In the mid 1900's, Psychiatrist Hans Asperger described his observations of several young patients with slight autistic tendencies. These young people were not totally cut off from others as in extreme cases of autism. They had normal to high intelligence. Their vocabulary was good and had the ability to relate to their surroundings. Like many with autism, some performed repetitive motions, had highly focussed interests, most had trouble coping with changes to a fixed routine. These are things that are part of the constellation of Asperger symptoms: These kids had the ability to talk intelligently on a narrow range of interests, but were poor communicators outside of those topics. An aspie may lack of coordination or small muscle control. This may show up in a lack of ability in sports, especially team sports, and poor handwriting. A couple of other symptoms are notable: sensory aversion to some sounds or textures.
However, the most striking thing about Asperger's is a lack of awareness of social queues -- A gap in the awareness of what others are thinking and feeling and why. In other words, a kind of 'social deafness.' A seeming inability to understand the motivations of those around them.
You can understand this best if you think of 'social deafness' exactly as if there was a sense organ for social information, just like our ears process sound. Your ear processes and converts subtle air vibrations into sound and we can hear. Your 'social sensor' converts those subtle queues that most people share about social behavior. For an aspie, these are perceived, dimly, if at all. Just as there are varying degrees of hearing impairment, there are varying degrees of Asperger's. That is why it is part of what is called the Autistic Spectrum.
A person who is totally deaf, may never talk. A person with lesser impairment may speak with great difficulty. A person with only slight deafness may only miss certain sounds or mistake words. It is the same for Aspies: Even the highest functioning of us will strain to detect social nuances. We can seem totally "out of it," or sometimes we can, with effort, stretch ourselves to interact in a free-form social fashion, sometimes with better results than others, but it is almost always a strain, and may leave us needing lots of time alone to process and recover our energy.
I have endured Asperger's symptoms ever since I was young, since 1950. I have difficulty separating voices and understanding conversation when several people are speaking, I am uncomfortable with breezes, or the wind from a fan. I like the easy feel of cotton clothing during the day, and the comfort of very heavy blankets at night. But the oddest thing is that, for me as an aspie, small-talk is hard.
So What can you do as either a parent with a child with aspergers, or an adult that suspects you have aspergers?
Up to now, there is little help from Science in a cure, or reversal of the symptoms. Some treatments seem promising: hyperbaric oxygen, oxytocin, and dietary changes are being explored by scientists right now. The research is still ongoing to find out exactly what is happening, and it is slow going, because of the wide variability in the constellation of symptoms. It is very likely that Aspergers is not a single diagnosis but really a wide number of conditions that tend to have a similar outcome.
You can work from inside out, and from outside in. The external approach is that your friends and acquaintences just be made aware of the lack of sociability is not from lack of want or trying, it is more like being 'socially deaf' and that some help and guidance and tolerance might be welcome. The inside out work involves learning coping skills and learning 'awareness skills.'
It's a bit like learning to drive: Did you know how to clutch and shift on your first day of driving? What to look for in an unsafe traffic pattern? It takes practice to learn when to accelerate, when to swerve and when to stop. In the realm of emotions, to recognize the subtle signs of someone's attitude shifts, and what to do when they shift.
You can learn. Learning to cope with Aspergers is a bit like the deaf learning to talk. It takes patience and requires you to pay close attention to what abilities you do have. When a person has a tendency towards Asperger's, the skills are learnable, it is just not a gift that we get 'out of the box.'
The neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) skills of rapport building and language analysis are a big help in this. Rapport building in the NLP tradition is called matching (or mirroring) and makes your whole body become like an antenna that receives and radiates these subtle signals. With care and practice, you become aware of what these signals are and how they work. The NLP language skills help you perceive the bulk of the underlying deep structure of a persons thoughts. These two skills are invaluable for communication.
Where else can you get help? If you are lucky enough to have a counselor who has HFA or Aspergers, that counselor can be of immense help to learn the coping skills that are needed. A counselor who has no personal experience, may have great compassion, but likely just does not know what the 'social vacuum' really feels like. If you don't sense this from your counselor, keep looking.
Aspergers is not all bad: it is not a death sentence and there are advantages. Being a person that is separated from this invisible human communication allows you freedom to explore your own interests. Asperger's Syndrome is not Asperger's Disease: You can not catch it. It is simply a normal variant of the human condition, not a defect.
In fact, did you know that Asperger Symptoms have been noted in some of the greatest people who have ever lived? Noted scientists, composers artists, inventors, teachers. In fact, the constellation of Asperger symptoms are strongly associated with creativity, focus of concentration, determination of spirit, advancement of science, spirituality, art and music.
If you are lucky to have a touch of Aspergers Syndrome, you may be lucky indeed!
