Asperger syndrome

Asperger syndrome (often Asperger's syndrome) is a mild form of autism. It used to be its own diagnosis but now it’s not. It’s a part of autism spectrum disorder.

Restricted interests or repetitive behaviors, such as this boy's interest in playing with a toy model of molecules, may be features of Asperger's.

It affects the way in which a person understands, talks, and acts with other people. A person who has Asperger syndrome may not fit in well with other people and may be unable to act like everyone else in different social situations. Asperger syndrome is called a developmental disorder, and is not considered a mental illness. Most adults with Asperger syndrome can learn how to make friends, do useful work, and live successful lives. People with it sometimes call themselves Aspies.

People who have it will have to deal with it for the rest of their lives. However, they can try many things to help them and learn how to be able to reduce the impact on their life. One solution can be medication to restrict the different symptoms like aggression. The big problem with people affected by Asperger's is that they cannot understand emotions or how people think. Therapists try to help the person with that. They will do many things like acting an emotion and letting the Asperger people guess what it is.

Causes and management

Asperger syndrome may be observed and diagnosed in early childhood. No one knows exactly what causes it, but it is thought to have a genetic cause. The part of the brain that controls a person's "social behavior" (understanding and communicating with other people) may grow or function differently in a person with Asperger syndrome. Another part of the brain that may be different is the part that controls some body movement such as balance. A person with this condition may walk or act in a clumsy way and have trouble doing body actions such as sports. They may also do physical actions repetitively, such as rocking, flapping their hands, or tapping their feet. The condition seems to run in families. Parents who have Asperger's syndrome often have children who have it or another kind of autism.

Asperger syndrome cannot be found by testing blood or looking at someone's body. A medical doctor needs to talk with the person and other people who know him or her well, to watch how the person moves and behaves, and to learn about the person's past. Sometimes a doctor believes by mistake that the person has schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, ADHD, or mental retardation instead. Tourette syndrome with "tics" (repetitive, uncontrolled actions like twitching, blinking, and coughing) sometimes comes with Asperger syndrome. Many people with Asperger syndrome also have ADHD and/or OCD. It has been estimated that beyond half of the people with the syndrome, also carry some other type of syndrome, disorder, disability, disease, or illness. The MSD Manual says "strong evidence supports a genetic component".

People who have Asperger syndrome have normal to high intelligence. As children, they may need special help at home and school to learn social behavior. The syndrome cannot be made better by taking medicine. People who have this condition are sometimes given medicine to help them with depression, which is often experienced by people with the syndrome.

People with Asperger syndrome can have a hard time fitting in with other people. They may want to make friends and actively approach others, but do it in a way that seems weird or awkward to other people. This social awkwardness has been called "active but odd". Adults who have it usually learn enough "coping skills" to act in a way that seems normal, but often with a few differences. Most people with the syndrome can communicate clearly with friends and family. They may have more difficulty in communicating with new people. People who carry the syndrome can sometimes seem rude or uninterested during conversations, without meaning anything wrong. They may also get stressed or unsettled when things do not go their way.

Characteristics

Asperger's syndrome characteristics include:

• Engaging in long, one-sided conversations, without noticing if the listener is listening or trying to change the subject
• Displaying unusual nonverbal communication, such as lack of eye contact, few facial expressions, or awkward body postures and gestures
• Showing an intense obsession with one or two specific, narrow subjects, such as baseball statistics, train schedules, weather, or snakes
• Appearing not to understand, empathize with, or be sensitive to others' feelings
• Having a hard time "reading" other people or understanding humor
• Speaking in a voice that is monotonous, rigid, or unusually fast
• May prefer to be alone
• Gets stuck in their own heads
• Has strange thoughts and prejudices about the outside world
• Shows problems in meeting new people
• Does not enjoy instant changes
• Feels uncomfortable around people, usually strangers
• Has an eye for details and notices the small things
• Follows their own habits, routines, and traditions, for example; always buying the same type of food and drink, or listening to the same song over and over again

Asperger syndrome is noticeable when the person acts differently in social situations. Their social disabilities can have different levels. Not all people with Asperger syndrome have the same level of it. This characteristic is not the only one. Someone who dislikes people in general does not necessarily have Asperger's. Other characteristics that can be identified is that people with Asperger's hate any changes in their routine. They also dislike having eye contact. Most of the time they will try to avoid it and look away. Usually, people with Asperger syndrome have less facial expression than anybody else. There are many characteristics, and if someone only has some of them then they likely don't have Asperger's. Commonly, people with the syndrome tend to hum or pronounce different sounds to themselves, which they have heard in their surroundings, such as a reporter's voice, a man on the radio, lyrics from songs, words, things they have read, or what people around them usually say. They may repeatedly mention these words or phrases again and again.

History

In the 1940s, a doctor named Hans Asperger studied some children who were different from most other children that he knew but were like each other. He called them "little professors" because he thought that they were interesting and wrote a book about them. Dr. Asperger thought his "little professors" had a different sort of personality.

In the 1980s Dr. Lorna Wing made up the name "Asperger syndrome" for people with high-functioning autism after research into Hans Asperger's work.

In 1994 Asperger syndrome was added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV).

In 2013 Asperger syndrome was removed from the DSM.

In 2019, Asperger's syndrome was removed from the ICD. The diagnosis is now autism spectrum disorder.

Statistics

Asperger syndrome is much more common in males than females. Statistics say that three males are affected for every one female.

It is widely discussed how common the syndrome is, as there are figures that show very different numbers. But, it probably lies between 1 in every 250, all the way up to 1 in every 10,000. A 2003 review of epidemiological studies of children found autism rates ranging from 0.03 to 4.84 per 1,000, with the ratio of autism to Asperger syndrome ranging from 1.5:1 to 16:1.

Other websites

• WebMD Reference pages for Asperger syndrome
• Neurodiversity website History and information on people with Asperger syndrome
• Wrong Planet designed for individuals (and parents / professionals of those) with Autism, Asperger Syndrome, ADHD, PDDs, and other neurological differences.
• Aspies Central A friendly community for Asperger, Autism & other associates even for those not on the spectrum.
• Asperclick Archived 2015-04-19 at the Wayback Machine A forum specifically for AS, but open to other ASDs.
• Think Universal Archived 2024-02-21 at the Wayback Machine Chinease Information about Asperger Syndrome