Life with Aspergers

I've been reading Malcolm Johnson's Asperger Management site for a while now and today, since I've got an article up on it, I figure I should probably give it a bit of a plug. This site is great reading not only for professionals with aspergers but also for young adults who are looking to move into the workforce. It gives a lot of good careers advice and tips for working with the aspergers condition. Malcolm Johnson is the author of the book Managing With Asperger Syndrome , published in 2005 by Jessica Kingsley Publishers. The book outlines his experience in senior management roles, how Aspergers affects his work and his strategies for coping. The Asperger Management web site contains a number of articles and case studies examining how those of us with aspergers tackle the various demands that working in management positions can place on us. My own case study, which went live on the site today, is about coping with meetings. Please have a read and let me know what you

I thought I'd just draw your attention to a new-ish article; Living with Asperger's Syndrome in a Neurotypical World by Debbie Scally Published September 20, 2008 http://www.opednews.com/articles/Living-with-Asperger-s-Syn-by-Debbie-Scally-080920-740.html The article doesn't really say a lot but gives a nice overview of aspergers.

A Quick Recap In my last post, I made a list of some of the many aspie issues which can put a strain on relationships and explained how letters are great levellers because they remove all of the non verbal cues, which the aspie has difficulty reading. I had some great feedback on my last post about the dangers of relying solely on written communication. I'll cover this in detail soon but in the meantime, a good message to take away is that the letter should contain everything you need to know. There should be no reading between the lines . Writing Letters to Your Partner There are a few useful things to remember when writing a letter to a person with whom you're already in a relationship. Affection-isms No matter how angry you may be about something, it should be assumed that you eventually want your relationship to remain intact - otherwise, why would you bother to write a letter at all. For this reason, you need to at least remember to start and end the letter on that note.

Its almost a cliche that when you have problems in a relationship, you write a letter to your partner. Unfortunately, too often, in Hollywood movies, the letter says; "There's some food in the freezer - see if you can cook it yourself 'cos I'm gone gone gone..." In other words, the letter is being used to terminate a relationship, rather than to save it. Letter writing in relationships is a great thing which should not be saved as a last resort. In fact, writing letters while the going is good will actually strengthen your relationship. Why is Letter Writing in Aspie Relationships Particularly Useful? We've all heard of the legendary communication problems between couples due to gender differences. They're well documented in books like "men are from mars, women are from venus" by John Gray and on talk shows like Oprah and Dr. Phil. The Aspie world takes all of this and puts a spin on it. Suddenly, not only is the gender difference a problem b

Here's some unofficial figures from two separate surveys (both done in 2008) of the Jung/Briggs-Myers Introversion test. The results are from a survey done on WrongPlanet.net (which is - in my humble opinion - the best aspergers forum on the internet - if you haven't been there, it's well worth a visit. Some Scores My apologies for the Image Table, I couldn't get blogger to properly render a table. You can get to a text version of the table here . Introversion Ratios Comparing the scores in this table, there are a few interesting conclusions that we can reach; First of all, of the 299 responses, 93% were introverted and only 7% were extroverted. This suggests a much higher than anticipated percentage of aspies who are introverted however there is one important factor to consider. This test was done on the internet. A person with an introverted personality is much more likely to do a test on the internet than a person with an extroverted personality. Aspie Personalit

It's a well known fact that the percentage of introverted personality types amongst Aspergers people is considerably higher than the percentage amongst the neurotypical community but this often leads to the belief that all aspies are, by definition, introverted. Measuring Introversion There's an online test based on Carl Jung and Isabel Myers-Briggs typological approach to personality which you can try at; http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes1.htm My Scores Just for the record, my scores on this test were; INFJ Introverted 33% Intuitive 25% Feeling 38% Judging 22% This makes me: moderately expressed introvert moderately expressed intuitive personality moderately expressed feeling personality slightly expressed judging personality So, translating; I have a "source of energy expression mainly in the internal world" and rely more heavily on my internal feelings and creativity than external sources. Strangely, despite being quite a logical person, I make the ma

One of the unusual abilities that aspies have is " Hyper-Focus . Like all aspie traits, hyperfocus is a double-edged sword. On the one hand when combined with the special interest and aspie long-term memory, it is responsible for the genius label as it applies to apsies. On the other, it's responsible for many learning and obedience issues with Asperger's children. Hyperfocus is commonly found in Asperger's children who also have the ADD/ADHD comorbid. Hyperfocus and ADHD/ADD In recent years, the definitions of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder) and ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) have merged, in the medical sense under the banner of ADHD. Personally, I'm not keen on this merging of diagnosis because while the two share similar definitions, there are some fundamental differences between them. While both ADHD and ADD children have, by definition, attention issues, the hyperactive child is more likely to have attention problems due to hyperactivity itse