My friend and Aspergers

[Eleonora]

We thought that we would create a thread where we can discuss about this:

My friend is an adult woman with Asperger syndrome. She cannot write to this forum because she cannot talk/write to people that she doesn't know well in person. (For example: when we met, she couldn't talk to me either. It took few times that she said first words for me.)

It's hard to explain why, but when she ask someone to write somewhere for her (it's not only about forums), the message cannot be written in first person - the message must be written in passive or in the third person instead.

She also want to add that her disability doesn't mean that she is stupid or unable to do things. She is clever and can do things by herself. My friend also understand things including what you write here since she speaks english.

Although my friend cannot do it by herself she tells me what she wants me to write and I write it to you. So she's actually all the time with me when I write to the forum. So my part of this is that I physically do what she cannot. If needed, we can tell you more about her disability.

She told me to write in this forum because this forum seems nice and she needs advice on dog training because she doesn't have a person yet who could advice her.

 

[milos_mommy]

Welcome to the forums! What kind of dog(s) does your friend have?

 

[Barb04]

I think this is wonderful that you are helping your friend to become a part of our forum. I look forward to any questions she has or posts she's like to make about her dog.

 

[Eleonora]

Welcome to the forums! What kind of dog(s) does your friend have?

My friend has a young Cavalier King Charles spaniel Lotta

I think this is wonderful that you are helping your friend to become a part of our forum. I look forward to any questions she has or posts she's like to make about her dog.

We told in the previous message that:

She told me to write in this forum because this forum seems nice and she needs advice on dog training because she doesn't have a person yet who could advice her.

We have written several messages about that in the dog training section. Maybe you can answer to some of the questions we have asked there. We have also this thread:
http://www.chazhound.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2360925#post2360925

 

[Eleonora]

We had told that:

My friend is an adult woman with Asperger syndrome. She cannot write to this forum because she cannot talk/write to people that she doesn't know well in person. (For example: when we met, she couldn't talk to me either. It took few times that she said first words for me.)

It's hard to explain why, but when she ask someone to write somewhere for her (it's not only about forums), the message cannot be written in first person - the message must be written in passive or in the third person instead.

She also want to add that her disability doesn't mean that she is stupid or unable to do things. She is clever and can do things by herself. My friend also understand things including what you write here since she speaks english

and she has also studied it. My friend constantly reads this forum. Although these languages (english, finnish) are so different, my friend wouldn't be able to write the messages any better than I do. However, since

my friend cannot do it by herself she tells me what she wants me to write and I write it to you. So she's actually all the time with me when I write to the forum.

I just write her words here. So actually she is discussing with you - I only write what I'm told. My part of this is that I physically do what she cannot.

In another thread, one of you suggested that when I write for her, it would affect on communication. That is not the case. It doesn't affect on the messages who is writing them like in the examples here: http://www.funkyenglish.com/profiles/blogs/describing-of-reported-speech-idol-object-classroom-my-own
It affects on the messages even less since we write them together. The only difference than if my friend could write the messages herself is that they are written in passive or in the third person.

She told me to write in this forum because this forum seems nice and she needs advice on dog training.

I can't help her by myself, because I used to have different kind of dog than Lotta is. My friend has taken Lotta to courses and she is going to take Lotta to them again as soon as she can. She would like to discuss about dog training in this forum until then.

 

[Keechak]

The different levels of aspbrgers is always interesting to me. I was also diagnosed with asbergers in high school, however I am able to freely talk to most people and I am often too brazen when it comes to talking to certain people. I do however have problems with eye contact(I noticed I had a problem with this the first time when my friends made fun of me about it and said "Hey Erin come on why don't you look us in the eye?"), being touched, and honestly have trouble having conversations with anyone unless it is about dogs or about myself, if they start talking about something else I zone out entirely. I come off a bit narcissistic to people I suppose.


As far as your friend goes, I will try to help where I can.

 

[Eleonora]

have trouble having conversations with anyone unless it is about dogs...//....As far as your friend goes, I will try to help where I can.

My friend would need advice on dog training. You could look at this thread: http://www.chazhound.com/forums/showthread.php?t=271247
We have told there what kind of advice my friend would need.

If you would be interested in discussing for example about take and drop we had linked a tutorial (from Pamela Johnson) in the page 2. We have tried to ask questions about it. Maybe you could answer to them.

 

[CharlieDog]

I have autism, my official diagnosis is high functioning autistic/neurological sensory processing disorder. I usually use that last one if I'm cornered by strangers and certain family members as to why I have a Service Dog.

