Aspergers Syndrome
What is Aspergers Syndrome?
Children with Aspergers syndrome have the following characteristics:
Delayed social maturity and social reasoning.
Difficulty making friends and often teased by other children.
Difficulty with the communication and control of emotions.
Unusual language abilities that include advanced vocabulary and syntax but
delayed conversation skills, unusual prosody and a tendency to be pedantic.
A fascination with a topic that is unusual in intensity or focus.
An unusual profile of learning abilities.
A need for assistance with some self-help and organizational skills.
Clumsiness in terms of gait and coordination.
Sensitivity to specific sounds, aromas, textures or touch.
The advantages of a diagnosis can be:
Being recognized as having genuine difficulties coping with experiences that others
find easy and enjoyable.
A positive change in other peoples expectations, acceptance and support.
Compliments rather than criticism with regard to social competence.
Acknowledgement of confusion and exhaustion in social situations.
Schools can access resources to help the child and class teacher.
An adult can access specialized support services for employment and further
education.
Greater self-understanding, self-advocacy and better decision making with regard
to careers, friendships and relationships.
A sense of identification with a valued culture.
The person no longer feels stupid, defective or insane.
Aspects of the Diagnosis
A diagnosis can be made with some confidence for a child after the age of five years,
but cannot yet be made with sufficient confidence in pre-school children.
We now have an assessment instrument and diagnostic criteria specifically for adults.
The confidence in the diagnostic assessment of adults can be affected by the honesty
and accuracy in the responses to questions and questionnaires.
Some adults referred for a diagnostic assessment may have the signs but not the
clinically significant impairment in functioning necessary for a diagnosis.
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It is not the severity of expression that is important but the circumstances, expectations
and coping and support mechanisms.
Characteristics of Aspergers Syndrome
Theory of Mind
Effects of impaired Theory of Mind abilities in daily life
Difficulties reading the messages in someones eyes.
A tendency to make a literal interpretation of what someone says.
A tendency to be considered disrespectful and rude.
Remarkable honesty.
Delay in the development of the art of persuasion, compromise and conflict
resolution.
A different form of introspection and self-consciousness.
Problems knowing when something may cause embarrassment.
A longer time to process social information, due to using intelligence rather than
intuition.
Physical and emotional exhaustion from socializing.
The Understanding and Expression of Emotions
The emotional maturity of children with Aspergers syndrome is usually at least three
years behind that of their peers.
There can be a limited vocabulary to describe emotions and a lack of subtlety and
variety in emotional expression.
There is an association between Aspergers syndrome and the development of an
additional or secondary mood disorder, including depression, anxiety disorder, and
problems with anger management and the communication of love and affection.
People with Aspergers syndrome appear vulnerable to feeling depressed, with about
one in three children and adults with Aspergers syndrome having a clinical depression.
We do not know how common anger management problems are with children and
adults with Aspergers syndrome, but we do know that when problems with the
expression of anger occur, the person with Aspergers syndrome and family members
are very keen to reduce the frequency, intensity and consequences of anger.
A person with Aspergers syndrome may enjoy a very brief and low intensity
expression of affection, and become confused or overwhelmed when greater levels of
expression are experienced or expected.
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The emotion management for children and adults with Aspergers syndrome can be
conceptualized as a problem with energy management, namely, an excessive amount
of emotional energy and difficulty controlling and releasing the energy constructively.
Special Interests
One of the distinguishing characteristics between a hobby and a special interest that is
of clinical significance is an abnormality in the intensity or focus of the interest.
Unusual or special interests can develop as early as age two to three years and may
commence with a preoccupation with parts of objects such as spinning the wheels of
toy cars, or manipulating electrical switches.
The next stage may be a fixation on something neither human nor toy, or a fascination
with a specific category of objects and the acquisition of as many examples as possible.
A subsequent stage can be the collection of facts and figures about a specific topic.
Much of the knowledge associated with the interest is self-directed and self-taught.
In the pre-teenage and teenage years the interests can evolve to include electronics and
computers, fantasy literature, science fiction and sometimes a fascination with a
particular person.
There appear to be two main categories of interest: collections, and the acquisition of
knowledge on a specific topic or concept.
Some girls with Aspergers syndrome can develop a special interest in fiction rather
than facts.
Sometimes the special interest is animals but can be to such an intensity that the child
acts being the animal.
The special interest has several functions:
1. To overcome anxiety.
2. To provide pleasure.
3. To provide relaxation.
4. To ensure greater predictability and certainty in life.
5. To help understand the physical world.
6. To create an alternative world.
7. To create a sense of identity.
8. To facilitate conversation and indicate intellectual ability.
The interest can be a source of enjoyment, knowledge, self-identity and self-esteem that
can be constructively used by parents, teachers and therapists.
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When one considers the attributes associated with the special interests, it is important to
consider not only the benefits to the person with Aspergers syndrome, but also the
benefits to society.
Cognitive Abilities
Some young children with Aspergers syndrome start school with academic abilities
above their grade level.
There seem to be more children with Aspergers syndrome than one might expect at the
extremes of cognitive ability.
Profile of learning abilities at school
At school, teachers soon recognize that the child has a distinctive learning style,
being talented in understanding the logical and physical world, noticing details and
remembering and arranging facts in a systematic fashion.
Children with Aspergers syndrome can be easily distracted, especially in the
classroom. When problem solving, they appear to have a one-track mind and a fear
of failure.
As the child progresses through the school grades, teachers identify problems with
organizational abilities, especially with regard to homework assignments and essays.
If the child with Aspergers syndrome is not successful socially at school, then
academic success becomes more important as the primary motivation to attend
school and for the development of self-esteem.
Movement and Coordination
There is an impression of clumsiness in at least 60 per cent of children with Aspergers
syndrome, but several studies using specialized assessment procedures have indicated
that specific expressions of movement disturbance occur in almost all children with
Aspergers syndrome.
When walking or running, the childs coordination can be immature, and adults with
Aspergers syndrome may have a strange, sometimes idiosyncratic gait that lacks
fluency and efficiency.
Some children with Aspergers syndrome can be immature in the development of the
ability to catch, throw and kick a ball.
Poorly planned movement and slower mental preparation time may be a more precise
description than simply being clumsy.
Teachers and parents can become quite concerned about difficulties with handwriting.
The movement disturbance does not appear to affect some sporting activities such as
swimming, using the trampoline, playing golf and horse riding.
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Sensory Sensitivity
Some adults with Aspergers syndrome consider their sensory sensitivity has a greater
impact on their daily lives than problems with making friends, managing emotions and
finding appropriate employment.
The most common sensitivity is to very specific sounds but there can also be sensitivity
to tactile experiences, light intensity, the taste and texture of food and specific aromas.
There can be an under or over reaction to the experience of pain and discomfort, and
the sense of balance, movement perception and body orientation can be unusual.
The child with sensory sensitivity becomes hypervigilant, tense and distractible in
sensory stimulating environments such as the classroom, unsure when the next painful
sensory experience will occur.
We know that the signs are more conspicuous in early childhood and gradually
diminish during adolescence, but can remain a lifelong characteristic for some adults
with Aspergers syndrome.
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