When working with individuals with Asperger Syndrome, I have found that in order to have a successful understanding of the individual, one must learn a whole different language--one that is specific to the individual in front of you. The verbal short-cuts that one may use in daily discourse, may make very little "intuitive" sense to the individual with an ASD. 

In fact, what I have found that neurotypical communication is riddled with grossly untrue, or at least, untested, emotional statements. How often have you exclaimed statements such as "this is the best dessert I have ever had!" or "this is the best day ever"? Now this may be your subjective experience in the moment, but is that statement in fact, true? Is that tiramisu literally the best dessert that you ever had? How do you know? Have you conducted an extensive empirical study on all tiramisu's you have ever tried and rated them on a Likert scale, on every dimension of it's characteristics,( ie., taste, texture, presentation, etc) and then ran a statistical analysis on which one was truly "the best" on all relevant dimensions? If you have not, then perhaps that tiramisu is not the best one you ever had, but you simply feel in this specific moment that it is, or maybe you just want to be nice and make the person who made the dessert feel good?

Now most people know on some level that when one hears such exultations, that the individual just really liked their dessert, or has a reason other than the characteristics of the dessert itself  for singing its praises. However  to some individuals such emotional generalizations may be quite confusing, if not foreign.  

The Autism Society has a great feature on improving communication between the neurotypicals and individuals with ASD's.
http://www.autism-society.org/living-with-autism/treatment-options/learningeachotherslanguage.pdf

So the next time you ask an individual with an ASD how they like their dessert, please keep in mind that perhaps you are asking the wrong type of question, and translating exactly what it is that you want to know into words that make sense to the individual may be necessary for you to get the type of answer that you are looking for.

Do you ever notice that when you avoid something that you fear, the feared situation or object in your mind's eye is often much scarier than when you actually confront it?

An Interesting article in Psychology Today details how even one session of intense exposure therapy to target phobias can change our brain's responses to the feared stimuli. The study claims that even six months after the therapy,  subjects actually "saw" the feared object differently. Perhaps, it is all just a matter of perception, after all.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-other-side-normal/201206/your-brain-psychotherapy

Here is yet another study that demonstrates the positive effects of exercise on both cognitive functioning and mood. 
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/30/how-exercise-can-jog-the-memory/

While there are individual variations to how our bodies and minds respond to exercise, the take-home message being that exercise is beneficial to mental functioning, this response appears to be at least somewhat genetically mitigated. 

Interestingly, another recent NYT article suggests that the reason that some people keep exercising, while others give up after an initial stint, may  not be due to any positive benefits to their health or superhuman will power, but simply because these folks like the way it feels. So before we exalt those who exercise regularly as being well-disciplined and health conscious, perhaps at least some of these people are just doing what feels good to them, and should not be used as an example to those who simply do not derive the same kind of pleasure from physical activity.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/18/commitment-to-exercise-relies-largely-on-feeling/?ref=health

I just read a thought-provoking article in New York Magazine. In this article, the author connects America's social and economic trends over the last half of a century to our  relationship with certain depression and anxiety reducing drugs. This article argues that in the current time of  ceaseless electronic stimulation, we are in a constant state of vigilance and anxiety--states  that our physical evolution has yet to catch up with. Hence, they argue, the modern individual turns to the easily-available products of our technological evolution and pop a pill that essentially erases the incessant cycle of worry and gives us the much-needed time-out. 

The article points out that some people truly feel that their own anxiety is the very mechanism that gives them an edge over their competitors--a  force that gives people the ability  to out-perform their peers and be more successful in their various endeavors. While these very people report that the bi-product of this relationship with anxiety is decreased happiness, the insinuation here is that this decrease is not a particularly high price to pay for professional success (particularly given the availability of short-lived anti-anxiety vacations courtesy of anti-anxiety drugs).  

The article also mentions the popularity of meditations practices and mindfulness training as one way to handle our increasing anxiety, although the authors discredit these techniques as expensive and unnecessary. I think there is a lot to the notion of noticing the anxiety, learning how to not act on it and learning to live with it. I also think that in this time of increased information availability and stimulation overload, a viable option to popping a pill is to make time for ourselves and our needs, and put our various "important" tasks on hold. We need to make a conscious effort to give ourselves time off, time to connect with our loved ones, and time to take care and nurture our souls, in an effort to give ourselves a "safe and calm place" from which to take on the various worries of our time. 

http://nymag.com/news/features/xanax-2012-3/

In this article, my colleague, Dr. Robert Naseef, writes about his experience as a father of a child who was diagnosed with Autism at the age of four.  This is a valuable narrative of a father  "handling" this sort of  news. Dr. Naseef is an author, a speaker and clinical psychologist who specializes in helping families living with a child who has been diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. 

