All About Aspergers with Prof Tony Attwood

[Music] welcome back guys I am seriously so excited about today's conversation today we are diving into the world of Asperger's with none other than professor Tony outlook now any intro for this incredible man or fall short of the enormity of his accomplishments and brilliance in the area of our surgeons he's incredibly gifted and I'm so grateful for his untiring spirit and the tireless work that he has done in the field of autism now if the some reason you haven't heard of Tony outward he's a clinical psychologist who specializes in autism spectrum disorders and has since 1975 he currently works in his own private practice and is also an adjunct professor at the Griffith University in Queensland and senior consultant at the minds and hearts clinic in Brisbane his book Asperger's syndrome a guide for parents and professionals has sold over 400,000 copies and his subsequent book the complete guide to Asperger's syndrome is one of the primary text books on Asperger's Tony presents workshops and runs training courses for parents professionals and individuals with Asperger syndrome all over the world he's a prolific author and site of scientific papers and books on the subject is worked with thousands of individuals of all ages with Asperger's or an autism spectrum disorder and it is an absolute pleasure and privilege to welcome a professor at Tony upward to chat with us today oh thank you Breanna this should be a round of applause I think but I hadn't read it you're gonna say such accolades no that's really set me up fantastic great words of wisdom this is gonna be wonderful so okay well let's start no I they are all well deserved thank you and it's an honor to have you on the podcast today okay there was there was a time where I would say that would prevent a midlife crisis I now I'm afraid to have to say it prevents retirement it'll keep you in the game yeah okay so the first thing that is off by asking all of my guests is a bit about their backstory and I'd love to hear a bit about yours and how you became so involved and so passionate about working with people on the spectrum that's actually a very good question I think I'll go through it in sequence not necessarily chronologically the sequence is that I was a 19 year old psychology student just on my first year and went to be a volunteer at a special school this is way back in 1971 when we knew very little about autism and I'd never heard anything about it and it was at that special school I met too severely or classically autistic individual Sarah who is five and Russell who was seven and I was I suppose enchanted by many aspects of two children who looked like any other kids but it was almost as though they came from another planet in the sense that what other kids would enjoy socializing change spontaneity they hated yet things that other kids would find boring playing with water for about five hours they really thoroughly enjoyed and when I tried to connect the worse of a difficulty in connecting both ways and so on meeting such children and there is actually been a in Australia the Australian story and last September they had found in translation which was a half-hour documentary on my life story so if you want to find out more information find in translation on YouTube but it was from that day I decided to take a career in autism and to discovered whatever I could from then on then of course that was at the beginning when autism was the silent aloof severely disabled poor prognosis person and I was there right at the beginning to discover that it was a continuum like visual impairment you can help those who are blind very obvious but technically I am visually impaired I need my glasses so I'm visually impaired but I'm not blind and as we explore the continuum we found those who were blind to the social world in a way and needed help and guidance in that area that's how I began professionally then chose to do PhD and so on but I also later on as I was in many ways within the family my mother I would phone every Sunday and it was one Sunday about five or six years ago when I was talking to her and she said Anthony I've just read an article on Asperger syndrome I said Yes Mother and she said your stepfather bernard whom she married when I was six years old engineer she said he's Asperger syndrome and I said yes mother don't you actually read my books and and yes and so in other words when I was six years old and she married Bernhard I became aware of difference in a particular dimension an indeed yes Asperger's syndrome was the description of why he was different so I see myself as bilingual I was brought up in an Aspie household and I watched as my mother became a speii to cope with her husband and so my bilingual characteristics began at the age of six what I've also discovered is a history of Asperger's in my extended family that we didn't know at the time so I say there are some people who are pre-wired neurologically to have Asperger's and there are some who are pre-wired to understand it and that's what happened and my daughter works with kids with autism but I never taught her anything and she just knows what to do so my story is one of the journey of discovery recognizing this professionally but then within the family so my knowledge isn't just primarily academic or clinical of course I have a son with Asperger syndrome who has taught me a great deal and we may use my knowledge of will in his characteristics to illustrate some points that will come through in this conversation so first question is a little bit my journey it's still going on I am still learning I am still enjoying what I discover and every week if not every day I discover something new and I don't so that's the answer to your first question lovely um and I think to what you