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Confusion in Asperger's Syndrome

© Barbara Fowler

For years I have wondered why my 12 year old son with Asperger's Syndrome goes ballistic over the silliest things and why he is unable to explain what happens to make him so angry. From my months of research into Asperger's Syndrome, I now understand that there are many causes such as resistance to change, lack of theory of mind, rigid thinking and an overly developed sense of fairness.

An incidence that occurred in our home last week illustrated one more reason why my son has meltdowns when he interacts with other children. He has great difficulty when another child "does one thing, and says another".

My son is an extremely logical, literal thinker and when he is confronted with this type of situation, he doesn't have the ability to second guess the other child's motives, appreciate that the other child may have changed his mind, or put himself in the other child's shoes. He expects other children to respond in a consistent manner and this trips him up many a time.

I had purchased the latest pokemon games for both my sons, which they religiously played for an entire week in every spare moment. (It was wonderfully peaceful at my home!) When my older son asked his younger brother why he suddenly stopped playing his game, the younger one said "I don't really like it." This was, of course, not consistant with his actions given that he had lived and breathed pokemon for a whole week. My older child got so confused, frustrated and angry that he went ballistic and attacked his sibling.

Two hours later we had the older son calmed down, but trying to explain his behaviour to the younger child (he is 10) was equally challenging. Role playing helped in this situation and agreeing that the younger child's actions did not match his words went a long way to alleviate my son's confusion. Giving my son a reason for his sibling's behaviour also helped calm him down. Sometimes I find that I have to explain situations to my son in great detail before he understands it and this was one of those times.

It is my understanding that "Social Stories" helps children with Asperger's Syndrome develop the skill of putting themselves in other people's shoes. This is something that we will have to work on with our son and there is an excellent article about that subject here: http://rsaffran.tripod.com/social.html

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