Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Processing Delay


One of the most difficult thing I seem to face with both my son and my husband is the amount of time it takes them to answer a question. Now, I don't know if this is truly an Asperger's thing or not, but they both have this sort of delay before they can formulate their words to answer a question.

I'm sorry, I must be the most impatient person in the world, but it drives me crazy when I really want to know something and they can't spit the answer out as fast as I want it.

With MJ, it may be something involved with his auditory processing that they tested out, but I'm not sure. Whenever he is asked a question, he may immediately know the answer and react even to raise his hand, but when he is called on to answer nothing comes out. It's as if he knows it but it takes a little longer for his brain to organize the information into words.

We have had a difficult time watching teachers call on him only to assume he didn't really know the answer and then go onto the next student. It is frustrating to see people ask him things and then just assume he is dumb when he doesn't answer right off.

Part of the problem is the way his mind works---it can't be interrupted. Like if you ask him something (and then it takes a bit before he can get it out) but then since you aren't getting an answer you start to say something else, or ask him again, or reword the question, then it messes him all up and he has to start processing all over again. So for super impatient me, I have to seriously hold myself down and bite my lip from trying to coax an answer out of him.

My husband, who clearly understands all this somehow, keeps telling me to be quiet and be more patient and wait for the answer. Now, really, I'm not all that impatient, it's just hard when something bad happened or something is wrong and I can't get the answer out of him. Like if he's upset he can't tell me why quick enough, or if something important just happened he can't produce the information fast enough. I just go crazy!

Besides my insanity, there really has been difficulties that this delay was causing, and some really big ones were about to come. MJ was entering 3rd grade now with a brand new teacher, and we were soon to find out that some teachers only care about how fast you can get things done.

2 comments:

Beastinblack said...

Maybe you should ask the question in the right way, anything that appears ambiguous will throw him. My mind works like that too. Ambiguous questions will end up with him going through every single possibility, analyising each one, and then trying to decide the best possible answer. Catch him off guard and it wont work either. Trust me!

Unknown said...

I have a similar problem with my ex husband and 9 year old son. I will get his neuropsych work up on Friday and go from there.