Greetings everyone!

I would like to take a minute of your time to introduce my new book, The Asperger Plus Child: How to Identify and Help Children with Asperger Syndrome and Seven Common Co-Existing Conditions.

The book is based on my work with hundreds of children with neuropsychiatric conditions as well as my own experience as the father of a son with high-functioning autism. It is the kind of book I wish I would have been able to read years ago when my son was younger to get greater clarity on just what is going on with him and what I could do to make things better.

A major lesson I have learned in my 28 years as a psychotherapist is that diagnosing and treating children is like detective work-once you have clarity about the cause of a child's difficulties, you have a path to move forward. In The Asperger Plus Child, I try to provide this clarity, this path through the maze of diagnoses and conjecture about autism and Asperger Syndrome (AS).

The Asperger Plus Child is my take on some of the significant issues, distinctions, and similarities between children and young adults with AS, bipolar disorder, nonverbal learning disability, OCD, oppositional defiance disorder, high-functioning autism, Tourette's syndrome, and ADD. I provide a lot of narrative from my own counseling practice, helpful checklists and food for thought. I offer all of this as a way for parents and professionals to see past the pessimism of medical diagnosis to get a clear vision of the genius and potential of our children.

When all is said and done, we have to pull toward strength to help our kids. This book provides a way to see their strengths in the context of their challenges so that we can help them craft a realistic path forward in their lives.

Enjoy!

George T. Lynn

I recommend the following AAPC books because they are beneficial for everyone who has ASD or lives or works with someone on the autism spectrum.

	Scott Bellini's Building Social Relationships. The book contains many useful checklists and strategies for teaching social interaction to kids and young adults with AS and HFA.
	Brenda Smith Myles and Diane Adreon's Asperger Syndrome and Adolescence: Practical Solutions for School Success. The authors help readers understand the inside world of kids with AS-their stress, anxiety, and family relationships, and provide ideas for helping them be successful in middle and high school.
	Kari Dunn Buron's A "5" Is Against the Law. This short but impactful book provides a powerful tool (the 5-point scale) for teaching teens and young adults with AS and HFA how to keep themselves out of trouble by understanding what Temple Grandin terms "sins of the system"-that is, violations of the hidden social curriculum that is so difficult for many on the autism spectrum to understand. This book focuses on the often subtle differences between legal and illegal behavior.

Excerpt from (from page 5)

Diagnostic Confounds of Children with Asperger Syndrome

The complexity of a child's issues must be understood if a child is to get the help he needs. There are certain diagnostic confusions that parents, teachers, and medical service providers need to resolve if they are going to do the right thing for children with AS. For example:

• How can one tell the difference between the presence of a child's special interest in his obsessive pursuit of success at a particular video game (characteristic of AS) and the tendency for obsessive hyperfocus of a child with ADD which may result in the same behavior? Both children may become very distressed when we require them to stop playing the game but, as I will suggest in Chapter Eight, different remedial strategies are in order if we are to help the child.

• Does a child who shows features of extremely flat feeling tone fit the neurotype of the autistic child with his tendency for severe sensory aversion or social withdrawal? Or is this child demonstrating the lack of energy and lethargy that accompanies depression in children with AS or ADD?

• Should a child who has motor and vocal tics be diagnosed with TS alone, or are there features that suggest the presence of AS along with TS? This is an important distinction, because if a child has TS as a stand-alone condition, he does not demonstrate the same cognitive differences as the child with AS. In fact, he may have a neurotypical cognitive style. Therefore, the medication regime and social and educational accommodations that are needed to help kids with TS and AS are quite different.

• Do the fits of anger that a child with a diagnosis of AS show the presence of the high anxiety and low frustration tolerance of AS or do they suggest the presence of rage which is a signature of pediatric Bipolar Disorder (BD)? The treatment strategies needed to help children with BD are very different than those needed to treat an AS child with an anxiety disorder.

• Are the obsessions and compulsions seen in the behavior of a child diagnosed with AS secondary to the AS or are they evidence of the presence of a stand-alone condition of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)? The characteristic rigidity and high anxiety that accompanies change of routine for kids with AS looks a lot like OCD but different treatment, parenting, and educational strategies are indicated depending on the primary diagnosis.

"These and other diagnostic predicaments cry out for greater clarification. In this regard I am fortunate to be able to reference clinical experience with hundreds of children diagnosed with attention differences as well as a growing body of literature on childhood psychiatric disorders."