Despite normal and sometimes superior intelligence, people with Asperger's have difficulty understanding social conventions and reading social cues. As a result, they often seem tactless or rude, and making friends can be hard for them.
Individuals with ASDs commonly have a low frustration tolerance and significant irritability. They may report that they alternate from calm to extreme anger very quickly. There have been several studies that suggest individuals with ASDs have difficulty understanding and interpreting their own emotions.
Autism Corner: Personality Types in Asperger's: Fixated, Disruptive, Approach and Avoidant. Fixated Personality–The fixated personality type can be characterized by a preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism, and the need to control one's environment (e.g., to have things in a particular order).
Individuals with Asperger's may be socially awkward, not understand conventional social rules or show a lack of empathy. They may also have limited eye contact, seem unengaged in a conversation and not understand the use of gestures or sarcasm.
Difficulty regulating emotions and anxiety, such as, being quick to anger, easily offended and upset, displaying tantrums and sulking. brooding and holding grudges over small incidents, often for extended periods.
Playing Individuals against Each Other: Aspergers and HFA kids are very smart and this leads to more complex forms of manipulation, such as playing individuals against each other. This situation may result in confusion and frustration.
A child or an adult with ASD may not seek the same depth and frequency of expressions of love through acts of affection, or realize that an expression of affection is expected in a particular situation and would be enjoyed by the other person.
People with Asperger's can miss social cues that can be obvious to someone that doesn't have the disorder, like understanding what body language is, or even understanding facial expressions.
It should be noted that though kids with Asperger's don't usually have language deficits-they can be very talkative, in fact-many on the autism spectrum do have difficulty communicating verbally, which is partly why new diagnostic criteria will stress social communication deficits and restricted interests.
Many individuals with ASD have high IQs and have learned socially appropriate (“normal”) behaviors over the years. Some “ undiagnosees ” may take acting classes or study human behavior, becoming expert charmers and even at times coming across as social butterflies when they know that the “cameras” are on.
Adults who experience Asperger's may find it challenging to deal with their emotional responses to situations or events. This can cause the person to react inappropriately or have emotional outbursts. People may also have difficulty understanding the emotional experiences of others.
Asperger's and ADHD are two conditions that are often confused because they have some overlap in symptoms such as social difficulties and impulsiveness. Additionally, it's common for people to have both conditions.
One common characteristic of people with Asperger's is that we are more or less blind to the non verbal communications of others. As a result, we find ourselves forever saying and doing the wrong thing, with the best of intentions. We're described as arrogant, aloof, uncaring and inconsiderate.
Children with Asperger's Syndrome exhibit poor social interactions, obsessions, odd speech patterns, limited facial expressions and other peculiar mannerisms. They might engage in obsessive routines and show an unusual sensitivity to sensory stimuli.
Meltdowns can look like any of these actions: withdrawal (where the person zones out, stares into space, and/or has body parts do repetitive movements) or outward distress (crying uncontrollably, screaming, stomping, curling up into a ball, growling, etc.).
Adults with Asperger's syndrome often have difficulties with initiating, maintaining and ending a conversation, and show a lack of reciprocity or conversational balance and a tendency to be pedantic with excessive and tedious detail (Attwood 2006).
The partner with Aspergers can behave intrusively. The partner with Aspergers may “shut-down” if they don't know what to say or how to behave. They may disengage with partner or family indefinitely. The partner with Aspergers may have great difficulty cooperating with others or working as part of a team or unit.
The Asperger group scored significantly lower on 12 out of the 15 facets of the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (TEIQue). They rated themselves particularly low on questions relating to social awareness, emotion management, adaptability, empathy, and emotion perception.
The Asperger's mind enjoys and focuses on details, while the normal mind is more skilled at assembling whole concepts from details. Some people with Asperger's are visual thinkers and others are math, music, or number thinkers, but all think in specifics.
They sometimes don't pick up on “how” something was said, only on “what” was said. People with Asperger's may also lack empathy, the ability to understand the feelings of others. They may unwittingly say or do inappropriate things that offend or hurt others' feelings.
Communication: Individuals with Asperger's may have trouble understanding language that has a double meaning or that is not straight forward and often take things said in their literal sense. For example they have difficulty with figurative language like 'it is raining cats and dogs' or 'we had a whale of a time'.
Social smiling may be impaired. In this case, people with Aspergers Syndrome may not smile back at someone smiling at them, may not smile during greeting or may not smile in response to something someone else said. Facial expressions used to communicate may be odd.
People with Asperger's also have strengths that make them wonderful partners. They tend to be honest, loyal, humorous, and champions of the underdog. Autistic people don't often get caught up in social constructs, so they can see right to the heart of what matters.