Who's More Autistic?

I wrote about my growing certainty Bear has ASD in a post a few weeks ago (What If There Was a Cure For Autism?).  It has thrown up some interesting considerations for me.  The cubs are brothers with not even two years between them and both have ASD/Asperger's but there are some significant differences in how their ASD presents.

Tyger doesn't 'appear' to be autistic to the untrained eye.  His language has always been ahead for his age and whilst that's not actually uncommon for kids with Asperger's, a lot of people still only know about non-verbal ASD kids or, at least, those with a language delay.

Bear, on the other hand, is clearly very bright but struggles with his language.  He's come on leaps and bounds in the last week or two but still struggles to enunciate and often resorts to grunting, a string of vowel sounds and calling everyone 'Daddoo' or 'Daddy' (though, he has attempted other names - including Mummy!).

Tyger holds in a lot of his more autistic traits whilst around anyone he doesn't live with and a lot of his autistic behaviours are slightly a-typical.  He does his 'verbal stimming' but very few people would actually realise this was an autistic thing, even if they were vaguely aware it was a bit 'off'.

Bear's ASD behaviours are both more visible and typical.  He flaps his hands a lot when he's excited or frustrated and he walks around on tiptoes a lot of the time.  He licks the wall, stove and flagstones and scratches and hits his own face when upset.

Basically, Bear currently looks 'more autistic'.

So, what does this mean?  Will Bear have a harder life ahead of him?  Is his ASD more 'severe'?

I actually suspect it might put him at a slight advantage.  Getting Tyger a diagnosis proved to be a challenge because, whilst the medical professionals recognised his autistic behaviours, other people involved in his care (who were consulted in his diagnosis) didn't see any ASD behaviours from him.  Bear has an older brother with a diagnosis alongside his more 'classic' autistic behaviours so will hopefully get that piece of paper more easily.

But it's not just the diagnosis I suspect might be easier.

Tyger is highly anxious and that's why he 'masks' his ASD when around anyone outwith the family (because he desperately wants to fit in).  He moderates his own behaviour outside the house but it's very tiring for him and often means he's exhausted by the time he gets home and more likely to have a meltdown.

Bear only seems to show anxiety when something in his usual routine or placement of things/people is off (and, even then, it's often anger more than anxiety!).  I hope as he gets older he'll actually be able to cope quite well as long as he has a good routine in place.  I don't think - though, it's obviously early days yet - he'll be as likely to hold everything in as Tyger.  If he's able and willing to do whatever he needs to in order to help stop him becoming overloaded (like the hand flapping or any other stimming) he might find things easier than Tyger.

It's interesting to think about what people consider to be more or less 'severely autistic' and how that translates when it comes to the quality of life the person with ASD actually leads.

The temptation is to think of ASD as a linear scale.  I mean, the 'spectrum' in autism spectrum disorder brings to mind a rainbow and the use of 'high functioning' and 'low functioning' (which many people find offensive, anyway) suggests it's as simple as starting at red and working through to violet.  Perhaps red is a non-verbal child who spends their day doing one repetitive activity in between meltdowns with lots of stimming and no eye contact.  That makes violet the slightly quirky but highly intelligent individual who is able to progress in a prestigious career and live totally independently.  Then all the other colours progress through from one to the other.

The truth is, it's not as simple as that.  That non-verbal child might start talking at the age of seven and end up living alone whilst holding down a job.  The employable aspie might have meltdowns nightly from the stress of their job and self harm from the anxiety it causes them.  Who, in this scenario, is 'more' autistic?  And who has the better quality of life?

Of course, those are extreme examples but not unheard of.  A very common scenario is for autistic school children to have what's known as 'spiky profiles'.  This means they excel in some subjects and areas whilst being far behind average in others.  In other words, they are unpredictable and hard to fit into a box.

Many non-verbal children do end up communicating.  Some start talking, others use picture cards, some use sign language and some find they can type (sometimes incredibly eloquently).  Many apparently 'high functioning' autistic people are never able to live independently, struggle with seemingly simple tasks and have a host of mental health illnesses almost certainly linked to their ASD.

Many people on the spectrum tick boxes at either end of the scale or simply a range in between.

I'm not saying there is no point in terms like high and low functioning ASD (though, I am more comfortable using 'Asperger's' and 'classic autism' as these seem to be far less offensive terms).  Nor am I even saying everyone with ASD has the same severity of autism.  I'm simply pointing out it's not black and white (of course not - it's a spectrum!) and that trying to determine 'how autistic' people are is not important.

Linked with:

Are Dinosaurs Bear's 'Voogers'?

There are a few little happenings and developments with the cubs that don't really fit in with any other blog post subject ideas I've had recently so I thought I'd round them all up and stick them together here in an update post.  However, I started writing about Bear and it went on much longer than I anticipated and with my brother and his girlfriend coming to visit tomorrow on my usual blog writing day, I don't think I'll get chance to write any more even if I wanted to.  So, this is Bear's update and - unless anything so amazing happens that I can't bring myself not to blog about it immediately - the next blog post will be Tyger's update.

Bear

'Baby' Bear is certainly no longer a baby!  He can climb.  He can really climb.  Bear is more like a...goat.  You know, like in those viral photos of goats in trees and on the sheer side of a dam?  Or he's like a squirrel or a monkey or...well, a bear, I guess.  Black bears, in particular, are very good climbers I think.  Yup, Baby Bear is like a bear!