said we're sort of learning more and more about Asperger's and autism and I suppose from your perspective because you have been in the game for so long you have been really involved in it so intensely from your home perspective and from your clinical perspective how has our our understanding of autism changed over the years and how do you think it will continue to change over the next 20 years I'll say okay when I began there were two theories one was that it was a form of schizophrenia or psychosis we now know this not is not true the withdrawal is not because of a psychosis it's because of confusion in social situations but it was also viewed as caused by bad parenting and it was all mum's fault and her lack of ability to relate to her child the refrigerator mum is the cause of this one we now know that madness is hereditary you get it from your children and when you have a hist a kid it changes you but if that change which has come from the child not you causing that with the child so we now know that's not true we then recognize that it's a neurodevelopmental condition whether it's a disorder is currently under review and in England it's now called autism spectrum conditions rather than disorder because disorder implies a psychiatric disability and I'm a bit cautious of labeling people disordered disability when in many ways they have talents that we need so we recognize that the brain is wired differently and not measured effectively my own description of ASD is it describes someone who has a different way of perceiving thinking learning and relating but it's a minority in a world of social zealots and those with Asperger's have found in life something more interesting than socializing but they have to socialize occasionally at school I think as the changes occurred we've recognized that the difficulties the person has with socializing are qualities that can be taught we didn't know that to begin with and so one of the interesting things is that if you have what I call autism pure that is just the social difficulties the reading face in expressions body language the reciprocity and interaction are the making friends and so on if you just have the core features plus the sensory perhaps then you can eventually move out of it and what I found recently one of the latest trends is actually undiagnosed those in their late teens and twenties that have become late developers they've acquired the skills by understanding and support they're below the threshold but if you have a HD+ intellectual impairment or language impairment or mood disorder anxiety and depression then the prognosis is not so good so we really do need to focus on those but when I look at our understanding it's also going to be what do we need to look at in the future and my view is there a certain areas that I think are going to be very interesting first of all I think is going to be the autism's that we will find there are different subgroups from different origins there's no one simple course there are many courses there are many expressions it's what we call a very heterogeneous group I think also there's to be research I hope on sensory sensitivity it's because neurotypicals don't get it they don't research it and for many with ASD it is that sudden sharp noise it's that aroma it's that color it's the sensory overwhelming which causes many meltdowns and we don't know enough is not the sensory system it's obvious how the brain processes that information and I think also we need to find out more on the aging process to find out for those we've known for decades what is the aging characteristic we need to be aware of and I think that in due course people will understand that this is difference not defect and for example I'm involved with a number of projects that some of the big international companies the big banks the big telecommunications and computer companies are actually seeking to recruit people with Asperger's because they are the most original in thinking the best spotting errors and perfectionism and I think if there are going to be any major advances in a cure for cancer or the latest technology it's going to be done by those with ASD interesting that's interesting now I want to jump back to something that is said just then and it was about undiagnosed I haven't heard of that term in this way and so you're saying that people on the spectrum there is that capacity to actually move off the spectrum yes now I've got to be careful on this because one of the ways of coping with Asperger's is to observe analyze and imitate that's what my son did and he said to me dad doesn't everyone learn socializing by watching and copying it I said no some people just know there are pre-wired neurologically to know what to do so you've got to be careful there can be a false cure inverted commas by those who are acting they have a mask they a persona but it's absolutely exhausting and prevents the development of the real self so some may artificially be anybody comers cured because they have an act every day they should be given an honorary Oscar for how they act neurotypical but then there's another group who do acquire those abilities and it's honest as though the five thousand peace social jigsaw puzzle suddenly makes sense there are connections and they complete the puzzle so the level of expression is now not severe enough to need special consideration or a diagnosis now it's important though for such individuals it's not a totally removed characteristic but in society's terms they are married they have a job they are successful however in the family their partner and children may be aware of certain challenges and in employment to be careful not to be moved into employment beyond your capabilities so it's still there it's still wide in but it is not as effective in daily life as it was