Coaching People with Asperger's Syndrome

Bill Goodyear

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9780367105624
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429912078
• Topic: Psicologia
• Subtopic: Storia e teoria della psicologia

This book arises from a lifetime's practical experience of work with people with Asperger's syndrome and autism. People with Asperger's syndrome easily drop through the net and fall into the wrong services - sometimes staying at home, depending on their families, sometimes falling into criminal justice or mental health services. Others, of course, fall into employment. Those in between, and there are many, benefit from the coaching approach developed by Bill Goodyear, which is described in this book. The book is crammed with practical tips, real life stories and new thinking. So often research results arrive from highly specialised work - this book attempts to synthesise a range of new learning from a number of fields and present a hopeful view of the condition - there are many entry points to use to create the possibility of forward motion and development.Touching lightly on some specific and recurring problems, the book unpicks our current understanding of the condition and describes in detail how to use coaching to empower and enable rather than to control and direct.

Part I
All About Asperger's Syndrome

Introduction

This book is split into three parts. This part is about the condition of Asperger’s syndrome, discussing in detail what it is, how it arises and how it manifests itself. I have also taken the time to discuss the possibilities of progress and the need for support.

In all I have written, I have mixed research that I have come across in the course of my life: at conferences and seminars, though the Internet and in books, and have compared that with direct experience—my own and that of the many people I have met and talked with over the years. To an extent I suppose I have developed my own theories, or at least enriched the map of the knowledge we currently enjoy, mixing that with the reality I meet and my understanding of how people function and progress.

Chapter One
Asperger's syndrome—overview

Ravi is 34. He lives in a flat designed for people recovering from mental ill health, having been diagnosed as schizophrenic and treated accordingly in his teens. He was diagnosed as having Asperger’s syndrome about four years ago. After 15 years he is reducing his medication, and will be off it all in a year if all goes well. He has moved past being angry and violent with his family, and has spent several years wandering around shopping centres fantasising. He is now at college preparing for an access to higher education course in order to qualify for university. He has learnt to manage his fear of being looked at, and is now learning to manage his time and to read for study. He is quiet, polite and passive, and is hoping to get a girlfriend soon. He is beginning to speak out in groups and is considering joining an acting class for fun.

I qualified as a teacher after a few years in which I realised I was going to work with children in one form or another: I was first introduced to mentally handicapped children and adults (as they were then known) in my early twenties. I then went to work with maladjusted children for a brief while, then to an adventure playground where we accepted all comers—the neurotypicals of the future. Awakening slowly, I then went off to train as a teacher and earned a degree in education. The first (and last!) teaching job I ever held was as a teacher of autistic children, which I took on in 1981, working for the National Autistic Society only 16 years after the first ever school for autistic children had been opened. I became principal of the school some time later, then moved into the world of adult provision (a total mystery for teachers at that time), thence to management consultant (a total mystery for all of us to this day), then to training, and finally to the adventure of developing a business coaching adults with Asperger’s syndrome, which I began in total frustration about 17 years ago—better to do something than keep on complaining that no-one does anything. So I started a business uniquely offering coaching to people with Asperger’s syndrome, which I have been doing ever since, sometimes employing others to support me.

So here is my argument in brief: Asperger’s syndrome hinders Aspies in understanding others, communicating effectively, and thinking flexibly. Because of this, they have difficult lives and are isolated in an intensely social world. There has been a weight of work done on how this population is different from the mainstream neuro-typical population. Whilst not dismissing this in any way, I am suggesting that we should also focus on the similarities, so that we can adapt existing techniques to support these people in living successfully with this condition.

Autism is still a mystery at its roots: currently, the best assumption is that in the first place there is some genetic difference. If this arises through inheritance, then the nature-nurture debate becomes interesting because it will bring attention to questioning how much of the defining behaviour is learnt within the family and how much derives from deviance in the physiological blueprint and consequent impaired or unusual perception mechanisms. Alternatively, it may derive from first-generation adaptation or damage. There may be other causes too: these things are not clarified yet, and the research continues. It seems that the best guess at this stage is that there is a strong likelihood that there is a genetic component to the conditions which give rise to autism and Asperger’s syndrome. Other causes may also exist, and there may be an interaction of several overlapping separate causes. Indeed, it may be a confluence of two or more separate conditions creating the Triad of Impairments which we call autism, any of which could exist separately in others. It also seems likely that an environmental insult can trigger a predisposition and generate circumstances in which autism develops. So the first level of difference is likely to be identified as a genetic predisposition, with some levels of the condition being perhaps triggered by an event, often (but not always) pre- or perinatal. However, there is now a recognition that the condition can emerge later in life, perhaps at 3 or 4 years old, so it may be that this predisposition can be triggered at that comparatively late stage in life. It may also be that Asperger’s syndrome, and possibly autism, can arise spontaneously, with no inherited factors leading the process.

