Dealing with Lack of Peer Group - Page 2

[whatsnextmom]

Originally Posted by VisionaryMom 

I know that sounds...terrible as I'm writing it out. He's not a "bad" kid or anything like that. He's just cerebral and highly focused on a very few things. As I'm reading & writing about this, though, I'm becoming more aware that perhaps it is a bigger problem than I've realized. (He's very, very much like me, which is why I said before that I'm sad for him. I have had maybe 2 friends my entire life. I do not know how one makes friends. We only have "family friends" because my husband is much better at these things than I am.) 

I just wanted to concur that he's not a "bad" kid. Not all kids pick-up on social cues naturally. My eldest was always considered rather "cold" as an infant and toddler. People didn't like her. She didn't smile all that much to people outside the family. She had a tendancy to look through them instead of at them. The openly negative response towards her those early years is what made me start really working with her compassion and empathy. It's OK not to be interested in someone else, not OK for you to let them feel uninteresting KWIM? It wasn't as hard to tap into as I thought. It just took actually talking about characters in stories in the beginning. When we were out-and-about, I'd open conversation on those around us... "ah, that little girl is crying. What do you think she could be crying about?" I pushed myself out of my own comfort zone to connect with other moms and thus have a small group of young children for my DD to "practice" on. Around your sons age, one of her favorite things to do was make up stories about strangers we saw and what she would guess their lives were like based on their appearance and actions at the moment. She was never bad, she just wasn't naturally social... she needed some active training. Kindred spirits may still be few and far between but she's been savvy enough to always have company and connections. 

[karne]

My ds hasn't especially struggled with feeling like he has a peer group, because he does-he really enjoys a lot of the kids in his class, and has positive relationships.  But he doesn't have that special friendship with someone who really "gets" him in school, because his interests and abilities lie outside of the norm for his age.  He wants to belong with his peer group, so he's made an effort to know about or become interested in what the other boys are doing.  I won't lie-this is definitely not where his interests lie, so it's not really an authentic interest in that regard.  But, it does allow him to socialize with other boys.  He would love to wander around and discuss his interests, but he plays kickball, because that's where his friends are.  He trades trading cards because that's what his friends are doing.  He's motivated to be part of the group, mostly.

I support this because we also support his other interests in as many ways as possible.  We have a family with many HG, creative individuals, so home and extended family are a refuge. What I also see is that opposite sex friendships also really work right now, mostly because the girls like to talk and are still into imaginative/creative play, which my ds also loves.   It's funny because my older dd always liked to play with boys at this age because the games were more physical/less talking, and that suited where she was at for her age.  It's turned around in junior high to include close girlfriends, but I thought that was an interesting comparison.  Extracurriculars, have been extremely important for ds.

All this to say that you are in a good position to have an eval and figure out some intervention around social skills, because your ds is young.  I too would be concerned about your ds' not seeming to see peers, or other folks, as "whole", but focusing on narrow, concrete aspects of them.  I believe that it is important for kids to have some positive peer relationships.  My experience is that that has required effort within school, and it is possible to help your child connect on a peer level while also supporting their authentic abilities and interests. 

[joensally]

Originally Posted by VisionaryMom 

We've had several people (not professionals, people we know) who've suggested Asperger's. I know that all of the BBT characters are supposed to represent functional Aspies. I also read recently that Asperger's is now a separate diagnosis from ASD. At the same time, when I look at the checklists, many of them don't apply. I understand that it's not necessary for everything to apply for a dx, but in particular, he's coordinated. He has no problems with physical play, no odd gait. He doesn't like to look people in the eye, but he can do so. He's not physically unaware of the world around him in the way I've seen with autistic children. So I always come back to the idea that while he kind of fits, there are many things about him that just don't.

When we saw a developmental psych 1.5 years ago, I anticipated him at least bringing up those things because I know a number of the things I said on the intake forms should have triggered looking for autism/asperger's. After talking to DS and doing some tests, he never mentioned it. Still I don't think all of DS' issues are attributable to giftedness, but I don't know which ones are.