when they were at high school hmm that's very interesting now you've said that autism or Asperger's syndrome is something to be celebrated and not hidden and that's something that you talk about quite a bit or something if you could sort of expand on this okay well some of the kindest nicest people I've ever known have Asperger's syndrome and my concern as a clinician he's not Asperger's itself no it is what neurotypicals will do to corrupt destroy and contaminate them in rejection bullying humiliation and teasing will destroy their self-esteem so I celebrate a different way of thinking it's thinking outside the box as Temple Grandin said if we were left to use socialites we would still be in caves talking to each other so I think we need to harness diversity and use it for the common good if you are a Star Trek fan its Vulcans and having the ability to combine to create the enterprise so I think that many of those qualities are not accepted when I work with teenagers one of the things they're desperate for from their peer group is respect and they don't get it and that's why sometimes they hear their special interest is superheroes because they're respected and values or they want to be in some way recognized that this is a person of true worth and many see them a second-rate defective and almost because they're not good socially they're viewed as non-human and if they're viewed as non-human you have no guilt for bullying and teasing so I want people to accept and embrace Asperger's as part of human nature and that we all benefit from it hmm what about for the parents or for the kids who are really trying really struggling to find their own gifts and you know every day is a battle and they're not embracing it and can't seem to celebrate those things that those those strengths and the things that they're good at what would you say to those kids or to the parents who are struggling at the moment okay first of all I would say that child is incredibly brave to suffer school and it's amazing that you keep going despite the adversity the rejection the tests and exams at school not showing your true intellectual ability teachers teaching you in a style for narator because not the aspect style they don't speak Asperger ease and in that setting it is amazing you continue to go that shows that you are brave and tenacious I think also for parents too primarily zorp and acknowledge the challenges they face not necessarily to automatically go into fix mode but really to should we say non-judgmental supportive listening to all your challenges okay I think what they need is assurance that their feelings and reactions are legitimate in the situation not a character fault okay then I would ask parents to consider okay there are particular challenges let's work together with the child and perhaps with expertise form professionals so yeah I was just wondering for the kids who have a struggling with making and keeping friends how do they go about that okay what first of all I got a look at the motivation for friendships and the capacity for friendship it's not necessarily as though the person wants a dozen close friends and to be the center of the social universe there the pluto in the social solar system there right out in the cold and I think what we look for is that sometimes the person wants and needs solitude they may have had enough socializing in the classroom they want to process it their recovery in energy is in terms of solitude so they actually want to be alone and safe say in the library so that needs to be acknowledged but the other part is how to join in and and make friends which is something no one is ever taught for example if you have a child with a language problem off to the speech pathologist if you've got a movement problem coordination ot and physio absolutely you got intellectual disability psychologists guidance officer to assess on an intelligence scale and give guidance in what you need to do but we don't have that socially we do not have a thorough assessment for social cognition and we do not have a group of therapists who specialize in developing the ability to work out what people are thinking and feeling to read body language and gestures and above all to make friends so it's not how to read a book is how to read a face and humans have over 400 facial expressions which are usually there in a millisecond and you're supposed to learn those and you're supposed to learn all the facial expressions the tone of voice the gestures and the context all four dimensions which will vary at the same time the complexity of it is extraordinary so first of all what we do with the kids is whatever they do right we point it out and applaud it so when so and so lost her eraser and you helped her find it Thanks that was a friendly thing to do helping your friend find something and when Jacob fell over and you went over to Jacob and said he--okay Jacob that's a caring thing to do a friendly thing to do thank you that was the right thing to do and when you were playing soccer and Peter scored a goal and he went yeah great goal that was a compliment that was a friendly thing to do so the first thing to do is notice what they do and tell them because if it's a math test you've got a tick or applause but you don't get that socially now the next stage is people will notice you either missed the cue or you didn't know how to respond and you need to teach them Carol grace social stories are a wonderful way of explaining the social world and so it's going through what skills are there that need to be reinforced to build confidence and what skills need to be acquired in a way that is discovery not feeling stupid or a failure okay now when you do the social skills training and friendship you can't just work with a kid you've got to work with their peer group because