He scales chairs to get onto the dining table, he climbs from the sofa to a coffee table to a shelf of CDs and if a chair is left along one side of the dining room it affords him opportunity to climb onto the kitchen work surface via a serving hatch between the two rooms.  He has even managed to open and empty the biscuit tin on one such excursion.  It's not quite a paw in beehive for honey but he and actual bears obviously also share a sweet tooth (I'm pretty sure real bears eat honey and it's not completely made up by A.A. Milne...pretty sure).  So, going to the toilet, making a cup of tea, putting away washing, anything involving leaving the living room/dining room/hall area Bear has access to is...hazardous.

If falling from a great height due to his own error in judgement was Baby Bear's only threat it wouldn't be too bad.  I mean, it would still be both annoying and stomach churningly alarming for me but he'd be unlikely to actually do himself too bad an injury.  There is another threat, though.  A loud, unpredictable, often violent threat.  If Bear is a bear, Tyger is a tiger.  Wild, unpredictable, prone to displays of intimidation (he screams in poor Bear's face a lot) but will attack if necessary (you know, if you class 'necessary' as he gets annoyed...or excited...or tired...or angry...upset...hungry...bored...).

A couple of weeks ago Bear climbed onto one of the dining chairs and stood playing at the table.  For once, he didn't climb onto the dining table so I left him to it (watching as I made lunch).  Then there was a tiger attack.  Tyger ran up to Bear and pushed the chair away.  Bear managed to grab the table and was left clinging on to it with his top half as his leg kicked the air like a cliffhanger in a TV show.  One of those literal cliff hangers with someone actually hanging off the edge of a cliff.  Luckily, at my scream, Mum ran to the rescue and grabbed Bear from the metre or so drop (which doesn't sound like much...okay, it isn't much but it's still taller than poor Baby Bear).  And this is the problem with Bear's bear-like climbing.  It would perhaps be bearable (ha...see what I did there?) if it weren't for Tyger grabbing at Bear, pulling away whatever he's climbing on, shouting at him and generally distracting him.  This extra risk makes Bear's climbing much more nerve wracking.

Climbing is not Bear's only recent achievement.  He has also started communicating much more.  I don't mean talking.  Bear does not really recognise the necessity of speech.  He is often able to do things for himself - if it involves retrieving something from somewhere high up, for instance - or he has started pointing and shouting.  Not shouting words because, as I said, he doesn't really do the whole speaking thing much, but shouting...noises.  Bear likes vowel sounds so he can do 'aaahhh' and 'oh' and 'uh' and makes these noise to get attention.  When he actually tries to form words he tends not to bother with consonants.  'Hello' becomes 'ah-oh' and 'thank you' is 'ah-oo' (he likes 'uh oh' for obvious reasons).  But he can make himself understood surprisingly well with the pointing and random noise technique.  He can also bring things to you, shake his head for 'no' and flap his hands for 'yes'.  Considering the sort of information he's generally trying to get across is 'I want a breadstick' or pass me Fergus' or 'put this toy in this other toy' and not...quantum mechanics, he gets by pretty well.

The other exciting news with Bear - although, this may only be relatable if you have a couple of children who have/possibly have ASD and even then I'm not convinced other people would be excited by it - is he might have his first 'special interest'!

Tyger's obsession is vacuum cleaners and Henry Hoover more specifically.

Of course, they're lined up as well...

I wanted to show off and add a photo of the Henry Hoover cake I made for Tyger for his third birthday because he was insistent he wanted a Henry 'Vooger' (what he called hoovers - though, alas, he can actually say 'hoover' now so I think I'll use 'vooger' as a term for an obsession because I've always thought it's so cute) rather than anything else and despite never doing anything more complicated than butter cream icing before I was quite proud of my efforts.  However, after finding a picture of said cake I remembered it has Tyger's real name on (in place of 'Henry') and that would sort of defeat the whole point of using pseudonyms...

Anyway, I wrote about how Tyger's obsession with vacuum cleaners began here in my 'What's Your Favourite Animal?' post.  Basically, he started out terrified of them and gradually became enthralled.  The reason I mention this is because something very similar seems to be happening with Bear.  The Wolf's lovely parents bought Tyger a pack of plastic dinosaurs that make a noise when you squeeze them when they visited recently.  The noise they make is pretty scary and loud and to start with Bear was terrified (possibly not helped by Tyger trying to shove all four dinosaurs in Bear's face whilst setting them all off making noise at the same time).  He stamped his feet and shook his head any time they were near and if someone (i.e. Tyger) sneaked up too close with one Bear threw it away and cried.

But he was still fascinated.  He kept pointing at the dinosaurs and even though he was still scared when anyone squeezed one, once the sound had stopped he'd grin.  And he started to get closer to them...  It wasn't as gradual as Tyger's conversion to hoovers but then I guess they're not as big or noisy.  I got Bear a dinosaur book and he loves pointing to the pictures and making roaring sounds.  He's not as taken with the soft dinosaur I bought him, which makes an even more terrifying sound when it's squeezed, but then he seems to think any fraternising with cuddly toys other than Fergus is some sort of betrayal.  No other soft toys are allowed.  In general, dinosaurs seem to be of great interest right now.

I wonder...will dinosaurs be Bear's voogers?

Linked with: