Asperger's

by PenfoldTheHamster - April 26, 2008

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Misc.

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Asperger's is a syndrome on the Autistic Spectrum (though personally I'm more like an Autistic ZX81). Characterised by a cluster of symptoms rather than just one, many people would not recognise it as autistic at all. Typically, someone with Asperger's will have impaired social interaction skills, unusually narrow but deep interests bordering on the obsessive, clumsiness and stereotyped motoric behaviours, verbose tangential speech deep in metaphor only understandable to the speaker and lack of prosody

Norma Desmond

Norma Desmond, whose picture is this guide’s icon says “My son needs the label of Asperger’s Syndrome so that people stop using inappropriate ones. There are many gifts that come with this condition. Difficulties arise from an inability of ‘normal’ society to understand or accommodate the way his brain works. ” Amen, Norma, amen.

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A personal view

This lady notes some common ‘co-morbidities’:
– hate light pressure but like deep pressure
– spatial stuff comes easily
– read upside down very easily
– intense interests that change over time — learn a lot about a lot of subjects
– a little eccentric and live how you like

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Primetime

My favourite game on a motorway was to multiply numbers together in my head (e.g. 164×151=24764) — note that I frequently got it wrong, but I just kept on doing it until I got it right. British number plates are generally a bit easier than this Italian one.

Alternatively, I would decompose numbers into their prime factors, e.g. 164=4*41, or 151 is prime.

Sometimes I would count bricks in a wall or pieces of wood on a fence and then do the same.

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Gillberg’s Criteria for Asperger’s

1. Severe impairment
in reciprocal social interaction (at least two of the following)

a) inability to interact with peers

b) lack of desire to interact with peers

c) lack of appreciation of social cues

d) socially and emotionally inappropriate behavior

2. All-absorbing
narrow interest (at least one of the following)

a) exclusion of other activities

b) repetitive adherence

c) more rote than meaning

3. Imposition of
routines and interests (at least one of the following)

a) on self, in aspects of life

b)
on others

4. Speech and
language problems (at least three of the following)

a) delayed development

b) superficially perfect expressive language

c) formal, pedantic language

d) odd prosody, peculiar voice characteristics

e) impairment of comprehension including misinterpretations
of literal/implied meanings

5. Non-verbal communication problems
(at least one of the following)

a) limited use of
gestures

b) clumsy/gauche
body language

c) limited facial
expression

d) inappropriate
expression

e) peculiar, stiff
gaze

6. Motor clumsiness: poor performance
on neurodevelopmental examination

All six criteria must be met for confirmation of diagnosis.

(nicked with thanks but no permission from
www.weirdbutnotstupid.com)

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: by ThePoorestTourist 04/30/2008 Reply

Awesome guide. Nice work!

: by eye2wild 04/26/2008 Reply

Penfold…this guide was most excellent! These people are truly amazing. fyi: I commented back to you on my Men Guide.

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About The Author

PenfoldTheHamster

Downtown, Chicago

ThisIsABizarreAndTwistedAttemptToSeeHowTheFormattingForThisSiteWorksInWierdLanguagesLikeGermanOrFinnish I am the guy who gets superheroes out of trouble. Sometimes. Obviously, assuming they are not in too much trouble. Or generally, in trouble at all.