Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome

Asperger’s Syndrome (AS ) is a developmental disorder that affects a person’s ability to socialize and interact with other people. Some of the signs and symptoms of Asperger’s Syndrome include:

• Engaging in long-winded conversations without noticing that a listener either isn’t listening or is trying to change the subject

• Inability to engage in eye contact, limited facial expressions or awkward body postures and gestures

• Having an intense obsession with one or two narrow subjects. This might include such things as bus schedules, sports statistics, or reptiles.

• Not appearing to to empathize or be sensitive to others’ feelings.

• Inability to understand humor, irony or sarcasm.

• Speaking in a monotonous or rigid tone of voice

• Clumsy with poor coordination
• Odd posture or rigid gait.
• Verbal IQ is higher than performance IQ (typically reversed in high functioning autism)
• Onset is typically later than autism

Children who might qualify for an Asperger’s Syndrome diagnosis must not show a delay in language acquisition, cognitive behavior and adaptive behavior which is very different from an autism diagnosis. Some common descriptions of early development of individuals with AS include a precociousness in learning to talk, a fascination with letters and numbers. Many are able to decode words although there is little or no understanding of what they are decoding.