#TheyTaughtMe: “Asperger’s Syndrome Disorder Doesn’t Keep My Son From Talking With Dogs”

Kathy H Porter is a freelance writer, author and head cheerleader for her amazing son. She grabs inspiration from a background that includes 14 years of business experience and 17 years as an educator. Her latest project? Crafting work-related "explaining scripts" for adults with autism. Join her newsletter to find out when her next article will be published and to discover more useful on-the-job strategies for autistic adults.

My 27 year old son who is formally diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome Disorder (ASD), has been “talking dog” his whole life.

Having Asperger’s and being fluent in how dogs communicate are just two of the things that define him. Lately, we’ve been talking about how being on the autism spectrum affects him at work. And, in what may be an on-going series, we’ll be talking about this here at HRD.

We don’t pretend to have all the answers. We only know what’s true for us.

One of the true and best things that’s happened in the past six months, is that my son has begun to advocate for himself. Speaking for both of us, I’ll just say that it’s really hard. But I think we’re okay with that because we’re at the beginning of this learning curve.

Everything’s hard at first, right? But, practice makes perfect and that’s what we’re striving for.

We’re a little nervous. Not about the talking part, but about the public talking part. So, help us out from time to time. Let us know how we’re doing.

First up: a (true) story about how my son learned how to communicate with dogs.

My then ten year old son and I were driving home from a dog obedience class. Felix, our young male whippet, was curled into a tight ball, asleep in the back seat. The class had been pretty exhausting for him. Although confident in a pack of his own kind, Felix wasn’t so sure of himself in a group meeting with different breeds of dogs and indecisive owners.

Despite his canine anxiety, he’d done all right today. Together, he and I had avoided the aggressive dogs in the room as we went through all of the exercises. He’d more than earned his long snooze during the ride home.

Not so my son who was eager to talk about what he’d watched that day.

“Mom,” he said, “that rottweiler was pretty nervous.”

“Really.”

“Yeah. I could tell by how his ears looked and how he was standing.”

Much to my amazement, for the 45 minute drive home, he talked nonstop about all of the dogs in that class; the dogs that were not so confident (like Felix and that rottweiler), the dogs that wanted to take charge. Had I noticed the other two small dogs in class? One of them thought he was as big as that Great Dane!

My son had grown up around dogs and not just the obligatory family dog. Because I’d been active in dog rescue, my son learned early on what it was like to live with greyhounds and whippets. His best teachers were the first Great Dane and the German Shepherd Norweigan Elkhound mixed breed dog we had when he, himself, was young enough to be considered a litter mate.

While other moms headed up school committees or baked cookies for classroom parties, I was the mom that spent weekends at dog shows, had long telephone conversations with my friends about dog behavior with my son playing in the background. I talked with perspective adopting families about bringing a dog into their home; treated dog crates like end tables, did the occasional media spot on ex-racing greyhound adoption. All this with my son happily underfoot.

It was a whirlwind time that began before he started kindergarten so that, by the age of ten, much of his knowledge about dogs was intuitive. But, this was the first time he’d offered up his interpretations about dog behavior. He was amazingly accurate.

Dogs communicate with their bodies. If you don’t pay attention; take the time to learn, you miss all the nuances of how they speak. That my son has mastered this complex science of communication is all the more miraculous because he has Asperger’s Syndrome Disorder, a neurological difference that affects how he himself communicates.

With humans.

He can hold his own in a conversation with one other person, especially if he knows you. In fact, if you don’t know about his diagnosis, you’d never think anything was different.

Unless you boned up on what distinguishes Asperger’ Syndrome Disorder from other developmental differences.

People who have Asperger’s Syndrome Disorder struggle with communication, especially when they’re in a group of people. I can’t imagine what it’s like to stand with two or more of my friends or co-workers and be clueless to all of the shades of meaning chasing after their conversations, batted back and forth like ping pong balls gone wild on steroids.

I can’t imagine it because I’m one of those people who’s verbally quick, easily juggling two or more of these on-going chats while picking up on the invisible conversations that are just as loud but never spoken out loud. The innuendo just below the surface conversation between three co-workers, one of whom is my son. He’ll pick up on the negative emotion of what’s being said but, it takes him some time to process what he’s heard. By that time, the conversation has galloped off in a different direction.

How is it that my son can sit and watch an obedience class with 8-12 dogs in attendance or walk into a kennel suite that houses the same number of dogs and can accurately interpret read each one?

Temple Grandin would tell you that part of the answer is in the details.

People with autism are really good at seeing details. “When a person with autism walks into a room,’ one researcher said, ‘the first thing they see is a stain on the coffee table and 17 floor boards.’ That seems an exaggeration and an over generalization to me, but the idea is on the right track.” -- Rethinking The Autistic Brain, Thinking Across The Spectrum, by Temple Grandin. Pg 120

It’s not the complete answer, but it’s a positive starting point, unlike a lot of the material that’s out there.

Where does it get complex?

For my now 27 year old son, it gets more complicated with humans.

Sitting in a meeting with more than two items on the agenda with more than one other person in attendance, he gets confused. He can’t track the many conversations that start up, get interrupted and circle back around the table. If he’s on his own, without the benefit of someone there to facilitate the communication, he flounders.

But.

As much as he flounders, he’s willing to keep showing up because together, we’re learning how to find the support that he needs to be successful in the work place. It’s really not that different from the dog obedience classes we took so many years ago.

In those days, there were knowledgeable mentors – savvy dog people who had deconstructed dog behavior and had figured out how to teach that to humans. And today? You can still find amazingly talented, compassionate, savvy dog people who continue to celebrate the rewards of positive (always!) rewards-based training.

On the not-so–flip side of human behavior, there are amazingly, talented, compassionate people who understand that positive incentives, upbeat and motivational behaviors beat negative, intimidating and bully behaviors every time.

My son is just beginning to figure this out. And, that’s a beautiful thing!