What is Autism & What is Asperger's - How I Explained it to My Daughter With Asperger's

Some of the most interesting conversations that our family has is in the car driving to work/school in the morning.

This morning's discussion started when L described one of her old YMCA friends as being "Special Needs".

I asked her if she went to a special education classroom. She answered "yes". I asked her if that also made her "Special Needs". She answered "I guess". Then I asked her if she would like it if people called her "Special Needs". She stammered about how she did not mean to be rude.

The child that she had previously been referring to was autistic. I mentioned that he probably had Asperger's like she has. Which lead to the question of what is Asperger's and how does it differ from Autism.

Here was my explanation to her. It is an explanation based upon my experience of being an Aspie, raising two Aspies, and working and interacting with other children on the Spectrum.

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Autism is like a language. You are born into one language. For us this is English. You know English without having to try it. Should you try speaking Spanish to your friends this would be very difficult for you.

Your primary language is Autism.

This comes naturally to you, just like it comes naturally to children with Classic Autism.

Children with Classic Autism talk more with their native language.

Children with Asperger's have one side in their native language and their other side in their not native language. I call this the Neurotypical world. It can also be called the mainstream world.

You can learn the skills to navigate the Neurotypical world.

You learn social skills. You learn to use your words. You learn when it is not appropriate to flick your fingers in front of your eyes, or flap your hands.

Are these things easy for your? (No) No, you have to work hard to do all of these things, but you can do them.

Living in this other world is exhausting. It takes skills that you have to work at all the time. This is why when you come home you go back to your native language of Autism.

This language has it's own body language, it has different rules, and it is a world that you instinctively understand.

Most of my friends have children who are on the Autism Spectrum. If Autism is not their native language they may have a hard time understanding what their children say. Since Autism is my native language I usually understand their kids just fine.

Once when you were younger we were at the park with some friends. Taylor, my friend's son, climbed on top of some playground equipment and got stuck. His Autism language screamed that he was stuck and needed help. However, to his mom he was just stimming.

When I worked with kids on the Autism Spectrum, I was often able to understand when kids were not learning what the other therapist thought that they were learning. There was one boy that was learning about different objects. The objects were on cards that had borders around them. I was able to tell the other therapists that he was not learning the objects. Instead he was matching the boarders. When we took the boarders off the cards, he was able to start learning about the objects.

I can see things like this easily, because my native language is the same. However, in order to take care of you and to keep a job I have to stay in the mainstream world most of the time. Even I have to escape into my own Autism world. I do this mainly by reading. If I do not read I could not function like I do.