autism, aspergers, semantic pragmatic -why do we not hear of

I am having the same concerns you have over the confusion of autism and aspergers. Neither topic was considered relevent until after three years of LD related remediation (ages 7 to 10 yr old) in comprehension, atttention, etc. the social interactions are now the more clear school problem….not the LD items.
I am looking for a method to remediate and improve symptoms of ASD (aspergers) or similar impaired social verbal interaction Any ideas on this twist to the issue?

this site seems to have a wealth of info

http://www.isn.net/~jypsy/

Ive heard of districts offering how-to classes in social skills but I think its pretty rare.

there are homeschooling forums for a curriculum called sonlight. The special needs forum on the site is very active and relevant even if you dont homeschool-several folks there have kids w/Aspergers and are choosing hs’ing because of the social issues

www.sonlight.com

Thanks..and very helpful. I also found some related website content programs for social awareness skills…you might want to review.

Does anyone have experience using these programs?

Gaining Face 1.3 Basic - Software Program

Gaining Face is marketed by Team Asperger, 324 East Spring Street, Appleton, WI 54911

and

Mind Reading - Software/CD/Video Program
Online through our e-store
For sales in the UK and Europe, call Human Emotions, Ltd. on
0845-130-6142 (outside the UK +44-845-130-6142).

I have my asperger’s daughter working with a speech pathologist on social skills/pragmatics and she uses material developed by Michelle Winner. Check out www.socialthinking.com. The books are easy to use and I find the approach effective.
organization ( and other executive functioning skills) and writing are her main difficulties—along with the social piece.

Hi Marycas,
My guess is semantic pragmatic disorder is not as widely known. Also, I’d guess there’s probably a lot of kids who are misdiagnosed or just not fully diagnosed.

One more thing, sometimes it takes a popular book or movie to make people aware of a lesser known disorder (or disease — this is common in the medical field. The more PR, the more recognition and research funding).

There was someone who used to post here a lot whose child was diagnosed with semantic pragmatic disorder. One time I hooked into her website—it had lots of information. Maybe you can find it by doing a search. It was quite comprehensive and included information on related disorders (CAPD, Autism) as well.

Beth

http://www.geocities.com/denisev2/index.html

This is website I referred to, if you haven’t already seen it.

Beth

My son was DX w/autism at age 3. He has been in early intervention since 2 1/2. He is now 5 1/2. Early intervention and all the work we have done with him at home has resulted in his looking more asperger’s than autistic. Semantic pragmatic disorder is a term that is used more in England. It’s all autistic spectrum disorder.