RE: BBT.  I don't think they all have an ASD. Sheldon appears to have Asperger's, Raj has some form of social anxiety disorder which manifests as selective mutism, Leonard is the "everyman" in the fictional setup, although he is definitely the stereotyped high-IQ science geek who also happens to have some family-of-origin baggage, and Howard has definite social issues.  They're all quirky as all get out.  (Yeah, we own the first three seasons on DVD ).  I think the series does a pretty good job of embracing differences with a lot of gentle ribbing, and the producers/writers have been clear that they have huge affection for the characters and the IRL folks who inspired the creation of those characters.  I think it also does a good job of covering a spectrum of the issues encountered by many people with very high IQs, and some of those issues are no big deal, some are annoying, and some downright inhibit the individual from living their life as wholly as they'd like (ie not being able to speak to women without alcohol).

ASD is a spectrum, and not all people with ASDs have the markers you list.  Here's the DSM-IV criteria:

Quote:

 (I) Qualitative impairment in social interaction, as manifested by at least two of the following: (II) Restricted repetitive & stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests and activities, as manifested by at least one of the following:

(III) The disturbance causes clinically significant impairments in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

(IV) There is no clinically significant general delay in language (E.G. single words used by age 2 years, communicative phrases used by age 3 years)

(V) There is no clinically significant delay in cognitive development or in the development of age-appropriate self help skills, adaptive behavior (other than in social interaction) and curiosity about the environment in childhood.
 

DSM V is due out in 2013 and the revised, combined defintion of ASD is being field-tested currently.  Here's what it looks like:

 

Must meet criteria 1, 2, and 3:

1.  Clinically significant, persistent deficits in social communication and interactions, as manifest by all of the following:

a.  Marked deficits in nonverbal and verbal communication used for social interaction:

b.  Lack of social reciprocity;

c.  Failure to develop and maintain peer relationships appropriate to developmental level

2.  Restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, and activities, as manifested by at least TWO of the following:

a.  Stereotyped motor or verbal behaviors, or unusual sensory behaviors

b.  Excessive adherence to routines and ritualized patterns of behavior

c.  Restricted, fixated interests

3.  Symptoms must be present in early childhood (but may not become fully manifest until social demands exceed limited capacities)

Our experience is that DS really, really struggled from 3 until about 7.  At 3.5, gifted, sensory processing disorder, ASD, ADHD, auditory processing disorder were all tossed around.  This went on until he was 7 or so.  Kids can change a lot over time, and it's particularly hard in the early years as the range of developmentally typical is very broad.  DS has had multiple evaluations and he's now down to gifted, spd and vision.  We invested heavily in active empathy training, social skills coaching and self-regulation development.  We did most of it ourselves directly, but we've involved multiple professionals along the way.  The last line of the proposed, new ASD defintion is an important one - "but may not become fully manifest until social demands exceed limited capacities." I know that DS may, at some point in the future, meet the ASD criteria if his "social skills" (broadly defined) don't continue to develop and he reaches that point where the demands of a more mature social milieu exceed his capacity.

I wouldn't rule out ASD based on an evaluation at 3.5.  I am very conservative with the whole ASD thing as I think that there's some funding/cultural stuff going on with the diagnosis, and I really think that there's a very broad range of neurotypical.  When you put gifted in the mix, it's really hard to tease out.  Five is a great time to start working with your son on a lot of this stuff, as whether he has an ASD or not, it sounds like he could use some direct, explicit coaching.  As the mom of a complicated young boy, I think it sounds like your complicated young boy warrants an evaluation.

I don't know if you've read past threads in PtGC re ASD.  There have been a lot of interesting discussions.

