Life with Aspergers

Introduction My son has been a little upset of late because he's realised that he's behind the rest of the class in some areas. I'll cover how I "dealt" with his feelings in another post but for now, I thought it was time for a look at the myth of Aspie Genius. It's a sad fact of life that not all aspies are geniuses and that the "little professor" tag doesn't apply to everyone. In fact, it's a distinguishing feature of the aspergers diagnostic criteria that the IQ of an aspie is no different to that of a neurotypical. This doesn't mean that aspies do as well in IQ tests as NTs because often the phraseology in the questions leads to interpretive difficulties (and time delays). It simply means that the aspie ability to "solve" is similar in scope, range and variance to NTs. What can Adversely Impact Aspie Performance? If we assume that the IQ is "normal", then it follows that some aspies will be more intelligent than ...

Don't ask me where I get these topics from (sigh). They usually come up because I read someone's comments about something in a forum and start applying them to myself to see if they fit. The answer is; Amongst People who don't know them very well - NO Amongst Friends - YES. Why is this? There are a lot of social cues that people use to determine whether or not someone is lying. These include; Eye Contact (which aspies have trouble doing) Certain "nervous" body gestures like clasping hands (which aspies do naturally) Differences in vocal tone (which aspies don't vary as much) Facial Tics or twitches (which aspies often have naturally) This means that when someone who doesn't know the aspie well is talking to them, they often interpret the aspie as lying even when they're telling the truth. Conversely, when someone who knows the aspie and their behavior very well is talking to them, they won't be able to use these things as clues. They know that ...

A little while ago, when I was being particularly difficult, my wife said to me "that's right, you're an aspie, so you can't empathize". In fact, nothing could be further from the truth - so Empathy is the focus of this post. It's a well documented fact that women are empathic creatures while men are problem-solvers. You can read all about this in " Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus " by John Gray. This isn't an aspie book but it is good reading for aspies because it contains a lot of useful information about how and why people react the way they do. It's also a good book for anyone in a long-term relationship because you fall into traps and stereotypes after a few years. Now... back to the point. When I was a kid, I couldn't really empathize well. Without realizing it, I would say things that hurt people's feelings (I still do). The aspie doesn't really "think on the fly" during conversations. There's a...