Naughty or “Aspie”?

North & South’s April Issue – on newsstands March 15

Media release
10 March 2010
Naughty or “Aspie”?

Is he simply naughty? Or is little Johnny’s classmate really an “Aspie”.

It’s a question parents are asking more and more. And it’s not only at school. Asperger’s is Hollywood’s “disorder du jour”, yet the syndrome remains hopelessly misunderstood.

While you hear middle-class mums talking about the “boy with Asperger’s” in their child’s class, teachers often don’t know if it’s “Aspies” or simply a badly behaved child.

In the April issue of North & South magazine, deputy editor Joanna Wane examines the perplexing condition.

She looks at the symptoms, causes, treatments and misinformation. She also talks to families with Asperger’s children and Asperger’s adults who have forged useful and satisfying lives.

Asperger’s is a genetic neurological disorder that affects the hard wiring of the brain. But according to one expert, the jury’s still out on whether or not it is caused by environmental factors.

Whatever the cause, parents can be left more than bemused by the actions of an Asperger’s child. One Auckland couple with three children diagnosed as “Aspies” estimate they have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars supporting them.

An adult sufferer has mixed feelings about Hollywood popularising the syndrome for its entertainment value. “I’d hate to see it become some kind of fashion statement.”

In a way it already has - Jerry in Boston Legal, a character in The Big Bang Theory, Jodi Picoult’s new book centres on a teen with Asperger’s who stands trial for murder; there’s even an “Aspie” on Shortland Street.

Wane’s investigation concludes with an examination of some of the theories behind the unexplained Asperger’s epidemic.

Also in the April issue senior writer Mike White nails the huge issue of water management in New Zealand.

We use our rivers as drains, sources of power and water for industrial agriculture, then despair when they’re no longer the pristine places of our childhoods. White looks at three important watercourses and the battle lines drawn beside them.

The magazine also examines the Great Honey Hoo-ha where bickering in boardrooms and laboratories threatens to derail the burgeoning manuka honey export business.

Mike White profiles Kevin Judd, the wine maker who made Cloudy Bay one of the most sought-after brands and Lindsay Wright, perhaps phonetically appropriately, discovers the pleasures of old-style pen and paper correspondence.

Surprisingly, there are around 60,000 New Zealanders of Shetland Islands descent and many will be travelling to the Homecoming “Hamefarin” in June. Susan Buckland traces her own family roots in the northern Scotland islands – and finds some surprising fellow travellers.

North & South also spends a weekend in Raglan and looks at food for Easter. Plus, in Food & Health, salt – and yes, the news is bad.

There’s lots more in the April edition on newsstands from March 15.

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