I have a lot of trouble with facial expressions, looking people in the eye, though I can fake that well enough by focusing just past them, or on a different part of their face. Sometimes I just can't do that either though, and have to look at the ground or in the air. Quite a few people on this board are autistic. Aspergers is being put under the autism umbrella as well, I believe. Saelofu would know more than I would about that. We're pretty similar in terms of functioning level, though I think she's a bit better than me. I can't hold a job to save my life, just about literally.

I have stim issues that have cropped up lately from stress, and then I have stimming that I do thats solely just soothing. Sometimes I feel like a show dog, lol. I have a CRAPLOAD of letters after my name it feels like lol. ASD (autism spectrum disorder) PTSD (though not as bad as it used to be, I can actually RIDE in a car now and not be the one driving) SAD (drugs help this, and I go on a round of treatment and wean off every winter) and then I have migraines and myclonic idiopathic seizures. There are a few others that I have that I usually forget about, like exploding head syndrome, though lately I'd be more inclined to call it "screaming lady is being murdered right as I fall asleep" syndrome.

What are your friends special interests? Mine are cars (Once I got a SD and started getting more comfortable working with a partner, I decided to go to college to study automechanics and am actually enjoying myself) dogs, horses and snakes. I dabble in other things, like archery and such. I tend to throw myself into projects and then lose interest fairly quickly. I've learned the hard way that I have to slow down before spending a lot of money on something I probably won't enjoy doing three to six weeks down the road.

I used to be a professional dog trainer, for a small business, but the necessity of working with people I decided against getting my CPDT, though I could certainly take and pass the test. I still occasionally take a dog for in board training, or boarding, but I find even that is very stressful a lot of the time. I realized I don't like being responsible for other peoples pets, and my own dogs are enough to keep me busy trick training, since they're all so very different.

 

[Eleonora]

My friend doesn't have actual special interests where she would concentrate only in one thing at the time. There are different kind of things she is interested in.

What are your friends special interests? Mine are cars (Once I got a SD and started getting more comfortable working with a partner, I decided to go to college to study automechanics and am actually enjoying myself) dogs, horses and snakes. I dabble in other things, like archery and such. I tend to throw myself into projects and then lose interest fairly quickly.

My friend is of course interested in dogs and their training because she has one. She's also interested in horses.

 

[SoCrafty]

It sounds like you are being a good friend

What kinds of different things is she interested in?

I saw in another thread that you were looking for advice on how to train Lotta. Is it hard for your friend to interact with new people in a group setting? I don't have Asperger's but I do have a little bit of social anxiety which makes it hard for me to be in a group setting sometimes. Would your friend let you take her dog to classes and have video taken? Maybe when the class is over you can show her what you've learned and she can practice.

It's kind of hard for people on the internet who don't know the dog to give specific training ideas.

 

[Eleonora]

My friend doesn't have actual special interests where she would concentrate only in one thing at the time. There are different kind of things she is interested in.

My friend is of course interested in dogs and their training because she has one. She's also interested in horses.

It sounds like you are being a good friend

What kinds of different things is she interested in?

I saw in another thread that you were looking for advice on how to train Lotta. Is it hard for your friend to interact with new people in a group setting? I don't have Asperger's but I do have a little bit of social anxiety which makes it hard for me to be in a group setting sometimes. Would your friend let you take her dog to classes and have video taken? Maybe when the class is over you can show her what you've learned and she can practice.

My friend has taken Lotta to courses by herself and SHE is going to take Lotta to them again as soon as she can.

 

[Dogdragoness]

My friend doesn't have actual special interests where she would concentrate only in one thing at the time. There are different kind of things she is interested in.



My friend is of course interested in dogs and their training because she has one. She's also interested in horses.

I love horses too, I work as a groom and pony person for race horses and have a horse myself. I love it because I really don't have to deal with people a lot (I have anxiety and ADHD so dealing with people is tough) and the people I do deal with are kind of misfits like me so it's cool lol.

 

[Eleonora]

Others that have Aspergers have different kind of difficulties. My friend has difficulties with communication. In the previous messages we told that:

She cannot write to this forum because she cannot talk/write to people that she doesn't know well in person..../

/....It's hard to explain why, but when she ask someone to write somewhere for her (it's not only about forums), the message cannot be written in first person - the message must be written in passive or in the third person instead.

and that:

In another thread, one of you suggested that when I write for her, it would affect on communication. That is not the case. It doesn't affect on the messages who is writing them...//...It affects on the messages even less since we write them together. The only difference than if my friend could write the messages herself is that they are written in passive or in the third person.

We tried to ask in another thread about this: one of you had suggested that I would refer to my friend by some name. Maybe it could be used as a compromise. What are your opinions about it? Would it be better idea than to write my friend? My friend is still interested to know what do you think about that.

 

[Dogdragoness]

I think what people are saying is that since your posts are written in passive or third person (I know your friend wishes for them to be written that way) it makes them kind of hard to comprehend.