A few books of note:

look me in the eye, by John Elder Robison:  He self-diagnosed Asperger's as an adult, and discusses being a prop engineer for the band Kiss, marrying and having kids, and running his own specialty car repair business." Here, with preview:

http://books.google.ca/books?id=QLv1b9a9nQIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=look+me+in+the+eye&hl=en&ei=zpcXTeOgGonAsAOxv9WXCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

I really like the Oasis book on Asperger's

http://books.google.ca/books?id=_O5FAAAAYAAJ&q=oasis+book+asperger's&dq=oasis+book+asperger's&hl=en&ei=k5gXTaa3NJSosAPE2ZDSAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA

Kids in the Syndrome Mix...; (with preview)

http://books.google.ca/books?id=DmUpCSlnmKAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=syndrome+mix&hl=en&ei=FZkXTcjZJIu8sQOHja2fCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false 

Webb's Misdianosis/Gifted book: (with preview)

http://books.google.ca/books?id=NQrtt-peg5AC&printsec=frontcover&dq=gifted+misdiagnosis&hl=en&ei=TZkXTcywCYqcsQPIzLWnCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false 

Another great resource, with chapters on Gifted and on ASD, is the Eides' book The Mislabeled Child.

Eides' blog:

http://eideneurolearningblog.blogspot.com/

Their website:

http://neurolearning.com/Library/

[VisionaryMom]

JNS, I'll look into those books. Thanks! 

I will say that he seems only really borderline to me from the list you posted from the DSM. OTOH, hubby and I had a long talk about this issue, and he said that he's always felt that I strike him as very Asperger's-like. He said that anytime he reads or sees anything on it that it makes him think of me. Plus, he said that when the kids ask for social advice, and I tell them what I'd do, he cringes because he thinks it's usually not very good advice! So...he said that he doesn't think I can help DS very much. We're still torn on what to do because on one hand, I don't want to make him feel like more of an outcast. OTOH, I want to get help for him if we can.

When I was in 1st grade, I had to be evaluated by school specialists because of a number of behaviors that my teacher thought made me "odd." I saw a psychologist whose specialty was educational issues. In her report, she wrote that my IQ was so much higher than my peers that the behaviors my teacher pinpointed (mostly not interacting with others, not laughing at "typical" 1st grade humor, etc.) were the result of my intellectual development and not a sign of a "learning disability" (the term at that time). Now, the other side is that I obviously never learned to interact with other people, and if I can avoid that with DS, then I'd like to help him do that.

[serenbat]

so much is always placed on the "peer" dynamic but the real world is learning how to deal with all ages, very few people end up working just within their peer group through out life

since you see the problem it might be much easier to deal with- I would focus more on interaction of all ages and less on simply the general peer group as a starting point - multi level activities  - even taking a key interest and finding a college student as a mentor and later a multi age group and deal more on a multi level 

Now, the other side is that I obviously never learned to interact with other people, and if I can avoid that with DS, then I'd like to help him do that.Now, the other side is that I obviously never learned to interact with other people, and if I can avoid that with DS, then I'd like to help him do that.

[Monda]

Originally Posted by chaimom 

One of my boys (a twin) is HG and was years ahead of his classmates in K.  I won't lie and say it was a fabulous year.  He's still mad that he didn't learn anything (academically).  But he did learn social skills and he made  a lot of friends.  This is just my opinion, but I think you might want to back away from the idea that he has to just focus on his math abilities/interest.  I understand that that's what he's interested in.  But it sounds to me that what you're concerned about, and what would benefit him, would be a friend or two.   I think you might talk to his teachers about what you can do to help him connect with other kids.  Every kid needs to learn social skills to be successful-- in school, socially, on the job.  K is the time to start working on it.  

This this one million times this!  His intellect sounds like it will flourish fine for now with no extra focus from you but he may be developing patters of how he views others that could be greatly improved with intervention now. 
 

[carmel23]

Hi VM, I just wanted to chime in with a we've been there kind of comment.  My oldest sometimes seems Aspie, sometimes not.  It took him awhile to really develop friendships at school, and part of that was finding a school that really focuses on the social-emotional aspects.  He didn't really have any similar in age friends until this year, 4th grade. 

The traditional school situation didn't work for him because really the kids do not get to socialize all that much; it is either all mediated by the teacher (reading groups, etc.) or it is lord of the flies (playground).  Homeschool didn't work for us, either, because my kids really need to see the same kids, everyday. 

Social skills classes have been really great for my son, because he just didn't understand asking questions about other people, etc.