Free Essay Example. Silent Thoughts

Accordingly, treatment for Asperger syndrome tends to be complicated and involving. The procedure often includes individual/ family therapy, distinct education, professional therapy, psychopharmacology, and discourse treatment. However, this article focuses on group social skills as a form of treatment for AS (Hwang & Hughes, 2000). The main aim of the project was to assist young people aged between 19 and 30 years who had Asperger Syndrome (AS). Importantly, not many programs exist for parents and families that have children with AS. Such programs should allow parents to be involved in social skills and groups either with their children or separately. Notably, supporting students as they develop skills to enable them to deal with the challenges faced in a new learning environment hence improving their self-esteem eventually. Thus, this paper describes the experiences of young adults with AS in the new educational project referred to as the IT-track.

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Asperger's syndrome is a part of Autism Spectrum Disorders. Such conditions have contributed to a myriad of impairments such as social deficits, repetitive stereotypical behaviors, and communication challenges. People with the disease often focus on specific topics during conversations. When conversing, they could take on an instructional or condescending tone, which contributes to making communication one of the challenges faced by people with AS. Asperger Syndrome is a condition where a person has developmental forms of limited interests of narrow interests and exclusive typecast behavior.

The diagnosis for the disorder was added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in the year 1994 (American Psychiatric Association (APA), 1994). The disease was described as a pervasive developmental disorder. Estimations show that two out of about ten thousand children have Asperger's Syndrome. In addition to that, boys are more prevalent in the condition than girls over four times. People with this condition know that they are different from others. One of the criteria employed in diagnosing the disease includes impaired social contact and the advancement of recurring patterns of behavior. Other diagnostic tests include impairment of nonverbal behaviors such as facial expressions, eye contact, body postures, and social gestures. In addition to that, most people with this condition fail to develop the right peer relationships, lack emotional reciprocity, and hardly enjoy the company of others.

Most students feel that they function better socially when compared to others. Besides, others claimed to have gathered the courage and skills of asking people for help and talking to groups. From the interview, teachers emerged to be the support source for the students. It is worth noting that teachers formed the foundation of two essential points of SED. The study revealed that studying at the IT-track enabled the learners to extend their limits. Mainly, this happened by allowing them to move away from the feelings of isolation that resulted from loneliness and idleness as well. Region Jonko Ping, Hog Landets, and Eksjo were the masterminds behind the founding of the IT-track as an educational project. The three founded it in the year 2012.

IT-track project entails a setting where students and the staff use the same room hence indirectly providing social training for the learners. During breaks, assistants tend to prepare activities for students to participate. Most of the young people with AS experience various difficulties in their education. The challenges result from their need for structures and customized training, which lacks in medical interventions. As such, the IT-track project serves as the best solution to aid children with AS to develop socially hence enabling them to maneuver their challenges. Besides, students that have failed in their academics before are psychologically reluctant to engage in an activity that could expose them to possible failures (Bandura, 1982). The most significant challenges include skill acquisition and generalization. In most cases, socialization deficits tend to result from severe hardships, including the inability of a person to meet the strains of everyday life.

The observations made during the research process showed that students had a peaceful environment in a separate building at the school. Such learners had minimal stress, which gave them the chance to focus. The students had a pedagogy that allowed the students to become successful. The students that we work with presently tend to have complex challenges, and they need intensive social support. Currently, we have a consistent group of teachers and an assistant for the learners. Every class has an assistant who serves both the students and the teachers.

Presently, the validity of self-reporting for people with the condition has not yet been established. Moreover, no gold standard exists for defining the rationality of the diagnostic instruments used to evaluate comorbid neuropsychiatric disorders among the people in this population. The unavailability of reliable and valid assessment techniques for people with this condition makes it essential for a qualified and experienced professional to conduct a behavioral analysis before referring a patient to a physician for medical treatment.

Typically, persons with AS have characteristics such as pedantic speech, eccentricities, emotional liability, anxiety, peer social functioning, impulsivity, intensive repetitive behavior, and fixed habits. Such symptoms can imitate indications of other ailments such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, and OCD. Sometimes these people are incredibly anxious due to increased stress. Extreme anxiety is evident from traits such as oddness of speech, which one can misinterpret for psychosis. However, symptoms of this condition are observable in children.

In matters concerning general emotion, adults show that past emotional response could change their emotional goals. In a study by Netzer, Van Kleef, and Tamir (2015), results showed that when healthy adults were driven to experience anger, they assessed fury as the preferred emotion. Increased support for the idea emanated from the findings that showed that depressive adults had a higher preference for emotional regulation techniques that maintained an increase in their sadness level.