if they make all the over chores and the other kids say go away don't play with you then it's not going to work so they must be brought into the loop to be able to accommodate so if there's a group of three or four kids playing and the kid with ASD is on the periphery looking at them not knowing the cue to join in is to say oh oh Rachel come on join us come and join us and to actually recognize that they're trying to join in but they don't know quite how to so you must work with the others absolutely and I think what you said there is so important is that we need to teach explicitly teach those social skills you know like we explicitly teach handwriting and maths and everything else like that for these kids they're not picking up on those social cues so it's really important to break it down and as you said show them and teach them those social skills now it tends to change the time goes by to its own extent you can teach those skills fairly well at primary school and they may accommodate that very well in a group setting or individually but at high school there can be an acute sense of being different and not wanting to be perceived and treating in a different way to other teenagers so they may not like a social skills group or program but what they may do is enjoy drama and it's a socially acceptable activity but it's not a Shakespearean play it's actually how do you act when somebody's bullying you how do you act in a conversation so we sometimes use drama classes and drama teachers to teach the skills but in a socially acceptable way to a level that some do become professional actors because as you mentioned earlier because diagnostic criteria and everything is changing and we're starting to diagnose adults now who we sort of missed earlier days because we didn't know as much about Asperger's what about adults now if they're having challenges with social skills in the workplace and just add in the community how do we teach them it was I think there are there are many pathways to the diagnosis of adults one is the a relative has been diagnosed and sometimes it may be a mum whose child her daughter perhaps who's diagnosed and goes through all the descriptions with the professional but then says but I did that as a child what you're describing there was me is that through her own child or a family member should we say a grandson is diagnosed and then realized the grandfather has always had those features and some been successful as an engineer accountant or information technology but socially has had a number of challenges that their partner grandma has compensated for so when we look at the the pathways for diagnosis another way is a lack of success in career considering their qualifications and intellect and it may be for example all the skills in friendship are the skills you need for teamwork in a job and reading people is how you get past an interview so if you're not doing that successfully you may not get a job or keep a job and so there may be underemployment or lack of employment another pathway can be the exhaustion of trying to cope with life the scarring from rejection and bullying and teasing and a number of factors may lead to a clinical depression or anxiety disorder or personality disorder or eating disorder and so then it's recognized that actually there's been a pattern through the years that the person has been able to compensate for people have tolerated in a number of ways but at last we recognize there is an explanation and that's useful because you can then have closure with the past you can understand who you are and not to look at relationship and career to solve problems that do not need solving and you may be able to be what I call a first-rate Aspie not a second-rate your typical mmm I like that I'm gonna take that one um okay so kids on the spectrum can be really difficult to motivate if they're not engaging in one of their areas of interests lots of advice would you give to parents who want to motivate their kids in other areas okay there are several motivators one of the things that the kids have if they are not good socially and you're not good at sport the one thing you've got is your intellect and the worst insult is to be called stupid so when I'm doing a verbal reward it is not oh you've made my day I'm so pleased I'm so proud of you because that altruistic desire to please people may not be as strong but what does work is wow you're smart that shows how intelligent you are you are amazing in how your mind works so I appeal to intellectual vanity not the altruistic desire to please people what does the person value apart from special interest is going to be their intellect so I will use that or as many kids and adults with Asperger's will say okay what's in it for me so their natural capitalists and so what I go through is okay an extra half hour with Minecraft okay so in other words if you do it you've earned access to what you want to do and it's a very mercenary approach but it does work so there's got to be a payoff in terms of intellectual vanity or access to something the person values so some sort of reinforce that or reward yes in the classic sense yes okay so jumping to self-regulation because this can be a really challenging area I suppose that parents have a lot of difficulty with with the intensity managing that intensity of the kids emotions what are the best ways that parents can support their kids with this okay I'm going to be very blunt employing you as a personal trainer which is one of the things that you do because when I do my programs on managing anxiety and depression and I ask the guys in the toolbox the many tools we introduced you to which was the tool that was the best physical exercise but often their view is I'm clumsy and poorly coordinated their preferred activities are solitary