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What Is Asperger's? Signs and Symptoms

What is Asperger’s syndrome?

It is basically termed as a prevalent form of developmental disorder wherein it can also be described as a mild form of autism in an individual. There can be multiple possible symptoms of this syndrome but one of the main symptom which has been identified is having significant amount of trouble in terms of dealing with social situations or instances. The child may tend to show certain mild form to severe form of symptoms or they can also display all of those symptoms. Due to the wide variety of symptoms no two individuals or children suffering from Asperger would be alike. The parents would mostly start to notice these symptoms when the child begins with preschool or starts to interact with other children.

  • Children suffering from this syndrome mostly prefer making older friends instead of their own age group.
  • It has been observed that any person suffering from Asperger’s would tend to get engaged in a one-sided and longer conversations without even realising or trying to establish that the listener is listening or is bored.
  • Such individuals or children often display signs of an unusual non-verbal form of communication such as there is lack of eye contact and the body posture is also quite awkward with a few form of facial expressions.
  • Those suffering from Asperger’s do not empathise with other people’s feelings. They cannot easily read what is going on in the minds of other people hence may have difficulty to understand what exactly is humour.
  • Those with Asperger’s often speak with a monotone, jerky voice or a rigidity in their sound.
  • Individuals with Asperger’s can turn out to be often literal thereby making it difficult for such individuals to understand the tones of language even when their vocabulary is good enough.
  • In case of children suffering from Asperger’s would start to have obsession which would be of intense nature with either a single or two kinds of specific subjects.
  • Those with Asperger’s often get irritated or upset with any kind of small changes in terms of their usual or routine nature.
  • Such individuals also get involved in violent outbursts, sudden meltdowns or can go in for behaviour which is self-injurious to them.

Individuals or children with this syndrome tend to be preoccupied with either one or few of the interests which they would be knowledgeable about. Such children tend to get extra interested in parts of a whole or in terms of unusual activities which can include designing of the house, detailing or drawing out highly intricate scenes or trying to study astronomy. They have an inclination towards unusual topics which can include names of dinosaurs snakes or names of stars. Since such children have a delay in their motor development skills they would be late in learning to use a fork or a spoon, to ride a bike or even a basic as catching a ball. They may also have a walk which may seem to be awkward. Handwriting of Asperger’s syndrome children is often poor. They become overstimulated by the use of loud noise, any kind of strong taste or texture or bright light.

A child suffering from one or two of the above mentioned symptoms may not necessarily be suffering from Asperger’s syndrome hence for a child or any individual to be diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome should be having a combination of all of these symptoms as well as they should have significant amount of trouble in terms of facing any social situations. Even though this condition may seem to be in many ways very much similar to autism but a child suffering from Asperger’s syndrome would have normal language as well as their intellectual would be well developed. Also it has been seen that those with Asperger’s syndrome tend to make more of an effort than those individuals suffering from autism in terms of making friends or engaging in any other activities with other people.

Many of these symptoms are known to persist through the teen years and even though the teens with this syndrome would start to learn those social skills which they lack the communication issues would still persist for them. They would mostly have difficulty in trying to read what is going on in other’s mind or to judge other’s behaviour.