Prepare to enter the wild and wooly world of an adult with Aspergers Syndrome, a form of autism characterized by intellignce, quirks, social difficulties and downright strange and oddish behaviours.

People with Aspergers generally are high functioning in everyday life but have great difficulty connecting with others due to the inability to read faces, body language and subtle verbal clues. They also tend to take words literally and have a hard time multi-tasking.

Oversensitivity to touch (clothing has to be soft and often the tags removed), light (do not leave home without the sunglasses), sound (loud noises and noisey places are avoided), taste (many Aspies have quite a limited diet and are frequently very picky eaters) and smells makes the everyday existence more of a challenge.

Fasten your seatbelts and come on in...
To find out more about what Aspergers is..please check out my earliest blog entries

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

The Benefits...on a lighter, more positive note


Time to focus on the Positive Aspects:
I have had enough of the "heavy" stuff for the moment so I scanned the internet and found some insightful information and quotes.
As author Diane Kennedy states, "They (people with Aspergers) are our visionaries, scientists, diplomats, inventors, chefs, artists, writers and musicians. They are our original thinkers and a driving force in our culture."
Hans Asperger, the German doctor who discovered the syndrome,believed that "for success in science or art, a dash of autism is essential. The essential ingredient may be an ability to turn away from the everyday world, from the simply practical and to rethink a subject with originality so as to create in new untrodden ways with all abilities canalized into the one speciality."
Dr. Temple Grandin, an adult with autism who became a successful engineer, academic and speaker, believes that her disorder is an asset. She once famously called NASA a sheltered workshop for people with autism and Aspergers. She believes that people with autistic spectrum disorders are the great innovators, and "if the world was left to you socialites, nothing would get done and we would still be in caves talking to each other."
Aspies often have advanced vocabularies, recognize patterns that others do not, and pursue ideas despite evidence to the contrary because they are not easily swayed by others opinions.
They also see the world differently than most people and are able to comprehend multiple levels of the meaning of words and can make fabulous punsters. When told they had to "eat and run,' one Aspie said,"Oh, that makes us carnivorous panty hose."
Many experts relate that Aspies make amazingly loyal friends. They are usually free from sexism or racism. They do not manipulate people but speak frankly and honestly. They are sincere truth-tellers, whose naivety and trusting nature makes them incapable of backstabbing. As employees, they are completely dependable and follow the rules of the job.
Psychologist Teresa Bolick writes,"Their deficits are actually assets as they are unfettered by convention or manners. Aspies help us stay grounded by questioning why we do what we do, why we need to get married and other basic societal assumptions."
Life is what you make of it and how you perceive it. Life is good.