sedentary screen watching and so what you've got to do is assess their personality type and body type and identify a program of physical activities that they will enjoy and naturally be good at at the way I describe it is in a pool some kids sink and some kids flows okay and you've got to decide well if he sinks not worth it okay or this kid has an ability of rhythm of running that that's their way or this kid really loves horse riding or has a natural talent in something like fencing or an ability in a sporting activity that may involve accuracy maybe basketball through the hoop also the routine and regimentation of a gym of going through a sequence and ticking off the box of what you've done so when it comes to emotion management I think one of the first things is in terms of physical release so when he gets home from school you say okay tough day at school do you want to go for a run do you want to go cycling do you wanna bounce on the trampoline do I'll run with the doc the next one is teaching relaxation from deep breathing to yoga and meditation now I'm of a generation the yoga and meditation with this obscure esoteric Eastern mumbo-jumbo hipping nimbin rubbish if not he's been around for 5,000 years much longer than any psychologists and so we're finding that the meditation mindfulness yoga can and when we look at mindfulness in the sense of the ability to focus on the here and now the environment those with ASD fall into two groups there's a group that this strategy are being tuned into the sensory system and your body and relaxing really does help them but there's another group half who are spending their whole life stopping their sensitivity to sensory experiences and when you ask them to focus on it they spend everything creating a blocker to those experiences and they hate it they are inundated with sensory experience so that group mindfulness is not going to work they often of the group that may work more with a yoga approach than the mindfulness approach or it's just strategies to help them learn how to relax and sometimes what I'll say to them is if you relax you're going to be smarter because when you're relaxed you can access your memory you can access your ideas you'll get greater marks at school if when you're doing an exam you know how to relax oh right I'll try it then so we've got to learn Asperger's we got to sell it and they have to buy it not in money but in time and they've got to see the personal value another way of coping with the intense emotions is to get that person to be aware for example of meltdown on its way this is where I find great value in the new sports technology of heartrate and that will give you an opportunity to sense when you are becoming more agitated your heart rate increases and a forewarning but also most of these devices will tell you the heart rate for the day so when it gets home from school you plug it into the computer and you get a screen image of his heart rate throughout the day and then you say okay 2:15 what happened we had a surprise test 10 o'clock what happened mrs. Smith said she wouldn't be in class that afternoon and Missy Jones who control the class was going to be in charge my stress levels went through the roof so that gives the school a recognition of the stress the person is going through that may not be apparent in facial expression and body language but it's there as data okay so you need to know what are the situations how to cope with them we also use social strategies that there are certain people who by their mere presence are like a sponge and soak it up and then other people are like petrol on the barbeque make it just worse so we find the social site but one of the social tools is pets animals are better than psychologists at relaxing self-acceptance enjoyment of your company but the other social tool is solitude but safe solitude and if you're at school how can you ever be alone it's those sorts of things we also go through defective thinking in the sense of I'm stupid I will never have any friends of course that's what's been reinforced by the other kids now where's you know the other kids they are too immature in their appreciation of your qualities but when they're adults they'll really appreciate humans true actually so it's going through their thinking style which tends to be overdramatic catastrophizing and we go through where's the evidence for this have a thinking approach etc so those are some of the things we go through we go through some of the things that we're cautious about the special interest is the thought blocker it works but it doesn't really deal with the feeling it suppresses it so when they switch minecraft off it rebounds as powerful as ever which means that when it switches off to go to sleep all those feelings and thoughts spiral out of control and sleep is more elusive so it's a blocker not something that actually dissolves it's useful but it's not a therapy so those are the sorts of things that we will go through hmm yes that is very comprehensive and I think out of all my interviews the one that has been very consistent across the board is movement and inserting that movement throughout the day so before they even need it just so their body starts to regulate throughout the day before they get to that melting point and I'm interesting about the stress response so the heart rate I think that's a fantastic idea because often like you said kids will slowly you know take hit after hit after hit you know it could be the tag on the back of their t-shirt and then someone looks at them the wrong way or whatever it is and it slowly builds up and then they'll hit someone or something will happen and the teacher will say well there was no you know there was no trigger for this nothing happened it just happened out nowhere so if we could measure that