With a new year comes new challenges.
Many of you know (but more of you don't know) that our middle son, Damien, was diagnosed several years ago with Asperber's Syndrome. This, in and of itself, can be a challenge at times. He thinks in a different way that most of us and searches for an explaination to Everything. Knowing this about him will either explain a lot or teach you something new about our family.
People with Asperger's normally have tics (also known as stimming). They can be simple, using only one muscle group, or they can be complex, using more than one muscle group. Recently, Damien's tics have gotten much worse. Of course, this means I dive head first into research and of course with research you can and will find 1,000 different answers/examples/people. In my research I found out that Tourettes can run on the same spectrum as Asperger's and infact, about 50% of the people diagnosed with Aspergers are also diagnosed with Tourettes. Now Tourettes is much much more than the 5% of people we all hear about with the "screaming of random curse words" vocal tic. Tourettes can be any repetitive movement and infact most people have some form of a tic, it is just not bad enough to be classified as Tourettes. Examples would be playing with your hair or chewing on your lip while bored or thinking. Shaking your leg or foot without thinking about it is another good example. It is the brains way of focusing on one specific thought or task. People will sometimes listen to music while doing homework or paper work because it helps them focus. This is a hearing tic. All very common stuff. It is only when these actions become an extreme/ abnormal/ severe that is is falling into the Aspergers Stimming realm or Tourettes. Figuring out the difference between the diagnoses is the hard part. Even professionals have a hard time telling the difference sometimes because there is no specific list or guideline for either that doesn't fall in the gray zone.
Every website gives different guidelines as to tics vs stimming. The one thing I do now know as fact is that whether it is stimming or tics, the need to make the movement is known to the individual before they do the action. Let me explain that one a little more. You can tell a sneeze is coming before you actually sneeze right? Tics/stimming is kind of the same thing. The individual has a feeling or a need to make certain actions before actual doing it. Knowing this is important because this means it is controlled to a degree. Damiens tics/stims in public or at school are only noticable if you are looking for them. He will usually rub his hair in one quick, short movement but he does this only 2 times per minute so it goes unnoticed. He will also rub down the side of his face or cheek like it is starting to itch. He will reposition his feet alot and somethimes he will make a very quiet grunting sound. Unless you are sitting right next to him, you will not hear it. At home is a whole different story. He is safe and comforable in his own environment. He will have facial contortions, chest slapping, hand and arm stiffening, and in some cases will jump, stomp, or something else that will involve a full body movement. The incident recently (because I am not sure what else to call it) was a full on tic meltdown with full body movement and complex tics in public. Other than in a dark movie theather during the movie, this was a first. It was boardering on totally uncontrolled. It Had been a stressfull week and day. It was the week my grandmother passed away and it was the first day of school. To top it off, we were at one of Joshua's football games and our team was winning so the excitement was in the air.
What brings these on? Anything exciting or anything causing anxiety. A video on youtube that is funny, an exciting part in a movie, a close encounter in a video game, parts of his homework that really makes him think. Understanding this and having the other siblings understand this has been a goal for many years. His actions are second nature to the rest of the family and we normal pay him no attention during these times. In fact he doesn't want us to pay any attention to him. If he do look up at him he will stop and ask "What?" which we answer "Nothing". He knows that these actions are out of the norm for most people. We are working on getting him to understand that these are ok and not anything to be embarressed by. I'm not sure how well it will work, but we will see.
So why am I telling all of you all of this? I guess I am putting it out there for a few reasons. 1. If you see Damien doing any of these things you will know a little back ground into what he is doing and why and will hopefully help him feel comfortable in doing so. 2. This is a public blog and getting feed back from anyone else who has done more research than I have would be great. 3. Any thoughts, feeling, or questions are welcome. If you can think of any questions I haven't, feel free to share.
The Blog is entitled Eibhleann's World (Eibhleann is my Celtic name) for a reason. Our world is a very interesting place to be. We are always busy and never lacking in the excitement catagory.
