Ask an Aspie: Autistic Adolescents at College

This question was recently asked in Ask an Aspie, and it’s a topic I wanted to talk about anyway, so here goes:

My 18 year old aspie son left for college in August and has not initiated any sort of communication with any of his friends or family. Is this a usual aspie response to a new situation and should I be frequently checking up with him. I almost have to say I will show on his doorstop to get a response and then it is extremely limited.

First, I’d like to tell the reader that she’s not alone. Almost all of my friends have had arguments with their parents about how often and how they should “check-in”. My mom and I have discussed this many times.

There are many reasons I wasn’t calling home as often as she would have liked when I reached campus. First, I hate phone conversations. It is so much harder to determine when to talk and to have no lip-reading ability to fall back on. Second, I didn’t have time. With all the social activity, academic requirements, and neccessary zone time, I didn’t think I could fit in frequent calls home. Third, I simply wasn’t interested in what my mom had to say. As bad as that might sound, I just had no interest in or patience for the minutae of her day-to-day life.

We thought on this, and argued, and sent annoyed emails back and forth. Eventually we compromised on this plan:

-I needed to contact home once d ay, whether by email, phone, or voice mail, just to let them know I was still breathing/things were going well.

-I needed to have two conversations a week with my parents on the phone. By reducing the frequency to twice weekly, we only touched on interesting topics: movies seen, big decisions made, relatives visited, etc. It also was easier to schedule two 20-minute blocks of time into my week than 7 ten-minute segments. Finally, I knew if my mom called a t some time other than the scheduled times that the call was important and I had to pick up because there might be a family emergency. Previously I had just ignored most of the calls, which means I had a good chance of missing an important call from home.

That is simply the schedule we use, but any form of organization you can provide for the contact is a good idea. It leaves both of you knowing what to expect, which eases the anxiety and thus increases the chance of the desired event actually occuring.

If phone calls really are out of the question, consider using skype. It is a video-phone service free on the internet that lets you chat while seeing the other person, making body language visible and lip-reading possible, and generally eases the whole phone conversation process.

I also increased the frequency and length of my calls home as the school-year progressed and I settled into a weekly schedule. Maybe your son can only handle 1 call /week right now, but by spring semester will be able to handle two or even three.

When talking to your son about the importance of staying in contact, try to use logical, practical reasons (you know us Aspies and our logic). Things like: It lets me know you are not hurt, and lets you know everything at home is fine. And, from home, I cannot know anything about your life at college unless you tell me. I am curious about your experience and would like to know when important things happen to you. The more rationality you can provide, the higher his chance of listening.

Best of Luck!