Son waiting Aspergers diagnosis, 'Blanking out' episodes at school

Wow, I cant imagine how similar all our stories are. My eldest son, who is now 17 has over the past 9 years started blanking out. He has features of Autism, but does have more Asperger tendencies. He was always an above average student in his early Primary school days, but thereafter it became apparent that he had a problem with auditory processing. A generally bright boy who has so much potential, but the blanking out has severely affected his performance in school. Just a few weeks ago he had a seizure. The EEG did not pick up epilepsy, however there is a family history, so for those reasons as well as the blanking out, my son is on medication for a while.

My son does this, and school just said he was daydreaming. That was when he was in primary. It got worse in high school, and I arranged for a occupational therapist to do a sensory assessment on him. After doing an observation on him, she said he was shutting down in class due to sensory overload, and gave recommendations to take him out every so often.

I wish the professionals, instead of putting all their efforts into finding a cure, put some research into lifestyles, because a "cure" if there is such a thing, may be a long way off, whereas there is little help around with daily problems.

Blanking out is one that really needs looking at. It is obvious in this thread that it is experienced by many ,but there's no help available.

I've already commented but cannot look back to what I've said on a different page, so may be repeating a bit here. I lose conspicuous chunks of awareness, not sure for how long, but have gone for checks over the years with no cause being found. As others have observed, if I'm focussed on something I'm interested in it doesn't happen. So I guess it must be related to sensory overload.

A variant, which is scary at times, is that I blank out background noise, and everything else, rather than filter out background, but it will suddenly come back - full volume awareness. Happens walking along busy roads where I don'r register the traffic noise for some period then suddenly, as if someone has turned a switch on in my head, it registrers very loudly, usually with accompanying anxiety/stress.

I will also blank out music - I'll hear the beginning of a recording and the end, but have no recollection of the middle, though I have heard that from other people, not necessarily ASC, so that may be commoner than I suppose.

He had his EEG but it showed nothing. And touch wood we have had no repeats of his siezure. Camhs have said that they will refer him to a paediatrician for a follow up due to the way his seizure was.

When he had his siezure he fell to the floor and was shaking but was aware of everything around him but couldnt move, afterwards he had a bad headache but could recall what had happened. 

*whole (sorry for spellings/grammar etc, phone also has a lot to answer for ;) )

My 16 year old daughter has done this very same thing for years. Started (we think) at around 11 yrs.

She too went for the EEG scans but didn't show anything up. She describes herself as "not being there" "not part of what's going on" but she can hear and respond. She has tried researching it herself as it really scares her and she feels out if control. Doctors have out it down to "anxiety and depression or stress"!!! However I feel it's part of a bigger picture to be honest. 

She found derealisation and disassociation online and feels it is very much like this. She hasn't been diagnosed with aspergers nor autism but I am convinced she has mild traits. I want to talk about this more but will open a different post as dont want to take over this one.

i wish you the best of luck with your son, please push for answers. I am still fighting for them now from her being 9 yrs old - having many autistic traits at that time and previous to then, its something very much ongoing with us. It's not easy is it getting the shole picture across xxxx 

IntenseWorld said:

I think you might all be referring to "zoning out" (colloquial term obviously) and it is pretty much a part of AS/autism.  It is because of sensory overload, it's like your brain takes you out of gear for a while to recover and keeps you in neutral for that period.  I normally get it after the event, but if I was in a situation for long enough I'd probably get it during the event too, for quite some time I have avoided situations like that though.  It's actually similar to daydreaming in some ways, where you sort of glaze over and your brain runs things over in a dream-like way in your head and shuts everything else out whilst it does so.  It sort of brings order back to your brain - for a while at least!

Yeah, that sounds very much like what I get occasionally.

It's like my brain becomes overloaded with sensory input, so the only way to deal with it is to shut down all the concious processing of that input.

Doesn't happen often, but that's what it's like when it does.

I think you might all be referring to "zoning out" (colloquial term obviously) and it is pretty much a part of AS/autism.  It is because of sensory overload, it's like your brain takes you out of gear for a while to recover and keeps you in neutral for that period.  I normally get it after the event, but if I was in a situation for long enough I'd probably get it during the event too, for quite some time I have avoided situations like that though.  It's actually similar to daydreaming in some ways, where you sort of glaze over and your brain runs things over in a dream-like way in your head and shuts everything else out whilst it does so.  It sort of brings order back to your brain - for a while at least!

This is usually called absence seizures, that's certainly very much what it sounds like but this would have shown on the EEG.

whatWhat what type of seizure did he have? Was it an absence or muscle twitching-type seizure. The second type don't always show up on an EEG in children whereas the absence type usually do. Have you tried tapping his arm gently when he is having one. My son immediately responds whereas if it was epilepsy he wouldn't.  

Hello

My  son just turned 8 and you could have been describing him.! We also went for an EEG after blanking spells but while waiting for the EEG appointment he actually had a seizure and the EEG still came back negative...?!?! So via Camhs we have now been referred to a pediatrician for further advice as they say that he may not necessarily have Epilepsy but may suffer siezures due to his Autism.?!

