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Inability to Cope in Asperger's Syndrome

© Barbara Fowler

Many children and adults with Asperger's Syndrome seem to lack the ability to cope with the ups and downs of life, becoming frustrated with difficult situations. My first inkling that my son had Asperger's Syndrome came when he was only two years old because he was unable to cope with change of any kind. I have tried many things over the years to help him develop his coping skills without much success.

When he was worried about or reluctant to go somewhere, I would explain what I thought would happen when we arrived at the destination and give him suggestions about the activities we would do there. Invariably, situations occurred that I hadn't thought of and he became very upset, refusing to go anywhere unless I could predict EXACTLY what would happen.

On his first day at middle school this year, I thought I had prepared him completely. The friday before school started, he had a tour of the school, met his teacher, was shown his locker, given a lock and practiced the combination successfully. Unfortunately, no one had thought to tell him that in order to open the locker, you have to pull the lock off the loop and open the door. When he couldn't figure this out, he burst into frustrated tears much to the consternation of his friends and teacher.

The dictionary defines coping as: "grapple successfully with". When my son is confronted with something to grapple with he often hasn't a clue how to solve the problem. On a follow up visit with the diagnosing pediatrician, I brought up the fact that coping skills would help my son immensely. The pediatrian was very interested in this idea, having pondered why some children seem to be born with coping skills and other children have great difficulty acquiring them. His advice was to deal with the depression my son suffers from due to Asperger's Syndrome, and to have our son seen by a behavioural psychologist who could make suggestions and recommendations.

Having put my son on a wait list for the psychologist, we decided to tackle the depression and put him on an anti-depressant. For the first two weeks he was a very happy child, almost giddy. The following four weeks were so terrible that we stopped the anti-depressant because he became suicidal. During that period problems at school had escalated and his coping ability was non-existent. His year at school ended and his mood improved immensely during the summer holiday, without the use of drugs. The inability to cope appears to stem from the stress that he feels while attending school, going to unfamiliar places and being in social situations that he has no control over.

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