stress response and start to realize that well actually there was a build up and there was a reason for this now in the United States somebody has just got a huge research grant to see if there is an algorithm that is a formula of heart rate to indicate melt down on its way so in other words that person make up with four triggers but on the fifth they explode so after the fourth it goes beep beep beep beep beep watch out you're just on the threshold pull back relax take a break go to the toilet do whatever you can to get that heart rate down because the next time it goes up it's gonna tip you over mmm is that the Center for discovery ok cuz they're doing I'm not sure this is a I get information on research grants and so I'm coming through and they've only got they grant money they haven't got the data but what it means is eventually I think you'll buy a watch that will monitor that individual and then provide information on their unique pattern of proceeding heart rate to a meltdown hmm yeah it's very valuable and because a lot of kids will experience obviously this stress causes anxiety and it can also cause be a trigger for depression as well what can parents watch out for yeah what can be the triggers for this depression and anxiety in kids and what can parents do to help support their kids okay first of all that there are many reasons for depression one interestingly can be genetics in the sense we know statistically there's a higher level of depression in families with the kid with ASD the etiology of this we don't know but it may be first of all an inherited characteristic secondly when I explore the thinking of the person with ASD when they're depressed of low self-esteem asan I think you didn't get low self-esteem from your parents you did not get it from the teachers you got it from your peer group but you didn't have friends to contradict it you couldn't articulate it easily in speech to tell anybody and so you suffered in silence but you are depressed because of the attitude of your peer group the third one I look for is energy depletion that is there is so much energy used in trying to cope with your anxiety cope in the school work with change with crowds with all the aromas and the sensory sensitivity our all those sorts of things we don't realize that life is incredibly stressful for those with ASD and eventually when your energy is depleted you have an energy depleted depression it's a crash now the signs that I look for are these now there are the classic signs of changes in eating sleep cycle and and those sorts of things negative comments no I can't do it I'm not good enough and so on those are the classic ones an AGP will be able to give you a questionnaire or you can get on the internet those questionnaires that will indicate that for ASD I find that there can be a change in the special interest from say flags and frogs and cute and endearing to movies where death is a theme okay so there may be something that's going to occur another sign is what I call a depression attack when you have the meltdown it's either externalized smash-hit verbally abusive there's a huge roaring explosion of energy there's outwardly directed to objects and people but now it's an implosion directed at the self no no mom you hate me mom you you've never loved me you love my sister more than you love me and I'd be better off if you were dead and grandma could come to stay and and I can't cope with it anymore and and that's it I'm going I can't stand this and so you have a depression attack which is dangerous because you can get self-harm it is very intense it is very real and the person is in such despair and they'll do almost anything to stop it and when I ask them when you cut yourself in that what's your reaction they say it calms me it's soothing or the physical pain blocks the emotional pain so I look for any self harm any implosions but though the sign that worries me the most is when the special interest is no longer enjoyable that's when the lights are going out because that's your energizer that's your pleasure there is nothing in life better than the special interest in an anhedonic that is no pleasure in anything that's the last to go and if he says I don't like my photography anymore no I don't like collecting coins no it just I look at it and I think nah and I put in a way that's when I'm worried because that's a sign of a very significant depression so those are the signs I would ask parents to check for now I actually strange enough I've actually written a book on this and I'm sorry but I'm going to do a quick bit of promotions I'm just gonna hold on and get my book because I I will use this as this is the commercial break this is a book called exploring depression of beating the blues written with my great friend and colleague Michelle garnet published by Jessica Kingsley publishers but it is a self-help book for the person with Asperger's and their families in other words it's not a psychologist manual and we wrote it deliberately so that people could use it who have not got access to a clinical psychologist okay so I would recommend that as a way of exploring why that person is depressed we go through many reasons tick the box but then we have ten stages to go through on energy accounting how to check when your energy levels are going low how to cope with the sensory how to cope with you're thinking that I'm stupid bad etc but one of the things we found in doing all our programs was that a characteristic of ASD is how are you feeling now I don't know okay well what were you feeling when you want you to kill yours off I don't know and I'll now answer their question I don't know how to grass one of the many thoughts or feelings swirling in my mind hold it identify it and explain it in speech so that you will understand however what we