 

[Eleonora]

The reason messages cannot be written differently relates somehow to my friend's disability. It's difficult to explain how.

I think what people are saying is that since your posts are written in passive or third person (I know your friend wishes for them to be written that way) it makes them kind of hard to comprehend.

It should not affect so much who writes the messages. We have told more about it earlier.

We tried to ask in another thread about this: one of you had suggested that I would refer to my friend by some name. Maybe it could be used as a compromise. What are your opinions about it? Would it be better idea than to write my friend? My friend is still interested to know what do you think about that.

My friend is still interested to know if it is a good idea what was suggested.

 

[Dogdragoness]

Yes I think it would be a good idea to pick a name that she would like to be called, it might make it easier go give advice.

 

[Eleonora]

My friend thought that she would comment about following things rather in this thread:

1) In other thread one of you asked if my friend could write here by herself. My friend is an adult woman with Asperger syndrome. She cannot write to this forum because she cannot talk/write to people that she doesn't know well in person. (For example: when we met, she couldn't talk to me either. It took few times that she said first words to me.)

It's hard to explain why, but when she ask someone to write somewhere for her (it's not only about forums), the message cannot be written in first person - the message must be written in passive or in the third person instead. The reason those messages cannot be written differently relates somehow to my friend's disability. It's difficult to explain how.

Although my friend cannot do it by herself she tells me what she wants me to write and I write it to you. My friend doesn't just ask me to write those messages, we write them together. So she's actually all the time with me when I write to the forum. So my part of this is that I physically do what she cannot.

2) It seems like you wouldn't like that we quote our messages. However, when we start writing messages my friend might have many things on her mind that she would like to say. Although my friend speaks english and she has also studied it, she doesn't always know how to explain things well enough in english and I can't always help her with it. She doesn't always know either how to explain the same things differently. Then it's easier to use the sentences we have already written.

This is only an example but if we normally did it this way:

My friend doesn't have actual special interests where she would concentrate only in one thing at the time. There are different kind of things she is interested in.

Should we possibly do it this way instead?:
"My friend doesn't have actual special interests where she would concentrate only in one thing at the time. There are different kind of things she is interested in."

Or are there better ideas if/when my friend doesn't know how to say the same things differently?

3) When we started writing in this forum we apparently used bolding too much. My friend didn't notice it by herself. We hadn't used bolding for a while except when we created one thread in The Dog Training section. We thought that it wouldn't matter if we bolded only the questions.

 

[Eleonora]

My friend wants to comment/discuss about following things rather in this thread because they don't relate so well to the subjects of that other thread. The only reason we have written about them in that other thread is that my friend has been commenting other's messages:

1) This is actually my friend's account. I'm just the one who is writing here because of this: we have been trying to explain that my friend cannot write directly here because she doesn't know you yet. (We have started to write in your threads) My friend knows that many disable people are able to communicate in the ways as if they could tell those things by themselves even if they were not be able to speak. However, like we have tried to explain my friend is not able to communicate in those ways...

2) We had just asked for advice on how we could refer to our messages if/when my friend doesn't figure out how to say the same things differently. In another thread one of you was commenting the way we answer to other's comments. S/he told that one should always put his/her own comment under the quote.

However, my friend has sometimes done it this way if/when there hasn't been a good way to divide messages so that we could always be able to write under the quote:


So, my friend might have done it that way if/when she has wanted to comment certain parts of the message. It's because my friend thinks that it would look silly if we did it this way:



Sometimes my friend puts her comment between two quotes if two of the users are talking about same things. Those messages might be quite long.

Do you think that we would answer to other's comments in bizzare ways?

 

[Eleonora]

My friend hadn't asked me to tell about this earlier because she's not sure what this service is in english she has been getting. I have been mostly some kind of "worker" but now I'm going to quit this job. The next one is going to continue writing the messages with my friend as soon as she finds one. My friend asked me to tell about this in case you wonder if the next messages are written a little differently.

 

[Jadex]

I think you could call that person a "personal assistant". My brother has Asperger's as well and I understand how communication can be difficult sometimes.

In reference to making it easier for people to understand your writings, is your friend okay with being referred to by their first name (or even a made up name if you don't want people to know your first name), instead of "my friend"? That might make it easier to understand.

Like this....

Jane hadn't asked me to tell about this earlier because she's not sure what this service is in english she has been getting. I have been mostly some kind of "worker" but now I'm going to quit this job. The next one is going to continue writing the messages with Jane as soon as she finds one. Jane asked me to tell about this in case you wonder if the next messages are written a little differently.

Also, does your friend prefer to be referred to in third person or second person when replied to?

Second person ex: Do you like to be referred to in third or second person?