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Revisiting-Masculinity---The-father-s-journey-with-autism-.html?soid=1108537923877&aid=0a7HZxxr07I#fblike

I have recently been contemplating the idea that the way that we think and talk about our experiences, often changes/shapes those experiences to be more consistent with the stories that we ourselves  create. This is  one of the basic premises behind cognitive therapy, that if we change our thought process, we then change our feelings and vice versa. A somewhat recent podcast by Radiolab spoke about the concept that the act of thinking follows directly from the development of language. This program implied that the more words we have to describe our various experiential and emotional states, the greater the repertoire and complexity of our intellectual and emotional experience! http://www.radiolab.org/2010/aug/09/words-that-change-the-world/

It really seems that the narratives that we give to our experience, not only shapes, but changes our very experience if things. It is as if the experience itself is unimportant--what is important however, is how we think about and remember that experience. 

A recent interview with professor Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel-Prize winning psychologist points to the same concept. He distinguished between the experiencing self and the remembering self and states that when thinking about a past experience, humans can only access the narrative of the remembering self, which in itself is subject to the influence of other variables, like one's current mood, one's current physical state, and perhaps one's personal narrative style. http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/interview-with-daniel-kahneman-on-the-pitfalls-of-intuition-and-memory-a-834407.html

It seems that, at least in our society today, we have a very difficult time staying in the experiencing part of ourselves--the here and now.  Perhaps that is why eastern philosophy and the practice of Buddhism, with its emphasis on the present is in such high demand. I do not think that we will ever stop remembering our experiences,  because after all, our memories shape the story and meaning of our lives. Yet, I believe that if we are able to recognize that we have the power to change the tenor of our self-created stories about our lives, we will be able to experience life in a totally different way.

I just read a fascinating article in the New Yorker, and thought I would share it. The authors describe a number of studies demonstrating the idea that our mind keeps processing information, even while we are not consciously thinking about the matter at hand. In fact, the authors argue that we can be more creative and generative when we give our thinking mind a break.

It is as if, by constantly attending to and fervently thinking about a particular problem, we are not allowing a part of our minds to access the very information that we may need to "solve" the problem. This seems to be the very mechanism that allows for mental clarity after certain repetitive, if not meditative activities, like running, folding laundry, gardening, taking a walk, etc. It is as if such mundane activities require just enough mental energy to negate the obsessive, ruminative quality of our thinking, thus giving way to the flowing, creative energy of the unconscious processes of our wiser selves. 

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/frontal-cortex/2012/06/the-virtues-of-daydreaming.html?mobify=0%2F

If you are one of the many individuals or couples who would like to keep the option of having biological children open, but do not want to or are not ready to make that decision today, this article gives individuals another option to consider. 

http://www.npr.org/2011/05/31/136363039/egg-freezing-puts-the-biological-clock-on-hold

The issue of continuous praise often comes up with many parents in my practice.  This is not surprising, as most of what one reads today about parents speaks to the need for parents to provide their children with unconditional love and "positive regard" in order to ensure a healthy sense of self. However, many parents confuse the notion of unconditional love and positive regard with unconditional praise, no matter how minor the deed. While having unconditional love for your child is  absolutely imperative, an onslaught of continuous praise for minor and frankly, expected deeds, can have the opposite effect.  

In this opinion piece by Sandra Aamond and Sam Wang, the authors do a great job of explaining the difference. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/opinion/sunday/building-self-control-the-american-way.html?pagewanted=all

They state that while some parents loudly and repetitively praise their children for virtually anything, even when they do not in fact do a good job, others use a more spearing, explicit and measured approach to praise, which underlines the desirable behavior. For example, instead of saying the general "good job" for a child's participation in a certain activity regardless of their performance, a parent might underline the specific accomplishment "I liked how you kept trying to make a goal, even when it seemed so hard". This type of praise underlines self-control, perseverance and the notion that sometimes things do not work out, but to keep at it. 

Additionally, the general "good job" can feel empty and meaningless if that is what the child hears regardless of the amount of effort and, frankly, success that they have. I also believe that there is nothing wrong with fostering healthy competition in the next generation, after all we all require certain goals to reach toward, even if it is simply to create more meaning in our lives.  We live in a competitive world, one that does not readily reward effort alone. It is our job as teachers and parents to teach the younger generations how to live and thrive in a competitive and results oriented society.