Masking in terms of autism and Asperger's syndrome is a way of hiding your true self from others as a means of fitting in and avoiding harm. It can best be summed up as "pretending to be normal". In this post, I want to talk about some of the ways that we mask, why it is necessary sometimes and why ultimately you need to minimize masking in your life. How do we mask? It's often said that people with Asperger's syndrome are great actors because they spend so much of their lives pretending to be someone that they are not.  Masking is a very normal activity and everyone masks in some form o ..read more

Computer addiction is not an exclusively Asperger's or Autism condition. Not all autistics develop it and not all people with computer addiction issues have autism. One of the key issues is that when autistic people have a special interest in any subject, they tend to give that subject their entire focus. In cases where those subjects are computer-based, this can lead to addiction. Image by Alexandr Podvalny from Pixabay What is Computer Addiction? Internet or computer addiction is a very real problem. It especially affects young people, particularly children and there are studies su ..read more

Parenting kids on the spectrum comes with a unique set of challenges and being a single parent puts its own spin on this. In my previous two posts, I looked at parenting young and school-aged children. In this post, I want to look at the some of the problems that are common when single parenting young autistic adults.  As usual, a quick disclaimer that I'm not a single parent, so my knowledge of this area is not first hand. It is based upon co-parenting my own autistic children and on countless observations and discussions with parents in this situation.  Disappearing without Notic ..read more

Last week, I had some tips for single-parenting very young autistic children. This time I want to give you some tips for single parents of school aged children. As before, I want to start off with a disclaimer that I'm not a single parent. The ideas here are some of the more popular ones from discussions with single parents over the years.  Image by sarahbernier3140 from Pixabay Address the Problems, not the Diagnosis Failure to accept the diagnosis seems to be the single biggest gripe among single parents of kids on the spectrum. It's quite common for one parent, usually t ..read more

I get a lot of correspondence from single parents with autistic children. In the vast majority of the cases, it's single mothers with boys, though sometimes it's fathers and sometimes it's girls.  I can't claim to be an authority on the subject because I am not, and have never been a single parent but I've had feedback to say that my advice has worked and I've seen some incredible single parents complete the journey and bring their kids up to be responsible and empathetic adults. In this series, I'd like to look at some of the techniques that work, starting with younger kids. I'll cover o ..read more

It's 2022 and after something of a hiatus, I'm back. I figure it's time for an update on who I am and where my family is at.  I'm on the autism spectrum and am in my early 50s. I lived the first 35 years of my life with no knowledge of my place on the spectrum and little understanding of autism. My two sons, both with Asperger's syndrome are now aged 18 and 21. I'm still with my wife of 24 years and I'm still employed full time in the IT section of  the financial sector.  I've been blogging on the subject of autism and Asperger's since 2007 and prior to that I was a regular on ..read more

 It seems an odd question but it's one that crops up with alarming regularity on autism forums with older members.  It's also a loaded question because the literal answer is clearly, "No, there is no charge in the level of autism in us as we age. The subjective answer however is quite different. Image by Cheryl Holt from Pixabay What does it mean? When we ask whether we become more autistic,  what we're really trying to ask is whether our autistic traits become more pronounced over time. It's an interesting question. The visibility of our autistic traits waxes and wanes thr ..read more

I've been taking a break from blogging for a while because it seemed to me that the world had bigger problems than autism and Asperger's syndrome. I figured that eventually things would go back to normal but now it seems they never will. Too much has changed.  One of the key moments was the loss of one of my good friends, a fellow blogger with autism who I met a couple of decades ago when we all used to call it Asperger's. We never met in person, though we once got within 100 miles of each other before illness intervened.  Her passing hit me hard, but it's odd. It didn't hit so much ..read more

A couple of days ago, I was reading a thread about a mother who came home to find that her son had completely trashed the house - again. It reminded me of things that our family used to go through. While my eldest, now 20 is a terribly messy boy, this behaviour is now well and truly a thing of the past for us. For a while though, these problems seemed insurmountable, so I thought I'd share how we got past them. Image by yasioo from Pixabay There was once a time where if he didn't get his way, my youngest would completely trash his room (and sometimes other rooms in the house). We still have ..read more

What your Child on the Spectrum Really Needs: Advice from 12 Autistic Adults. For Autistic People Everywhere. May Your Voices Be Heard by Jenna Gensic This is a book review that I really should have done about eight months ago. I wanted to be able to do this book justice but it's just so diverse and informative that I don't think that any review I write will really describe the breadth of it. The book is only 115 pages long but it's A4 sized and absolutely packed with information.  Jenna Gensic is a freelance writer who blogs over at Learning from Autistics and she frequently publi ..read more