Dan has mild Aspberger’s autism. He always was an enigma and such a quiet baby. His first words were ‘car’; I guess these beasts had a marked impression on him. Even as a baby, he had signs of obsessional behaviour. They told me he was ‘a textbook baby’ in the hospital as he was dying of dehydration. He refused to drink. It was as if he didn’t know how to drink. Fortunately, he did learn that this basic task. He is now an adolescent. He has somehow got through. However, he is still a bad drinker.

I remember him spinning and making noises as a pre-schooler. He was obsessed at dressing up - a policeman, Darth Vader, a fireman. He was always a loner but because his behaviour was always chaotic and disorganised, he dominated all his teacher’s attention. This happened right through his early school life. He learned that he could control his environment, particularly women, through manipulative behaviours in order to get one to one attention.

Dan had a difficult relationship with his father.  Paul could not cope with his difficulties.  I think he is undiagnosed Asperger’s.  It is difficult to know how to support a child with a condition that you have yourself.  It has taken my husband a very long time to understand himself.  Daniel in his diagnosis has helped Paul to understand his own issues.

It wasn’t until I started studying Psychology with the Open University I found the answer.   Daniel was showing classic Asperger’s signs under the umbrella of 'Autistic Spectrum Disorder'.  To confuse the issue further, Dan had re-occur ant glue ear.  As a contributory factor, this had an affect on his development  I fought for him to have surgery for grommets on three occasions during his primary school years.  This seemed to help.

It felt that the school he attended were doing their utmost to label us as dysfunctional.  They even brought in a behaviourist to develop programmes for him.  They didn’t understand his dreamy, irritating behaviour.  It felt like they were blaming us, the parents. I took action to help my son.  I invited someone from the deaf society, a speech and language therapist and a clinical psychologist to help.  They provided education to the school and put individualised plans in place for Daniel.

It was 2004 when Dan finally was diagnosed.  The battle with the system and the hard work that I put in finally paid off.  However, it wasn’t easy to contend Dan’s daily obsessions.  People with Asperger’s lack social skills and have difficulties in understanding what other’s really mean.  Communications, such as body language, verbal tones and semantics are difficult for these people to read and they find it difficult to put across what they mean.  Things like sequencing and spacial awareness can be hard for these children. 

Our situation was complicated further because my youngest son is an insulin dependant diabetic at the age of 18 months – but that’s another story. Through my OU courses, however, I learned techniques to help Daniel and I got that magic diagnosis that he needed. This meant he could get additional funding from school and have extra help. I don’t like ‘labels’, but I certainly think that this has helped him to understand himself and the world around him.

Every day is a battle to get him motivated now he has reached adolescence. Dan has to be kept to task as he finds it difficult to sequence, remember and direct himself. We have lots of school reviews, assessments and letters. Daniel gets into trouble a lot. It can be exhausting and frustrating for parents, but Dan just thinks... 'Don't worry, it will be alright'.

The other day, whilst escorting my youngest son to the bus stop, I managed to get him to eat his fromage frais for breakfast prior to leaving.  As you have to be very black and white when talking to autistic people, I told him to go upstairs and get ready for school.  He needed to be ready to leave by 8.10 am.  When I arrived home at 8.15, I went upstairs.  There he was, lying on his bed with a broken coat hanger.  He was using this as a gun, shooting in mid-air.  Great imagination, granted, but he wasn’t focusing to the task in hand.  I said 'Dan, you need to be ready and gone for school, I told you this before I left'.  As a parent, one goes through 'last straw' days.  Today was one of them.  When one has this day in and day out, there are times when… well there are times!  That day, I broke down and cried.  He said 'Don't worry mum, it will be alright!’  'No Dan, it's not alright.' I replied, weeping.  He went downstairs and brought up a cat that has adopted us.  He gave her to me.  'Ginger will make you feel better.' He said.  He just didn't 'get it'.  Ginger was a sweet gesture, but he just didn't get it!  That’s Asperger’s!

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