[GenevaRene]

In the past few days, it's been suggested by a few highly-trusted people that my son may be autistic. From what I've read online, I'm inclined to think there could be something to this. I'm not sure what I should do with such information. The first obvious issue is that my entire experience with autism is, my mother and I saw Rainman when I was a kid, and in the past week several people have said to me, "You know, I wonder if J is maybe borderline autistic." So, please excuse me if I muck up the terminology or ask questions that have already been answered, or whatever. This is all new to me, and I'm having an extremely hard time making sense of the information available online, and correlating it to our situation.

What I've figured out so far is, J has all the symptoms of Asperger's Syndrome as listed by WebMD, and he also has a few of the symptoms of autism, again listed by WebMD. But, I'm not sure how much of an authority that website really is, and I'm afraid to trust it because it describes him so well, and all of the symptoms seem to refer to young children. We're not talking about a young child here. We met J at 13, and he's 18 now. I can ask his birthfamily about early childhood symptoms, but frankly I'd like to be more confident of this before I go scaring anybody else with it. I suspect they noticed the symptoms, as they did seek some treatment for several of them, but that's as far as it ever went. Can anyone point me to some resources that talk about symptoms in teens or adults? Does anyone have experience with a child diagnosed as a teenager? I'm especially seeking free resources, because we had to replace our car unexpectedly last week, and while all interesting books will be eagerly thrown on my Amazon wishlist, they will stay there for a while before I can acquire them.

Also, it seems our doctor will want to know a lot about early childhood. Is there any list of questions online somewhere that I can expect him to ask, that I could get the birthfamily to answer ahead of time? Should I even contact our doctor, or some kind of specialist? What am I supposed to do with this concern, anyway? How long should I expect it to take, to get from suspicion to diagnosis, or to where we rule it out?

And... if that wasn't enough questions, I had a long talk with J's best friend tonight, and the friend told me that he's afraid of my son being diagnosed with such a thing, because he has a problem with viewing autistic people as intelligent, valuable human beings. Now, he asked for help in getting past that prejudice, and I have a lot of respect for him for having the nerve to be honest and ask for help. I have a bit of an urge to be disgusted with him for saying it, yeah, but mostly respect, and a desire to help him grow past that. Does anyone know of any resources I can pass on to him that will help him understand, in plain English, what autism and asperger's are, and what they are not?

Thanks for any help anyone can provide.

[csw]

You could take him to be evaluated by a pediatric neurologist, ped. psychiatrist or a developmental pediatrician..

[niandca]

www.dogpile.com Type in autism, teen autism, Aspberger's, autism spectrum disorder or anything else you can think of & plenty of site suggestions will pop up. I remember even seeing a whole web page that written by a teenager describing how incredibly difficult he finds social issues, like dating. Sorry I don't remember exactly the site address. Keep reading, keep searching & head for the library, too. Good Luck!

[maryjanek]

Geneva Rene --

I just saw your post even though it's been up a while. For the teenage friend of your possibly autistic son, Temple Grandin's autobiography, "Thinking in Pictures," might be very enlightening. She's autistic and has made a satisfying life for herself in a career she's uniquely suited to. Just the fact that she's capable of writing a very readable autobiography says a lot about the obstacles she's overcome. And who can explain what it feels like to be autistic better than someone who is?

There's also a best-selling novel out now called "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time." It's about an autistic boy and was written by someone who works with autistic children. Besides being an entertaining story, it gives a lot of insight into the thinking and perceptions of an autistic child.

Asperger's is a variant of autism that I don't know much about.

Hope this helps, if you haven't found good info already.

Mary Jane

[sspete]

Hi Geneva.....

As a mother to an autistic spectrum daughter I can certainly understand your need to find all the info you can. Autism is so misunderstood in the medical community, and every where else for that matter. My daughter is 11 now, and we have been struggling with trying to find medical help for years!!! The only real help I ever received was from a psychiatrist.

It is a complicated road to travel as truly NO one has the answers. We went to every doctor you can imagine only to come up empty handed with solutions. Her behavior was really hard to handle, and have seemed to have the most help from a behavior specialist in the field. Thank goodness we lived in a big city where it was a little more understood, but still NO one really knows what to do.

I wish you the best of luck!!!! Let me know if I can be of help to you!!!

Staci

[kathyb123]

If you would e-mail me and tell me where you live, I'll tell you where to go for help. I am in the initial steps of adopting but have 21 years of experience with people with autism.

Good luck!