Asperger's Syndrome: An Introduction for Educators

By Lynn Cohen, MSW

Asperger's Syndrome: An Introduction for Educators

By Lynn Cohen, MSW

Ms. Kelly could see that all was not well with Aaron. The four-year-old walked with a strange lope, vaguely pigeon-toed, and slumped, as if wanting to fold in on himself. Even after a week of child care, he refused to make eye contact. When he did respond to questions, he spoke in a machine-like monotone.

While Aaron occasionally eyed the other children, he made no attempt to engage with them. In fact, Aaron seemed content to play with his toy dinosaur, a replica of a stegosaurus whose name, his mother laughingly told the staff, was "Amph." Whenever Ms. Kelly or another teacher attempted to get him to join the group, Aaron pulled away, as if physical contact and closeness burned his skin. But when, by the end of the second week, Aaron was no more engaged with the group than he was initially, Ms. Kelly firmly explained to him that he needed to participate in a game of musical chairs. As she gently removed Amph from Aaron's hands, he met her eyes with an expression of pain, confusion, even betrayal. Though Ms. Kelly tried to soothe him, Aaron's tantrum escalated. He appeared not to hear or even to be aware of other people trying to talk to him. Eventually, he was removed from the classroom.

Later that day, when Aaron's mother came to pick him up, Ms. Kelly discussed Aaron's behavior. "He can be stubborn," Aaron's mother agreed. "He won't learn manners," she said, describing how Aaron interrupted people in the midst of conversation with a monologue on his favorite topic, dinosaurs. Aaron's tantrums at home also disturbed and baffled his mother. Many times she couldn't figure out what they were about, but she had noticed that they occurred most frequently when they were leaving the house.

Based on this conversation, it was clear to Ms. Kelly that Aaron's problems were not confined to the center. When asked what his pediatrician had to say about Aaron's behavior, Aaron's mother confessed that he had recommended that her son see a psychiatrist, who could prescribe him medication to alleviate some of his problematic symptoms. "But I didn't want my son on drugs," she said. Nevertheless, Aaron's mother agreed to allow a psychologist to evaluate Aaron.

The psychologist administered a sophisticated and exhaustive series of psychological, neuropsychological, and educational tests. Fortunately for Aaron, his family, and his teachers, this psychologist had evaluated children whose behaviors were similar to Aaron's. With a verbal IQ of 140 and a full scale score of 122, Aaron did not fit the standard profile of a child with autism. Neither could he be categorized as "Oppositional-Defiant," or ADHD, or obsessive-compulsive, though he exhibited signs of each of these diagnoses. The psychologist concluded that Aaron was one of a growing number of children with Asperger's Syndrome.

Children With Asperger's Syndrome
Every teacher knows children like Aaron. They're "different," "strange," "eccentric." They don't fit in. They grow up to become the brainy kids, the computer "geeks," socially aloof and alone. Though it may not have felt so to his mother at the time, Aaron was lucky to have been diagnosed so swiftly. Many children with Asperger's Syndrome are initially misdiagnosed and thus treatment, however well-intentioned, is misguided and involves medication targeting one or more symptoms without taking the entire condition into ac