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"Asperger's Syndrome Characteristics"
by Roger Meyer
Below is a list of Asperger’s Syndrome characteristics. Most have been extracted from medical diagnostic criteria, descriptions offered by medical and counseling professionals, articles by educators and from employment biographies of approximately a dozen independent-living, medically or self-diagnosed AS adults over the age of 25. While every adult occasionally manifests these characteristics, what distinguishes adults with AS is their consistency of appearance, their intensity, and the sheer number of them appearing simultaneously. Some characteristics do not apply to everyone, so persons consulting this list should not feel compelled to find them all. Adults with AS who wish to compose employment biographies for their own enlightenment and/or as contributions to research should weigh the significance of the ones they share, and have their compositions accurately reflect that impact.
Social Characteristics
- Difficulty in accepting criticism or correction
- Difficulty in offering correction or criticism without appearing harsh, pedantic or insensitive
- Difficulty in perceiving and applying unwritten social rules or protocols
- "Immature" manners
- Failure to distinguish between private and public personal care habits: i.e., brushing, public attention to skin problems, nose picking, teeth picking, ear canal cleaning, clothing arrangement
- Naïve trust in others
- Shyness
- Low or no conversational participation in group meetings or conferences
- Constant anxiety about performance and acceptance, despite recognition and commendation
- Scrupulous honesty, often expressed in an apparently disarming or inappropriate manner or setting
- Bluntness in emotional expression
- "Flat affect"
- Discomfort manipulating or "playing games" with others
- Unmodulated reaction in being manipulated, patronized, or "handled" by others
- Low to medium level of paranoia
- Low to no apparent sense of humor; bizarre sense of humor (often stemming from a "private" internal thread of humor being inserted in public conversation without preparation or warming others up to the reason for the "punchline")
- Difficulty with reciprocal displays of pleasantries and greetings
- Problems expressing empathy or comfort to/with others: sadness, condolence, congratulations, etc.
- Pouting,, ruminating, fixating on bad experiences with people or events for an inordinate length of time
- Difficulty with adopting a social mask to obscure real feelings, moods, reactions
- Using social masks inappropriately (you are "xv" while everyone else is ????)
- Abrupt and strong expression of likes and dislikes
- Rigid adherence to rules and social conventions where flexibility is desirable
- Apparent absence of relaxation, recreational, or "time out" activities
- "Serious" all the time
- Known for single-mindedness
- Flash temper
- Tantrums
- Excessive talk
- Difficulty in forming friendships and intimate relationships; difficulty in distinguishing between acquaintance and friendship
- Social isolation and intense concern for privacy
- Limited clothing preference; discomfort with formal attire or uniforms
- Preference for bland or bare environments in living arrangements
- Difficulty judging others’ personal space
- Limited by intensely pursued interests
- Often perceived as "being in their own world"
Physical Manifestations
- Strong sensory sensitivities: touch and tactile sensations, sounds, lighting and colors, odors, taste
- Clumsiness
- Balance difficulties
- Difficulty in judging distances, height, depth
- Difficulty in recognizing others’ faces (prosopagnosia)
- Stims (self-stimulatory behavior serving to reduce anxiety, stress, or to express pleasure)
- Self-injurious or disfiguring behaviors
- Nail-biting
- Unusual gait, stance, posture
- Gross or fine motor coordination problems
- Low apparent sexual interest
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Sleep difficulties
- Verbosity
- Difficulty expressing anger (excessive or "bottled up")
- Flat or monotone vocal expression; limited range of inflection
- Difficulty with initiating or maintaining eye contact
- Elevated voice volume during periods of stress and frustration
- Strong food preferences and aversions
- Unusual and rigidly adhered to eating behaviors
- Bad or unusual personal hygiene
Morbid (shared, dual, multiple) Diagnostic Conditions
- Learning Disability
- Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)
- Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
- Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD)
- Hyperlexia
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Non-verbal Learning Disorder (NVLD)
- Hypertension
- Semantic Pragmatic Language Disorder
- Tourette’s Syndrome
- Dysthymia
Cognitive Characteristics
- Susceptibility to distraction
- Difficulty in expressing emotions
- Resistance to or failure to respond to talk therapy
- Mental shutdown response to conflicting demands and multi-tasking
- Generalized confusion during periods of stress
- Low understanding of the reciprocal rules of conversation: interrupting, dominating, minimum participation, difficult in shifting topics, problem with initiating or terminating conversation, subject perseveration