Michael was perfectly normal, according to his parents, until his fourth birthday party. He invited his friends, and then when they all arrived, he “vanished upstairs, stayed in his bedroom throughout and came down autistic”. He lost his speech and became very nervous, and developed Asperger’s syndrome to the point where he needed specialist education. I can only think that he lost his confidence so much, and was so frightened by this experience of hearing all his friends having a good time but feeling unable to join in, that he experienced a collapse of confidence which triggered his condition.

In all events, it seems that the genetic difference gives rise to a number of systemic differences within the person, possibly beginning with the architecture of the brain and nervous system. Again, these are not fully described, categorised or understood yet, although one strong underlying feature seems to be a specific difference in the way people with autism perceive sensation. It may be that they are particularly sensitive to some or all of sound, touch, light, smell and taste. In other cases it may be that they are indifferent to any of these sensory inputs. This may be to do with the way this incoming data is processed, or it may be that the initial perception is unusual in some way. Throughout life, it is certainly clear that responses to the environment can be major causes of stress in children and adults on the spectrum, slowing down their ability to make sense of the world.

The condition apparently arises from brain structure and consequent function, and is diagnosed by observing behaviour and considering the life story: what the person did and now does creates the symptoms that serve as diagnostic indicators. These behaviours, enshrined in DSM IV, ICD 10 and other places, have all been taken from real observation, and are considered to be evidence for the presence of the Triad of Impairments. This relatively new formulation, created by Lorna Wing and Judith Gould in 1979, has helped our understanding no end. The shape of the whole condition of autism has been understood in more detail as research continues, and the parameters have shifted to the point where we now talk of the “autistic spectrum disorders” in order to include the varieties more evenly.

Medical science, however, tends to focus on what is wrong, and dissects problems in order to understand the constituent parts. This approach, whilst necessary and valuable, and one of the foremost drivers in human progress, has its drawbacks for this population. Current medical treatment tends to look for those who are falling into a crisis of one sort or another, for instance depression, anxiety, paranoia, fantasy and rage. Treatments focus on these parts of the personality’s function, avoiding the interaction within the personality that arises from this condition. Support services tend to offer residential or perhaps day support to those who cannot manage independently, though naturally there are always exceptions. Perhaps more work needs to be done to explore how people can be supported in developing successful lives before things go so wrong.

Now, if you are born with Asperger’s, you slowly move though life discovering how everyone else knows what to do and does it without bothering about you, except for occasionally laughing at you and probably bullying you in your teenage years, or at least sometimes getting angry with you for unspecified reasons. You would be lucky to escape this: if you do, then you are unusual, though you may well be doing your best to keep your head down, learning that the rest of the world does indeed go on without you whilst you occupy yourself with some interesting and satisfying alternative. Probably there are people with Asperger tendencies who have satisfying lives without ever being diagnosed or noticed as being pathological, but of course it is hard to find them. Those we do find are the ones who are having some significant difficulty with their lives; in fact, life can be a succession of difficult experiences for them. All we know is that early intervention will help enormously. I am suggesting that we can go further than we usually do in ensuring that this intervention is designed to support the development of positive attitudes and beliefs. For those who have been through the mill it may be too late, but my experience is that at least some will be able to get a hold of their life and overcome past negative experiences.

In addition to the Triad of Impairments (difficulty with communication, relationships and rigidity of thought), many people with Asperger’s have sensory sensitivities. These can be pervasive and extremely uncomfortable to deal with. Hypersensitivity can distract attention from the job in hand, so kitchen smells in the classroom, for instance, can take your concentration away. Sudden noises can induce instant panic and confusion, so fire bell testing can wreck a morning in school or college. Imagine a busy train station or airport: crowds of noisy, ill-disciplined NTs, some with squawking children, others shouting into their mobile phones, every trolley with squeaky wheels, hard-to-hear PA announcements coming out at alarmingly frequent intervals in poorly pronounced and distorted PA-speak. People bang into you, let alone invade your personal space. The monitor lights flicker and are illuminated by the sun, so are very hard to read, and your departure time is closing in. You walk past McDonalds (or worse), and the smell makes you want to run. Where is the toilet, and how can you get there, and will it have those noisy hand driers?

James is a bright and active four-year-old. He is thrown into a tantrum by the sound of a bell, so visitors have to be warned not to ring the doorbell, and telephone conversations can be interrupted by his screaming. Alarm clocks are impossible.

How does this condition arise? Assuming that the condition is genetic, I would like to note in passing how similar Aspies are to NTs. It almost does not need saying; except that their perception is often that they are hopelessly out of step with the rest of us (Temple Grandin described herself as an “Anthropologist on Mars”—two major steps of difference). They are usually in step in terms of their ambitions: job, love, money—the usual. They are usually in step in that their mood goes up and down a bit, they get bored, or depressed by lack of structure, and they tend to take it out on those around them. Their hearts beat the same and their livers all do the same work as for the rest of us. However, these people are marginalized for being different by their peers and by society, and their subjective experience is that they are out of step in a very central way. To us it may seem less significant, but then we would say that, wouldn’t we? If you had lived their life, how would you be different?