found is that those with ASD had a remarkable talent in expressing their feelings in the arts so we would say okay create me on Spotify a playlist of music that in the music or the lyrics it perfectly describes your sadness go to Google Images type in son you'll have 500 images choose five images that represent your sadness you are a great fan of Harry Potter JK Rowling thought of Dementors as describing her own episodes of depression choose the scene in one of the Harry Potter books that describes your feelings choose a scene from a Star Wars movie write a poem send an email create a picture or sculpture a picture is worth a thousand words and some with ASD are talented in the arts because of this characteristic that's their career so what they do is they can express the self and their emotions through their hands or ability to learn so what you're getting what you're getting is these it's okay on my end I think I think because I hit myself okay I'm like there's a delay of a fraction of a second I may turn that down a bit can you hear me okay good I'll just make you said that I can just hear you okay so to return to the theme is we often work with the music therapists art therapists or anything you can do anything other than look at me and tell me it's converting thought and emotion to speech and that may lead to a talent as a pianist or as an artist or as a playwright or author into exploring the self and feelings and your observations through the arts and we are encouraging that as much as possible and I think it's so important I love that way of expressing the feelings in the self rather than using words through other ways like Google Images I mean I wouldn't have thought of that or using a song which some kids are really you know it can be attached to and it can express their emotions I think that's yes such a valuable way that parents and other people can help them express how they're feeling in particular for teenagers mm-hmm okay okay all righty I suppose I wanted to touch on a bit of a personal topic now and that is the relatively recent diagnosis of your son if you feel comfortable if you could talk through a bit about your personal journey and the realization that your son was on the spectrum and any new insights I suppose that you've had into the world of autism since his diagnosis okay oh he's 36 so when he was little we didn't know much about Asperger's had not been identified and so he was a little late in talking he was very emotional very reactive to certain sensory experiences etc but doing well at school and a primary school had a number of friends what we now know was they were friends because he would take risks he knew he could be popular by jumping his bike further than anyone else or making a humorous comment so he was popular because he would do audacious things and that was his his role but he really wasn't so good at reading the signals etc but not sufficient to warrant investigation because we had no conceptualization of a particular condition that he had but he'd always been highly anxious and anxiety was there from infancy and when he reached puberty the anxiety came in as not a deluge but as a tsunami it was horrendous but because he was associated with a naughty risk-taking group he had always got high levels of what we call generalized anxiety disorder it was a warrior all the time but when they introduced him to alcohol and marijuana for the first time in his life he found that those feelings were at a level he'd never experienced before although spiraling negative thoughts were calmed he felt a sense of well-being he'd never had in his life before and that was beginning of addiction and being a speii he then wanted to explore every drug at every level and he became the alternative doctor at word because people would ask him for advice on what he'd taken and he knew all about it from the internet and so on but when you have drugs and take drugs you are you either take drugs to engage or disengage from society to engage by if you're socially anxious or performance you're not sure sure it relaxes you and you join a club for whom social skills aren't important it's to help each other become intoxicated and in that group they have their own culture expectations and they have a broad tolerance of a range of differences so in that group he found a sense of identity but another reason you take drugs is to create a bubble to detach yourself from reality to not worry about your past or your present or your future you are emotionally detached but when you're emotionally detached nobody can reach you and that's what you're trying to do is detach yourself so no therapies will work no parent will get through so when he was about 14 15 he became a drug addict initially with Merkel alcohol and marijuana but then morphine speed speed is absolutely dreadful ice in particular he became somebody who injects morphine and he went really off the rails now at that stage all you saw was addiction so up to his early teens he was a camouflage er which we first thought of and one of the things he's taught me is how boys can do what the girls with Asperger's will do observe analyze and imitate fake it till you make it have a mask use your intellect it's exhausting but it gets you by and so what happened was that throughout all the children's development I'd always videotape them because I'm the great nostalgia freaking son and I got all this video when they were very young but I decided not to watch it because it was too heartbreaking to see well as he was in comparison to the way he it was then at that stage I really find it very difficult to take but our daughter Rosie who works in the area of autism as a teacher said dad come on I want to I want to look at them come on let's look so she convinced me one Christmas and I said okay Rosie you