My 7 yr old son has ADHD and Asperger's Syndrome I want to know how I can get him to mind me and my partner after his meds have worn off

Tracey - posted on 03/31/2009

I started my son on Risperidone about a year ago. One thing I make SURE of is to NEVER RUN OUT!  Having a child off and on and off and on a medication is more detrimental than doing one or the other totally. Certainly talk to your doctor and find out if the time release medications would work better for your child.

Charlotte - posted on 03/31/2009

Dear Anita,

I also have a son who has Asperger's Syndrome.  He is now 21. I believe the key thing is to make sure he is hearing you and understands your instructions.  Don't overload with too many at one time.  Generally a list of more than three verbal commands requires that we make written list that can be checked off.  It is not that they don't want to do as they are asked it just that when given too much information at one time, they go into overload and they can not keep things in order or remember all the steps. One thing we learned was the more of his sense you can incorporate while communicating with him the better.   Our son, Jacob  was blessed with a very clever teacher that taugh him several and lovingly passed them along to us so we could use them at home.  They seemed silly at first, but they were effective. Visiual clues can help keep their thoughts organized and on track.  Since we could seldom get eye to eye contact with him, to make sure he was tuned in and listening we made him turn on his listening ears.  He would literally take his hand, raise it up beside his head and make a motion as though turning an invisible knob to switch on his ears.  When Jacob grew impatient because he did not want to wait for something he was taught to respond to the the question: "What must you have?"  the response "patience."  question "why?" response "because it is a virture."  This usually reminded him that having patience was a good thing and something to be desired, so it usually settled him down quickly and help him not be so anxious during his wait.  Discipline and correct inproper behavior when needed, but be quicker to reconize and priase postative behavior.  For every no or repremand let there be three yes or "that a boys!"  Play to his interest.  Incorporate them into his chore time whenever possible.  If he likes sports, make putting his dirty clothes in the hamper, etc. a game of slam dunk until it goes in.  Most of all have patience yourself, there are times when you have to allow them to get things done at there own pace.  (It took my son 3 hours to finish up his kitchen duty last night, about 30 minutes worth of work.) These are just some general guidelines that worked for us.  I hope they are useful to you as well, however, every child is different and respond to different things.  Raising an Asperger child is like raising any other child, a matter of trial and error and finding what works specifically for them.

Mandy - posted on 03/31/2009

I found out that swithcing medications really help my son, we swiched to an extended release medication and we also keeping a very strick schedule after school, going from a stuctured invironment to home is and can be overwelming to someone with asperger's. I also found that giving him one direction at a time really helps, things take longer to get done but it is well worth the wait, otherwise all we ever did was fight cause he was not getting the things I asked him to do done. Talk to your doctor and everyone else that you may be working with and see also what they say. With my son we learned many things that worked and did not work by just trying them.