Asperger Syndrome (AS) is sometimes called 'mild autism' but there is nothing mild about being a teenager who finds it nigh on impossible to get things right with his peergroup. People with AS are at their most vulnerable at a time when the people they go to school with are at their least sensitive. In the social jungle of secondary school teenagers with AS are the Wildebeest. Unsurprisingly there is a high incidence of depression amongst adolescents with AS. My son was on the edge of a meltdown when I took him out of the mainstream and home-educated him.
People with AS have huge potential but they need a low-stress high self-esteem environment for their education. Either we personalise their experience in the mainstream via modifications to their curriculum and learning environment or we have to consider alternative provision. No set of grades is worth the loss of mental health through chronic stress. And there are a whole swathe of life skills that we need to teach explicitly to people with AS.
Every person with AS is unique. There is only the broadest of templates to work with.
I became an Asperger Syndrome tutor to help my son.
I am now keen to help other parents and teachers to help children to find that personalised route through to realising their unique potential.
The mindset of the tutor has to be solution-focused - a mindset which is focused on nurturing potential not merely fixating on delays/deficits.
Success breeds success.
Talking of life with his autistic son, Nobel prize winner Kenzaburo Oe reflected,
"I feel human beings can heal themselves, the will to be healed, and the power of recovery are very strong in us. That's the most important thing I've learnt in my life with my son."
The most important resources in the battle for a decent quality of life is our children's innate desire to help themselves and their strengths/passions. They have an agenda and we do best when we can ally our agenda to their agenda. Their 'passions' can be a source of analogies, success, confidence, esteem, and vocations.
So as soon as they are able we need to start collaborating with our child to mitigate the impact of their atypical neurology on their lives. Observing their strategies and strengths and latching onto these and nurturing them - and trying to get others to do likewise.
Our job as parents and tutors is to help them embark on a journey during which time we strive to make ourselves redundant and they are enabled to become personal navigators - with the knowledge and skills not only to cope but to take on stewardship of their life and their AS.
