Asperger's Syndrome

[iCandiBallPythons]

I have a cousin diagnosed with Asperger's.There is an undiagnosed strain of it in my family. It's nothing more than a mild case of autism. Mild enough that the person should be able to live a normal life, to work, marry, have children etc. The strength of Asperger's is that the person can think and reason more objectively without being unduly influenced by emotion and to be able to concentrate very deeply on something. The weakness is that understanding nonverbal communication such as body language and polite indirect hints that is intuitive to others must be learned either by instruction or painful trial and error. The tendency to avoid eye contact will attract bullies unless overcome. There is a somewhat interesting article that can be found on the internet about how not to attract bullies that was written by a famous author that posts on this site.

You have to understand that Aspergers is not as cut and dry as alot of people may think. It is a very very broad spectrum, and we are all very different. I don't believe that there can be a "status queue." Aspergers, just because one may have a particular trait doesn't mean the next 5 in line will have the same exact trait. The spectrum can vary greatly from person to person. For example, with what you spoke about "the weakness" part of your post, I always make direct eye contact with someone, and I understand non verbal communication extremely well. Also Autism and Aspergers, contrary to popular belief are 2 different worlds.