Asperger's syndrome affects the social, emotional, and adaptive functioning of a person. Individuals with this condition tend to respond contrarily to sensual impetuses than normal children (Gillberg & Billstedt, 2000). Patients with the state could have a high threshold of rain and a lower one for sensory stimuli. One of the examples is that they may not tolerate piercing or complex sounds, sudden or unforeseen noises, and could be delicate to fabrics of a particular kind, food textures, tastes, or odors (Dunn, Saiter, & Rinner, 2002). In addition to that, people with this condition have difficulties with theories of mind tasks, which means that they do not have an understanding of their feelings, thoughts, intentions, and needs of other people. Besides, they are unaware of the influence of their behavior on others. Most of the patients fail to understand the importance of mutuality in relationships (Baron-Cohen, Leslie, & Frith, 1985).

In Sweden, knowledge concerning autism and AS among teachers has increased substantially. The increasing number of teachers has familiarized themselves with the diagnosis and is working towards helping children to get the school structure that they deserve. In consequence, students with AS have a company of skilled teachers, assistants, and psychologists that equips them with the tools and conditions for them to become successful in their everyday activities. Failure to deal with the situation could lead to comorbid disorders. From previous researches, it is worth noting that comorbid disorders have been misdiagnosed or unrecognized among people with AS.

One of the significant consequences of AS is the fact that it affects the socialization of a person. In effect, this could yield considerable stress and conflict among families and individuals. The pressure is likely to result due to the inability of a patient to meet the strains of everyday life and their challenges in education, professional, and communal relationships (Klin, Jones, Schultz, & Volkmar, 2003). All in all, it is critical to appreciate children regardless of the condition they were born with. Children with the state should not face stigma from society. Stigmatizing patients with AS could only make their conditions worse. One of the techniques of handling stigma includes talking about the situation in the open. Talking creates awareness and could lead to the emergence of projects such as the IT-Track that fosters socialization among children with AS and ASD.

To conclude, Asperger's Syndrome (AS) is a prevalent developmental disorder characterized by social impairment, repetitive behaviors, and constrained interests. The condition is treatable, and some people living with it have improved towards living an independent adult life. Children with AS have difficulties with emotional understanding. Mainly, this means that they are likely to have a lower fondness for anger, confrontation, collaboration, and happiness. Boys are often diagnosed with this condition four times more than girls. Most of the people with the disease are loners and face social stigma since they cannot socialize with other people. Some of the stigmas include rudeness from others. Most of the people with this condition tend to function exemplary when they are alone rather than in teams. In effect, they prove to be valuable assets to firms and institutions. A woman asked about the condition claimed, "We do work, we do get married, and we do have children." The woman further added, "Most people see us as just shy and scatterbrained." Primarily, this shows that children and individuals living with Asperger's Syndrome live their lives generally amidst the challenges of socialization. As proposed in this paper, the IT-Track project could be useful in solving the issue of socialization among people with AS.

References

American Psychiatric Association (APA) (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed.) (DSM-IV). Washington DC: American Psychiatric Association.

Bandura, A. (1982). Self-efficacy mechanism in human agency. American Psychologist, 37(2), 122-147. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.37.2.122

Baron-Cohen, S., Leslie, A. M., & Frith, U. (1985). Does the autistic child have a "theory of mind" ? Cognition, 21(1), 37-46. doi: 10.1016/0010-0277(85)90022-8

Dunn, W., Saiter, J., & Rinner, L. (2002). Asperger syndrome and sensory processing. Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, 17(3), 172-185. doi: 10.1177/10883576020170030701

Gillberg, C., & Billstedt, E. (2000). Autism and Asperger syndrome: coexistence with other clinical disorders. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 102(5), 321-330. doi: 10.1034/j.1600-0447.2000.102005321.x

Hwang, B., & Hughes, C. (2000). The effects of social interactive training on early social communicative skills of children with autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 30(4), 331-343. doi: 10.1023/a:1005579317085

Klin, A., Jones, W., Schultz, R., & Volkmar, F. (2003). The enactive mind, or from actions to cognition: lessons from autism. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 358(1430), 345-360. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2002.1202

Netzer, L., Van Kleef, G. A., & Tamir, M. (2015). Interpersonal instrumental emotion regulation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 58, 124-135. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2015.01.006