Article: How Autism Feels

By Kate Goldfield
December 20 2005
Courant.com

People with Asperger's Syndrome, or AS, I learned, have trouble reading social cues and understanding nonverbal language. They have trouble knowing what to say in conversations, when to start speaking and when to stop speaking. They fail to notice subtle conversational cues like change in tone of voice or body posture. In fact, they have trouble with social language in general.

They are often highly intelligent, especially with special interests that they pursue, but have trouble conversing. Because of this, they have trouble making friends and many will go through all of high school and college without having ever really made a good friend.

Sensory issues are very prevalent in people with AS. They can hear the sound of a person tapping their pencil from across the room. The smell of cigarette smoke or cleaning agents will drive them crazy. Lights are either too bright or too dim and they often have a difficult time finding clothes that they can bear wearing because of the way they feel on their skin. Often, they will have sensory overloads and need some time out from an activity to process all that is happening to them.

For this reason, eye contact can hurt. Social interactions for someone with AS can be like trying to put together a 500-piece puzzle before the time is up. We even speak differently; our conversational manner tends to be quite genuine. We say what we're thinking.

It is this genuineness, though, that endears us to many people. We don't play guessing games with people; we say what we mean. As employees and friends, we are loyal. We have the ability to focus completely on tasks of interest for hours at a time and also to remember huge amounts of facts related to our interests quite easily.

Excerpts from full article available at:
http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/op_ed/hc-autism1220.artdec20,0,3741561.story?coll=hc-headlines-oped


For information, resources and practical strategies please visit: www.AutismConcepts.com.