Actually she does have a BFF now, thank goodness

My child was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome in 5th grade, which answered so many questions we were relieved until we read about how much harder her life was about to become. My dear one doesn't want to be the poster child for Asperger's so to start this blog I won't use real names.

Today she is a young adult, happy with good grades AND a BFF - who is actually a boyfriend of several years now I'm so happy to say. Girls with Asperger's are relatively rare since about 90% are boys (if I find a stat I'll update this).

Since she was in pre-school, kindergarten and elementary school before Asperger's became the new topic on Oprah!, we went through a lot of testing and mis-diagnoses along the way in pre-K. She was labeled "emotionally disturbed" (which made me think of Cloris Leachman in High Anxiety), "non-compliant" (which meant she wasn't paying attention to the professor conducting the test and he was offended), and even "a biter" (that was reactive - she's rarely on the offense, but don't invade her space when she's focused!)

Every season we would select a pre-school, meet the teachers, give background on her likes and dislikes, and after a few days we would get "the call." Come and get her, we can't handle her. What's the problem? "She refuses to braid" was my personal favorite. "You mean she can't braid - I told you she has fine motor issues, she can't tie her shoes, remember? Give her crayons and she'll draw all day and all night." Nope, today they were making lanyards in summer art camp, so come and get her right now, working mom.

When we taught her Sunday School class, we saw firsthand that she wouldn't sit in the circle, but she absorbed more than any other child in the room. At the end of the lesson even though she'd been playing with small figures (she always carried some sort of toy with her, I think to calm herself) facing the window, she knew every answer at the end of the lesson and the other kids didn't. "Duh - it was DAVID." she said in exasperation with her peers.

We kept her in kindergarten for two years to help her social skills catch up with her advanced vocabulary. The faculty made allowances for her but I think considered her somewhat of an unruly banshee until the Second Grade national tests. Her scores came back with a row of black bars across the chart to the 97, 98 and 99 percentiles. The test gained her respect, probably helped the school averages rise, and confirmed what my dear friend, a retired art professor in her 70s had said for years: "There's nothing wrong with that child, she's just BRILLIANT!"

Even though we had ups and downs, in retrospect elementary school was better equipped than middle and high school because they had a nice quiet special ed place to go when she sensed she was about to "explode" which was the code word to take her work down the hall to finish in a quiet place with bean bags. She was easily overwhelmed by a whole classroom or hallway full of loud children and banging locker doors. She seemed to have super-sensitive hearing, would sometimes cover her ears in movies, and ran out of the theatre screaming when something roared or the mean witch yelled which was too LOUD for her.

Today as a young adult she would still prefer to spend a whole weekend in peace and quiet if we didn't make her do laundry and interact with other humans in the house. But she spends her time online and drawing - today an art student - so pay attention to what your child's interests are because they indicate possible career paths.