter interprets and understands things, I do feel incredibly guilty about the last nearly-10 years, all of the frustration and confusion she has felt and none of us realising what was wrong. Since we started looking into Aspergers, it felt like a lightbulb moment. Everything started to fall into place. We bought a little book for children about Aspergers, and she said it really helped her understand why she did certain things. She felt a feeling of relief, as there was an explanation of why she was 'different'.

    ReplyDelete