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Bob is a special child. He has a mild case of Asperger's Syndrome. For those of you who have never heard of Asperger's Syndrome, it's a high functioning level of autism, or in the same category as high-functioning autism. The latest theory I've heard is that they don't consider Asperger's Syndrome (AS) as the same thing as autism, because, although some of the symptoms are similar, these children don't behave the same way. With these children, think of them like the nerds in high school who had no social skills. They didn't remember to brush their teeth, didn't remember to use a fork at the lunch table, or know how to talk to anyone or look them in the eyes. However, if you asked them about things like quantum physics or to spout off something they've read, verbatim, they're your go-to guy or girl. This is Bob, in a nut shell. I consider it a gift that Bob has Asperger's. He isn't affected by peer pressure at all, and classifies people as either good or bad. There is no in-between category. So if you mess up, you're bad...all bad. Otherwise, you're okay. That's a typical AS child. They're the miniature professors, knowing and telling you all about certain subjects, yet at the same time are the police officers for peers. I enjoy talking to Bob about a lot of things. He's very intuitive to certain subjects, but when it comes to remembering how to shake hands at church, we have to have a mini-lesson to remember things. Anyway, we moved to Wisconsin a few years ago, and moves or anything to mess up Bob's schedule is a crisis to him. We dealt with him early, explaining why we had to leave (my husband's company in Kansas was laying off, and before he lost his job, he got a new one, but in Wisconsin). Bob was okay with all of it, because we'd taken the time to explain it to him, over and over again. Yes, the pets were coming with us. No, the neighbors that you hate won't be with us, etc. So, we'd been in this house for over three months, when one day, Bob turned to me. "Where's the refrigerator?" It was a typical Bob question. He'd been using the refrigerator for three months, because we'd brought it with us from Kansas. But he was oblivious to things around him. "In the kitchen," I replied. "It's that big white thing where we keep things like the milk and so on." "Oh yeah," he said, and off he went to scrounge for food. Teenagers do eat a lot. I'm just glad he's not driving at 16. Knowing him, he'd 'forget' to look for things like stop signs, etc. I also asked him one day how far away Chicago and Milwaukee were. Now, Milwaukee's about 2 hours south of here, about 100 miles. Chicago is about 4 hours south of here, or 200 miles. Bob's answer? A mile for each...and we can get there in minutes. Now I'm REALLY glad he's not going to be driving any time soon. |
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