Is It Asperger's, or is it Boys Being Boys?

I’ve been posting a bit about the lively kids with Asperger's Syndrome that I'm working with this summer. One of the challenges in our group is that there are two kids bent on aggravating the counselors and discovering our limits – and theirs. Cursing, repeatedly introducing inappropriate topics, and wrestling and play-fighting ad infinitum.

There are numerous interesting questions here. First is the issue of whether and how their disorder influences their misbehavior.

Sometimes, it seems clear that they’re just being teenage boys. I’ve read some great literature on the cutting edge of boys’ psychology, and seen some great documentaries. (I highly recommend Michael Thompson’s lively film Raising Cain as a basic primer on the subject.) To sum up only one sub-theme in a crude way, we need to let boys be boys much more than we are (within reason and in thoughtfully considered ways). They are being squashed by the school systems, standardized testing, and increasing gender discrimination. Generally, I agree.

In this light, our boys’ behavior needs to be allowed to the limits of the counselor’s abilities to tolerate it (and as long as everyone is safe and not unduly offended). Our clinical director has suggested this very approach, and she knows these boys from previous years. She feels that if we let them range a bit, they’ll settle down and start focusing on their own. She’s seen it happen with them before. We tried this approach today, and, though it’s too early to tell, there were promising differences.

Then we get to the Asperger’s angle. Features of the disorder include getting stuck talking about one topic over and over (perseverating), inappropriate comments that “typical” people sometimes find shocking, and an inability to conceive of other people’s points of view. My impression is that these problems aren’t at the heart of the misbehavior. At least one of these boys is extremely smart and pretty high-functioning. I think he might even be using the Asperger’s profile as an excuse to repeat behaviors that he knows will annoy people.

However, the clinical director made a good point yesterday. The boys might just be trying to connect with this behavior. This relates to a deeper deficit in Asperger’s people: The inability to make social contact in the ways you and I take for granted. Now we might be getting somewhere.

It’s very possible that the boys are using this behavior in a sort of self-soothing capacity. Aspies usually find everyday human interaction impossibly confusing. But ticking off an adult is a fairly short, predictable process, which they internalize every time we say to them “Stop that!” (It also has the secondary gain of making the kid look cool in others’ eyes.) In other words, the inner equation might read, “I feel edgy -->I can’t take the edge off by talking to someone in a typical way (because I’m an Aspie)-->I curse/hit my friend/get scatological--> authority figure reacts negatively -->this predictable response from my action makes me feel more secure because I am more in control of my environment.” The content of our response might be negative, but that barely registers.

Now, it’s possible many non-Asperger’s kids have the same motivation for their misbehavior. But Aspies have a lot of extra need to control their environment. Through their eyes, it is always, always going haywire on them.

Just some thoughts on Day Three. I'm sure they'll change with seasoning.

Asperger's Teens are Also Just Teens

As many of you know, I'm in the process of earning a masters degree in counseling psychology. Along these lines, my new job involves teaching social skills to young people with Asperger’s Syndrome, via theater work. Before I started, I knew a little bit about the disorder itself, and the people who deal with it. I learned a lot more during training week (and all the reading that led up to it). But nothing can prepare one for the infinite variability of real people.

My students are all teenagers, from 15 to 18. I’ve lived with them only five hours a day for a mere two days (and a bunch of talking and writing about them before and after each day, as part of the job). What has struck me more than anything is the same thing that stood out when I started my internship at a college counseling center this past school year: People are people. With disorders, without disorders, these kids are basically typical teens. They are warm, smart, funny and talented. And they are exasperating, underachieving and worrisome. Sometimes all in the same kid. Sometimes all at once.

It’s been very poignant to watch them quickly divvy up into cliques. Each kid is falling into patterned teenage behavior that serves the purpose of identifying them to the larger crew: “I’m a cool kid. You can’t touch me.” Or, “I’m hilarious and over-the-top; I’ll do anything goofy to get your attention.” Or, “I’m mature. I don’t notice the offensive things you do, so don't expect me to join in.”

The particularly difficult thing is to watch the “cool” kids. First of all, they are, of course, anything but. Moreover, though, every once in a while, a little fissure appears in their veneer, and what peeks through is an eager little kid (much littler than the age they are trying to act) who just wants to play. One of our projects in our brief time with them (the summer session lasts only six weeks) will be to see if we can help those young people to let out their inner kid, before society gets them to squash it for good.

That’s a pretty good description of how I want to approach them. I’ve already slipped into a more parental, finger-shaking mode, and I know very well that will just put us on opposite sides of a six-week war, with no winners. We don’t want to represent “society” to them. We want to help them at least take another step in learning who they are, and bringing that wealth to each interaction out in the world.

More thoughts on this anon.

Sentiment Versus Art

I do apologize, noble readers, for the lags in air time on Thinkulous lately. I've been swamped in training week and the first week of a new job. It's been very interesting and extremely tiring. Add wedding planning to the mix (and a couple of other logistical flare-ups in our lives), and you have the infrequent posting habits of late.

I did finish Gilead (previous posts here) and was richly rewarded for my efforts. I debated with myself long and hard whether this book was sentimental -- a damning term in my family's cultural lexicon. I've decided it's not. That term, in my mind, refers to a work that evokes emotion in order to make the reader (viewer, listener, etc.) feel s/he has witnessed something powerful. Usually, the emotion is pleasant, but it doesn't have to be. Sentiment, in this sense, carries connotations of crassness, lack of subtlety. Hallmark movies. Etcetera.

Gilead did indeed invoke a lot of emotion at a few key points (though far more often, it provoked deep intellectual musings). But the feelings were complex, and they were a product of a believable character and an authentic story line. Sentiment is manufactured. Genuine emotion is evoked through artistic quality that powerfully reflects some part of my experience of life -- and often offers some new insight into that experience.

Gilead starts out looking like it's headed for sentiment. It ends up firmly in the camp of high quality literature. It does this without giving in to the modern novelist's greatest crutches -- far more prevalent and pernicious these days than sentiment, in my view: Depressive pessimism or excess irony.

It's a warm, affirming novel that faces, struggles with, and ultimately embraces the ugly points of life. Don't miss it.