Asperger’s Disease

What is Aspergers Autism?

in a hurry? Read What is Asperger’s Syndrome? read  1001 Great Ideas for Teaching and  Raising Children with Autism or Asperger’s, Revised and Expanded 2nd Edition by Ellen Notbohm, Ver…

Asperger’s autism or better known as Asperger syndrome, is a form of autism spectrum disorder that shows the same characteristics as autism in people. It is a brain developmental disorder that affects areas of communication and social interaction. However, this condition is slightly more focused that other ASDs in the sense that linguistic and cognitive development is not affected to the extent of most ASDs or even full blown autism.

The main symptoms of this condition as described by the original founder of the disease is the fact that children who have been affected by this will display a lack of non verbal communication, they have limited to even no empathy with their peers and often seen as physically clumsy. Like most of these developmental disorders, the symptoms and signs of the condition will appear quite early in stages of infancy and childhood, often well before they children turn three.

It is classified as a pervasive developmental disorder, which means there is no one symptom to describe the condition, rather an entire host of symptoms that appear sporadically or even as a single trend within a period of time. One of the more obvious symptoms is the inability for social and physical interaction within children affected by the disease. As mentioned earlier in the article, the biggest and most dangerous factor within Asperger’s autism is the lack of empathy that these children have for their peers when placed in social situations.

They lack the basic elements and functionaries of social interaction; they are unable to make or even maintain friends and do not have the emotional tools to maintain any sort of long term or even short term relationships. This is because they are unable to be spontaneous and maintain any sort of eye contact, non verbal skills like handshakes, facial expressions , posture and any form of gesture that can and might contribute to them overcoming social limitation and initiating contact. The funny thing about this condition is that those afflicted with AS are not normally classified as solitary or even withdrawn, they are able to verbally communicate quite well – but maybe not in the traditional sense. They often concentrate on a single topic or rattle on oblivious to the other person.

They are unable to read things like body language and facial expressions and base their actions completely within themselves. This self centred almost ego centric symptom is also quite common to ASD’s and AS – culminating in a social awkwardness that does not allow them to easily maintain relationships. They are also subject to the same repetitive and restrictive behaviour that most people with ASD and even autism experience. These sort of behaviours will appear as the child gets older and becomes more fixated with interests – there is a level of intensity to their interest that can sometimes be disturbing. The good this is that those with AS are able to develop language and cognitive skills without any obvious and apparent delay, which separates it from being a full blown ASD.

About the Author

MindMatters Psychology Practice provides
child development
support services for children and young adults. They also provide an
Autism Test
for children to pinpoint any possible
autism symtoms
.

What is the difference between Asperger’s Syndrome and being an introvert with low self-esteem?

I ask because I see tons of people on this site who claim to have this disease and then describe it in terms of behaviors that seem little different from introversion, rock-bottom self-esteem, depression, anxiety, love shyness, mild social awkwardness etc. without any clear-cut signs of autism such as repetitive behaviors or sensory sensitivity.

As a newcomer to America I wonder if Asperger’s Syndrome, or the behaviors we label as such, could even exist outside the United States and Great Britain. I hear lots of Scandenavian, German, and Japanase peoples like to work behind closed doors, dislike surprises and loud noises…Asperger seems SO similar to what psychologists call “introverts.”
It’s like you Americans use “Asperger Disease” as some sort of trendy catch-all for “shy loser who’s never had sex”
The Wall Street Journal put it best: Asperger’s Syndrome: “A pompous label for shyness”

A lot of the people you see online claiming to have Asperger’s syndrome have self-diagnosed and not really been diagnosed by a qualified professional. Naturally, self-diagnosis is not very reliable and many of those people are wrong and don’t actually have Asperger’s. It has become too common for people to read a brief description of disorders like Asperger’s and since they don’t have enough knowledge about it and don’t understand how severe and persistent the symptoms have to be, they think they have it and then go around on the internet giving other people a wrong picture of what Asperger’s is really like. That does not mean that Asperger’s syndrome is not a real disorder.

People with Asperger’s syndrome (also called aspies) are not necessarily introverted. Many are, but there are many extroverted aspies too. Far from all aspies are shy either. However, the lack of social skills can make it difficult to interact with others and the lack of interaction or clumsy interaction can come across as shyness.

Depression, anxiety and low self-esteem are common in people with Asperger’s syndrome, but those things are not a part of Asperger’s, but consequences of it. They are consequences of not being able to successfully interact, socialize or fit in with others due to poor social skills, being socially isolated, being bullied for being different and not being accepted the way they are (aspies are often not allowed to be themselves, they are constantly pressured into trying to be like others and that just isn’t possible).

Having mild social awkwardness does not make one an aspie. One must have a qualitative impairment in social interaction and a clinically significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning, as well as repetitive behaviors and more things that are specified in the diagnostic criteria. This is something that many self-diagnosed aspies don’t understand, or choose to ignore because they are desperate for an excuse or explanation for why they can’t get laid. Real Asperger’s syndrome does resemble autism in many ways.

Please don’t judge all aspies or doctors based on ignorant self-diagnosed individuals online who give a wrong picture of the disorder.

Asperger’s syndrome doesn’t only exist in the USA and Britain. It is diagnosed in much more countries around the world. It’s probably overdiagnosed in some countries and underdiagnosed in some other countries, so the prevalence statistics vary between countries.

What is Asperger’s Syndrome?

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