Girls, horses, and Asperger Syndrome

I don't have any proof that girls with Asperger Syndrome love horses any more than typical girls do, but I have my suspicions. Asperger girls often love animals, and by the age of 8 or 9, many do seem to gravitate towards horses. And in many ways horses are an ideal interest for a girl with Asperger's. The one-on-one relationship between a girl and a horse is rewarding and calming, and an obsession with horses is a socially acceptable, even expected, passion for girls in general. There are stables in just about every town where girls can be taught the specific rules of grooming, tacking up, and riding a horse. Often there are group riding lessons, where the Asperger girl can be included with a group of like-minded and same-age peers as they all learn to ride together. This set-up works well for someone who struggles socially, because each child is on a horse, working individually, and being supervised by an instructor. The social pressure is much less than in, say, soccer or gymnastics. An added bonus is the possibility of making a friend during the brief social period before or after the lesson, and girls with Asperger Syndrome do well when they have a good friend with a common obsessive interest. Once a girl is knee-deep in the world of horses, all kinds of possibilities open up. Summer camps that revolve around riding, for example, or Pony Club and 4H.

Since many typical girls love horses, the Asperger girl's involvement in the horse world allows her to fit in with peers she might otherwise never have met. It's not perfect, of course. There are just as many mean girls at stables as there are in school. But where an Asperger girl may feel left out of the social world at school--boys, makeup, celebrity gossip--she will fit right in with the girls who want to talk about horses all day.

If you have a daughter with Asperger Syndrome showing an interest in horses, I encourage you to ask around to find a good local stable where she can begin to learn everything she wants to know about horse care and riding. This is something that may bring her joy, fun, and friendship for a lifetime.

1950s and 60s self-care and social skills movies

It's interesting to me that parents of kids with Asperger Syndrome work hard to teach their children social skills, while parents of typical kids spend little or no time worrying about this issue. It's assumed today that "regular" kids just know this stuff, while ASD kids have to learn it by rote. You can almost hear the cries of autism hysterics: "We didn't have these problems in past generations! It's the toxins!"

The fact is, in the 1950s and 60s a great deal of time was spent teaching typical children how to behave and why. A large number of educational films on social skills and self-care were created for American schoolchildren in the old days, and kids watched them in school, probably in a class called Health. It was a more formal world, and children received direct instruction, at home and at school, on manners and social etiquette. So why don't we teach this in school anymore? Why is it assumed that kids today will just know? And why do I continue to hear the school say that teaching social skills is a brand new field in special education, with no curriculum and no roadmap? Teaching this kind of thing in school is not new, and it's not specific to Asperger Syndrome or special education. The reality is that this did exist and has been lost, along with a bunch of other good stuff they used to have in school, like recess every day.

I found a few old educational movies on YouTube to watch with FW. They may seem corny, but they have social and self-care information that can be helpful to some kids with Asperger Syndrome. The basic concepts are solid. Although I suppose there's a risk of a kid with AS picking up outdated slang or wrong ideas about hairstyles, I think the benefits outweigh the risks. And watching with FW, I can help him understand the things that were then, and how we do them now. I really do wonder, though, why they don't still make these kinds of movies. I know kids snickered at them back then, but surely there were one or two kids in class watching intently, because they really needed to know.

Neurodiveristy advocacy in action, 1950

Just Give Him the Whale!

We work extra hard to get FW up to speed on the things "typical" kids his age are doing--this summer he had swimming lessons and got his first real bike, for example--but we certainly don't stand in the way of his more Aspergerific pursuits. Sometimes it's hard to know where to draw the line, though. Will FW be bullied if his hobbies are chess and flowers, or could things like that actually end up helping him socially in some ways?

We're a pro-hobby family, and my opinion is this: the more passions you have, the happier your life will be. Even if you don't have a ton of friends, you'll always have something to do, always have something to enjoy. So if FW wants to collect slime molds, hey, let's take him out to the brush pile and let him dig around. If he wants to make model rockets, let's look for a local rocket club. If we think he'd like chess, let's give him some basic lessons and see where it goes. And if he really wants to be able to pronounce all the names of the prehistoric creatures that interest him, maybe he should study a little Latin. As long as we balance all this out with a minimal understanding of sports and some friend-making skills, I think he'll be fine.

The encouragement of the "special interest" is considered by some to be a bad thing. Some parents of Aspergian kids think the "special interest" can get out of control and end up in a danger zone (like if the kid becomes interested in Nazis or weapons). But I agree with Temple Grandin, who believes parents and teachers can use the special interest to direct and help the child. If the kid only wants to talk about, say, Thomas the Tank Engine, the parents can acknowledge and support the Thomas stuff, but also introduce the child to the history of real trains, how trains are built, etc., and gradually move into other forms of transport--planes, cars, covered wagons--until the child has a broader interest. So it's not that the Thomas interest has to be discouraged in any way, just that the Aspergian child's interest can be a jumping off point for a whole world of wonder. The amazing Paula Kluth, an expert on autism and the inclusive classroom, has some smart ideas about the using the "special interest" to help kids with autism in her book Just Give Him the Whale.

Bath fuss averted

FW loves his bath, but washing his hair has always been difficult because he can't stand to have water dripping down his face. It's not a soap-in-eyes deal (he screams even if it's plain water), but a major sensory annoyance for him. We worked around this as best we could for a while, mainly by keeping his hair short and leaving a long time between hair washes. Then we found the Sassy Bath N Sun Visor , which instantly resolved the water-in-face fuss situation. These things are foam visors with a velcro closure, and they keep water and soap off the face. One Step Ahead also carries a version. FW no longer minds hair washing thanks to the visor.