My son has mild Autism/severe aspergers. Anxiety and Dyspraxia.

Hi. Well he's only 7 so as articulate as he may be he describes it as beat he can using his own words. Basically he ends up sat there staring into space, he remembers nothing except that a few seconds/minutes in time had passed in which he has missed something he has been trying to listen to. In other words its the 'blanking out' thing which he describes as freezing as in something frozen in time or place. Xx 

quote 'blanks out'. He describes this as 'freeze'..

blanking out is over thinking, freezing is emotionally freezing

I do the blanking out and do not even realise that I am, until I told by others that I have "disappeared" again. It can be quite scary if someone brings you back into the world to quickly, say by touching you or rising there voice tone.

The freeze up, is cognitive and physical freezing,, comes with emotional freezing due to overload or pending overload,, ie sensory or waiting for the threat in the environment to leave the area or pass in time.

I have been studying how childen focus at the moment for a project and how childen with ADHD or ASD lose focus and drift into there own world.  A large part of the project is to help reduce this and engage more (basically make subjects more intresting ).

The other part of the project is to help children commit more to memory using something called "weighted Memory Theory", this fits very well with sensory overload.  I can remember watching a Newsround special on Autism and a child saying, when it ll got to much he would see red, but not remember what he had done "blanked out". 

The research I have seen on this would indicate that it could be due to the amount of sensory input entering the cortex in the brain at one time.  If there is too much the cortex is unable to process it and the information is unable to be passed to the hippocampus, resulting in no memories being recorded.  I have seen evidence on this from multiple children, including my own son.  At break time outsite on a very noisy playground, he was playing a game and misunderstanding it, everything was going wrong and became too much and he attached another child who was teasing him.  The staff reported that he "lost it" and was trying to slience the other child, but after they stopped him, he had no idea what had happened.

It is possible that it was simply never recorded as a memory in that case. I agree it would be great if some real research could be done on this.  I guess the only solution is to reduce the sensory input (tell everyone else to be quiet ) and if the other side is lack of focus then make lessions more engaging.

Hi. Thanks. It does reassure me to hear of others describing similar things. The doctor is so calm about it as if it is nothing to worry about and the school over react like its really abnormal and there must be something that can be done. He knows after he has frozen that he has done it but can't stop himself and the more he tries the worse it gets. If he is chilled or relaxed I'm something like PE it doesn't seem to happen. It's mainly seems to be in lessons where he has to listen and then try to understand what he has to do. I just feel so helpless.  All I can do is try and make the teachers understand it better but I can't directly help him. Thank you so much all of you for taking the time to reply. It makes me feel less like we are floundering on alone with no one who understands. 

I've had this problem as far back as I can remember, and have raised this in other threads. It only began to make sense after diagnosis in my mid-50s, as I have found other people report this phenomena.

I have tried raising it with researchers, but the obsession with finding a cure tends to mean that many lifestyle issues, like this one, do not interest the scientists.

Right back to schooldays I have had blank periods. As Scorpion0x17 suggests, it probably has something to do with sensory overload. I cannot filter out background noise, which makes it hard to hear or even understand what people are saying. But especially if I try to concentrate I find I switch out altogether and then have to struggle to catch up when the sound switches on again.

It did raise questions of epilepsy as a factor when younger, but nothing expected for epilepsy was found. Also when I'm in special interests mode it doesn't happen.

Because I've worked in a counselling and tutorial role as part of being in education, it means sometimes I switch off when someone is talking to me. I just reach a saturation point and have a blank. I then have a real battle to catch up.

The first sign is strain on the eyes. So falling asleep has been mooted, but its not like nodding off, its simply sensory switch-off and a loss of connectivity while still appearing physically alert.

Funnily enough it has often been reported I'm a good listener, probably because i'm visibly trying hard to attend. But I spend a lot of time trying catch up on  where I've phased out.

It also affects me in very noisy and complex environments when my awareness switches out then after a time switches back in again, and I get everything around me back on at full volume very suddenly.

I've tried to find out about this but as I say, I don't think people studing autistic spectrum are interested unless it leads to the quest for a cure, or high level diagnostics.

I wish I could get it flagged up as an important area to be researched.

What you are describing sounds just like my son a couple of years ago, he would space out in class as well.

He still does it but not as much, he has Asperger's and so do I and I do it all the time, you could say we are so deep in thought that everything else falls away.  With time you will probably find that he begins to realise he is doing it and can stop himself more, we went through the whole EEG and MRI thing too (very scary at the time) but all negative,  It reduced with him over time and now he is 10 and a half and they are less intense and not so many, luckily the school staff are excellent and do understand and don’t make a big deal of it and simply fill him in or repeat instruction.

I hope this help, and that knowing others have been through the same helps.

This sounds very similar to something that happens to me when I get sensory and cognitive overload - I can't communicate, or even think about, what is wrong, but I am learning to take myself out of the situation, that is causing the problem, to give my brain time to 'reboot'.

I know this isn't of much help, but I hope it perhaps gives you some insight into what may be going on.