- Insensitivity to the non-verbal cues of others (stance, posture, facial expressions)
- Perseveration best characterized by the term "bulldog tenacity"
- Literal interpretation of instructions (failure to read between the lines)
- Interpreting words and phrases literally (problem with colloquialisms, cliches, neologism, turns of phrase, common humorous expressions)
- Preference for visually oriented instruction and training
- Dependence on step-by-step learning procedures (disorientation occurs when a step is assumed, deleted, or otherwise overlooked in instruction)
- Difficulty in generalizing
- Preference for repetitive, often simple routines
- Difficulty in understanding rules for games of social entertainment
- Missing or misconstruing others’ agendas, priorities, preferences
- Impulsiveness
- Compelling need to finish one task completely before starting another
- Rigid adherence to rules and routines
- Difficulty in interpreting meaning to others’ activities; difficulty in drawing relationships between an activity or event and ideas
- Exquisite attention to detail, principally visual, or details which can be visualized ("Thinking in Pictures") or cognitive details (often those learned by rote)
- Concrete thinking
- Distractibility due to focus on external or internal sensations, thoughts, and/or sensory input (appearing to be in a world of one’s own or day-dreaming)
- Difficulty in assessing relative importance of details (an aspect o the trees/forest problem)
- Poor judgment of when a task is finished (often attributable to perfectionism or an apparent unwillingness to follow differential standards for quality)
- Difficulty in imagining others’ thoughts in a similar or identical event or circumstance that are different from one’s own ("Theory of Mind" issues)
- Difficulty with organizing and sequencing (planning and execution; successful performance of tasks in a logical, functional order)
- Difficulty in assessing cause and effect relationships (behaviors and consequences)
- An apparent lack of "common sense"
- Relaxation techniques and developing recreational "release" interest may require formal instruction
- Rage, tantrum, shutdown, self-isolating reactions appearing "out of nowhere"
- Substantial hidden self-anger, anger towards others, and resentment
- Difficulty in estimating time to complete tasks
- Difficulty in learning self-monitoring techniques
- Disinclination to produce expected results in an orthodox manner
- Psychometric testing shows great deviance between verbal and performance results
- Extreme reaction to changes in routine, surroundings, people
- Stilted, pedantic conversational style ("The Professor")
Work Characteristics
Many of the manifestations found in the categories above can immediately translate into work behaviors or preferences. Here are some additional ones:
- Difficulty with "teamwork"
- Deliberate withholding of peak performance due to belief that one’s best efforts may remain unrecognized, unrewarded, or appropriated by others
- Intense pride in expertise or performance, often perceived by others as "flouting behavior"
- Sarcasm, negativism, criticism
- Difficulty in accepting compliments, often responding with quizzical or self-deprecatory language
- Tendency to "lose it" during sensory overload, multitask demands, or when contradictory and confusing priorities have been set
- Difficult in starting project
- Discomfort with competition, out of scale reactions to losing
- Low motivation to perform tasks of no immediate personal interest
- Oversight or forgetting of tasks without formal reminders such as lists or schedules
- Great concern about order and appearance of personal work area
- Slow performance
- Perfectionism
- Difficult with unstructured time
- Reluctance to ask for help or seek comfort
- Excessive questions
- Low sensitivity to risks in the environment to self and/or others
- Difficulty with writing and reports
- Reliance on internal speech process to "talk" oneself through a task or procedure
- Stress, frustration and anger reaction to interruptions
- Difficulty in negotiating either in conflict situations or as a self-advocate
- Very low level of assertiveness
- Reluctance to accept positions of authority or supervision
- Strong desire to coach or mentor newcomers
- Difficulty in handling relationships with authority figures
- Often viewed as vulnerable or less able to resist harassment and badgering by others
- Punctual and conscientious
- Avoids socializing, "hanging out," or small talk on and off the job
This article is copyright, all rights reserved by the author, Roger N. Meyer. It may be reproduced in single copy once for personal use, and in no more than ten copies total for educational purposes. Fair Use is authorized for all purposes and under conditions established by US Statute and the International Copyright Convention, to which the United States is a signatory nation. No person shall publish, distribute, copy, or by other means make this material available to others for purposes of personal gain or professional self-aggrandizement. Individuals wishing permission to exercise other than fair use or limited distribution as outlined above must contact the author, in writing, and receive explicit written permission from the author prior to engaging in further use of this material.