choose the year you choose what and she chose a year when will was about four and we both sat on the settee watching it and we turned to each other and said he's Asperger's because she knows because she teaches Asperger preschool kids I know now what we didn't know 32 years ago and we said yes he is and then all the pennies dropped it it really connect connect connect and that's helped him enormous Lee and understanding why he's different he's very much embraces and except he said dad I must be you've got an expect me to do that I'm especially so what you just taught me is the pathway he's an amazing person because drugs are expensive and so he committed armed robbery twice and was arrested and sent to prison for three years he's served two years in prison and he's just written a book on how to help a Swiss in prison and a few weeks ago he and I went down to Melbourne to give a one-day presentation to Corrective Services in Victoria how to identify and help people with Asperger's in the prison and probation and parole services and it was delightful to be at word and son in making positive use of that and he was very eloquent and he wasn't intoxicated at the time so I was very proud of what he could do so it's taught me about identifying it in at home because love is blind and I've since got lots of emails from other people who have said thank you I work in the area and now know that my son or daughter has this but I was blind to it even I saw it everyday in my professional life so yeah that's the answer to your question No thank you so much for sharing your story because I know there will be so many other parents listening in to this who will be able to resonate with that as well and I have honestly a million and one other questions that I could ask you today but I think we'll wrap it up and we always finish with the five rapid-fire questions so I'll start with question number one what is one habit that parents can implement today be calm because if you get upset it's going to make the situation worse those were there stay have a sixth sense of negativity and you on your scale of zero to ten or two he's going to respond as though you're eight or nine so whatever you can the first thing I would say commitment today when upset hide it become great number two what do people never ask you that you wish they did nothing because they've asked everything perfect what book would you recommend that all parents read of course my book so many well I think go to Jessica Kingsley publishers JK be calm it is the primary source of literature in this area and it covers everything from early diagnosis to couples and relationships I've written half a dozen books that are published they're written the foreword for scores of books so if you're interested in if you want a book go to jkp calm excellent number four what is one of your top unfinished bucket list items to return to her future in England where my wife and I went in 1978 before children and it was the creation of children there and it's to go back in time to then and to explore it together we would love to but we can't because of will one of us has to stay with him because he's still an edit and there are still risks suicide risks and overdose risks that one of us has to stay there so I went to England earlier this year Sara's going there in September but we have to go separately but my unfinished bucket list is for both of us to go back to the house there to go back to the pubs we enjoy to have a picnic in the Forest of Dean and to just walk the walks by the river why that we had that's on my list well that's the top of my list actually number 5 last questions so if you could only offer one piece of advice to the parents out there listening today what would it be love and accept your child accept who they are and that is important and express your love for that person because what's important in life is to feel accepted and loved that's more important than any intervention program and that will give the resilience to cope with neurotypicals now listeners find out more about you or get in touch okay first of all I've got a Facebook page that will give you information web page turn yup word calm day you also go to youtube type in Tony outward and especially ask dr. Tony there are about 200 videos on YouTube that will go through many topics so YouTube Facebook and my web page excellent um now it has been an absolute pleasure listening to you is so mesmerizing I could listen to you all day and just soak up all your knowledge and everything that you have to say on Asperges um and thank you for everything maybe what I'm going to ask you to do if you can is then me a link that I can put on my Facebook page yes absolutely cuz I think there'll be a lot of people who follow my Facebook page would like to watch this hmm absolutely that what that yeah I mean you have given everyone such a deeper understanding of autism and Asperger's and how we can really support people on the spectrum and every time I listen to you so I'm probably listen to you 200 videos online what I mean you you have got such a wealth of knowledge and I think you really are that translator between the two cultures and so I really thank you so much for every everything that you have brought to the community it's just invaluable thank you I've enjoyed the journey it has given me such validation and so many thrills that I yeah it is but when I met hands Asperger's daughter Maria she said Tony your special interest is Asperger syndrome I suppose it is [Music]

Channel: Homebase Hope

Views: 52,063

Keywords: asd, aspergers, autism, autistic, anxiety, sensory, child, school, depression, psychology, Tony Attwood, psychologist, mental health, behaviour

Id: mmqeZgyCJkw

Length: 58min 59sec (3539 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 07 2019