Post subject: Asperger syndrome

Do you know anyone with this condition? How does it manifest itself, and how bothersome is it to the individual concerned?

Do you think it also often goes undetected?

Aaron

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I know a man in my Earth Spirit group who has Aspergers. He must be in his 40s or so. He is highly intelligent & remembers every single thing he has ever read - it's astonishing! (I think Aspergers is a form of autism.)

Although he does make a huge effort to control himself, he tends to start talking about something very loudly in the middle of another's conversation. It's as if something that someone has said, reminds him of something else, and he just starts to talk about it - often completely out of context. Fortunately, in our group, everyone accepts him for who he is & often listen to him, as he has enormous amounts of information in his brain! He sometimes has difficulty recognising faces, and will go round each person in turn saying their names, to make sure he knows them all.

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Thanks... interesting. Is this quite an extreme version of AS, and is this always the way in which someone with the condition might behave, or can it manifest itself in many different ways?

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I only heard about this condition a few months ago as I was reading some articles on the internet. It prompted me to look further and I found out about the talking behaviour. I think we all have a little of that in us at times, but anyway I really did find it interesting because when I think back to my customer service position where I interacted with tons of people each day, I often wondered about some of them having something "different" about them even though they seemed normally intelligent..... I think a few of my customers had this "AS" condition.

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My sister has a mild form of this; she's very intelligent but a little "off". It's been really hard for her to find jobs as she can't make eye contact on interviews and will start talking nervously. And once she manages to get jobs she sometimes has trouble maintaining relationships with co-workers as she can't pick up on social cues.

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Well, the first thing a stranger would notice is that she's more prone to startled reactions than others. E.g., she'll often scream when the doorbell or phone rings; this is because their nervous systems are often more acute with sharper hearing. She'll also talk too loud and too much, not recognizing the subtle cues people use to indicate disinterest. Unless it's someone she knows well, she won't be able to look them in the eye. And she makes many, many social gaffes.

Many people percieve people with Asperger's to be rude because of this, but they value bluntness. For that reason (at least with my sister, I can't speak for other Aspies), she doesn't generally mind if you point out "It's so-and-so's turn to talk now" or "You just implied he deserves to get cancer, is that really what you meant to say? That's what he's thinking right now, and he's very hurt. Better apologize quick."

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I know someone with AS and he acts like a normal person but is very insecure about himself and blames it. I think AS is one of them "in your head" sort of disabilities like ADD and ADHD, but to each their own.

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thanks for posting the additional info so I could learn more. Thanks again.

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Of course it's "all in their heads", autism is hardwired into the brain. Here's an interesting article on the differences:
http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-03/ff_autism?currentPage=all

(I don't know about others, but my sister isn't really capable of "acting normal"... not without a lot of preparation and rehearsal for each phone call, for example. Is it possible your friend was mis- or self-diagnosed? Maybe they just had better training at social cues.)

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Thanks for the link, a good read