People with Asperger’s syndrome may be capable of much more than they typically achieve: we know that feeling bad about yourself and feeling anxious reduces performance, so if you learnt to feel better, performance would improve. Yet we also know that Gary Numan (singer), Vernon Smith (Nobel laureate) and Satoshi Tajiri (creator of Pokémon) are in the group, and we suspect that Einstein, Newton, Jeremy Bentham, Wittgenstein and Glenn Gould, amongst others, might also have been diagnosable. Creativity is a strong strand of the Aspie experience.

Another systemic difference likely to exist in someone with this condition is a difference in their autonomic nervous system, which may be much more (or less) sensitive than is usual. In extremis, the autonomic nervous system creates the “fight or flight” reaction, in which the body adapts very rapidly and comprehensively to a perceived threat, contracting capillaries, focusing eyesight, sharpening hearing, raising the heartbeat and so on, so that the person can either run away very efficiently or is physiologically prepared to stand and fight. This is created in part by an injection of adrenaline into the blood. Interestingly, it takes hours to wash the blood clean if the energy is not used in fighting or fleeing, and men take longer over this task than women, autistic or not. Autistic people, with their over- or under-reactive system may be living with adrenaline levels that make concentration and learning very difficult.

Gene research is a new science, and we have seen the explosion in knowledge that has resulted from the sequencing of the genomes over the past few years. In 1991 Jared Diamond, physiologist and ecologist, noted that DNA in humans and chimpanzees is so similar that we could be called the third chimpanzee. Now Morris Goodman from the Wayne State University in Detroit supports this in noting that a 99.4% similarity exists in the most critical DNA sites in chimps and ourselves. With this level of congruity, he suggests that chimps should be considered as human. I mean no disrespect to chimps or to us, or to people with Asperger’s; I am using this research to highlight the similarities between Aspies and ourselves. If chimps are in the same family as me, then Aspies are hardly different at all, and yet they experience the world in a very different way (and vice versa), and it is this experience that damages them so much: they learn to be different because they are excluded, which magnifies the original condition.

In terms of cognitive function and learning there are significant differences, but in terms of learning about life there is no significant difference between Aspies and NTs. In both cases, bad experiences lead to bad psychology. Aspies have many real reasons to be frightened, depressed, unwilling to try, dreamy, isolated, off on their own, and these reasons are to be found directly in their experience of life so far and their fears about what might be coming next. They learn negative thinking in response to repeated negative experiences, as we all do—though I don’t know so much about the chimps! Although, as I said, I am not propounding a cure or a revolution, I am suggesting that this negative thinking, which is a surface characteristic arising from the central problem, can be attacked, and that earlier experiences could be better managed in order to avoid a lot of this pain in the first place. Happier people perform better, whether or not they have Asperger’s syndrome.

Of course, the extreme flight or fight reaction represents an extreme experience, though most of us have experienced it in our lives. People with autistic spectrum disorders are less likely to have this automatic response fully under control. In fact this is part of a system within all of us which conducts a continual chemical and electrical conversation of great complexity, regulating our heartbeat, breathing, digestion and other essential life support systems. In part this is achieved through a system of interactions directed by the production and reception of the 100-plus peptides which run in our circulation system and which seem to define emotion and subjective experience.

Some of these peptides are neurotransmitters such as serotonin, and there is an established (though not conclusive) link between abnormal levels of serotonin and autism. Many other peptides appear to communicate between essential organs, the presence of one creating an adjustment in the level of another, and the resulting and continually changing cocktail of peptides in the blood relates to emotion, which directs the subjective experience of how we feel and so affects our perception of what we notice. So it seems that this condition, originating from genetic difference and difference in neurological structure and function, is also rooted in systemic physiological differences. Candace Pert’s book Molecules of Emotion offers a wealth of information about this, though she was not directly concerned with Asperger’s or autism in her work.

The child develops with slightly different brain architecture, different neurological functions in some areas, probably focusing on perception and the processing of some areas of information. Also, his emotional mechanism may well be out of alignment, and in some cases he may not be digesting the necessary nutrients from his food. All of this means that his minute-to-minute experiences may well be different to those of the neurotypical population. For instance, he may experience confusion, fear or intense interest at moments when others experience more commonplace emotions, and these differences may well create strain in relationships.

So the experience of developing with these differences in your body creates experiences that tend to lead to the development of some idi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• PREFACE
• INTRODUCTION
• PART I: ALL ABOUT ASPERGER'S SYNDROME
• PART II: ALL ABOUT COACHING
• PART III: SPECIFIC ISSUES
• PART IV: APPENDICES
• REFERENCES
• INDEX