Dealing with Asperger’s Syndrome

This neurological disorder was named after the Austrian pediatrician, Dr. Hans Asperger, who first described the term in the year 1944. People with Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) are generally found to have high intelligence and impeccable language skills, although conversation skills are often lacking. They may also have trouble with appropriate eye contact, and may have difficulty understanding figures of speech and sarcasm due to a tendency to take words literally.

Asperger’s Syndrome is mainly diagnosed in children, but more adult patients with Asperger’s are being diagnosed today as they seek help for depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and other mental health conditions. Some parents may seek diagnosis after recognizing similarities from their own childhoods once their children receive an Asperger’s diagnosis.

Children with AS may learn to read earlier than their peers. Impairment in social interaction often shows itself as a failure to develop age-appropriate friendships. Young children, for example, may prefer to pursue friendships with older children and adults whose vocabularies are more sophisticated than that of their peers. People with Asperger’s Syndrome may not display what is considered appropriate body language, and they may have trouble reading body language in other people. They may also have difficulty understanding social cues and conventions such as small talk or not bringing up subjects that make other people uncomfortable.

People with Asperger’s Syndrome often prefer routine and consistency, and may show significant distress when their routine is disrupted. Friends and family may notice that people with Asperger’s Syndrome are “obsessed” with a certain subject or object, intensely focused on certain activities like computer games, collecting stuffed animals, or reading comic books. It can be very difficult to get someone’s attention when they are interacting with the object of their interest. Additionally, Asperger’s Syndrome offer lends itself to great attention to detail without noticing the big picture.

Parents of children with Asperger’s Syndrome will often sense that something is unusual about their child by the time the child turns three years old, and some children may exhibit signs as early as infancy. Motor development delays are often the first indicators that a child may have the disorder, as early language skills are often not affected. It is estimated that two out of every 10,000 children may have Asperger’s Syndrome, and boys are three to four times more likely to have AS than girls.

So, Asperger’s Syndrome must be dealt with seriousness.  A proper awareness about this disorder must be created for identifying it at an early stage.