Asperger Syndrome - An Overview

Asperger syndrome, (also called asperger's syndrome), can be cryptically described as a high functioning autistic disorder. Characterized by lack of social skills with recurrent and restrictive behavior patterns, asperger syndrome is distinctively different from general autism disorders, because those who have asperger disorder display relatively higher state of linguistic, verbal and cognitive development .

Interestingly, the children with asperger's syndrome usually do not display the symptom of delayed speech. Often they talk too much, but in spite of being over-verbose they find trouble in effectively interacting socially, partly because they have highly circumscribed interests and they do not seem to care if anyone else shares the interest or not. The children of asperger syndrome are often very intelligent and are noticeably knowledgeable in the their narrow areas of interest.Apart from social impairments, they can hardly talk about abstractions.They are less imaginative and possess very restrictive zones of pursuit.Often, the common questions arises: how to draw the distinction between autism amd asperger's disorder. The core features of autism are a range of social disabilities - manifested as imaginative, communicative and interactive impairments- along with repetitive behaviors and activities. Severity of autism may vary radically - one person with autism may be profoundly mentally retarded and completely nonverbal, whereas other autistic person may be a scientist.There might be some debate whether asperger's syndrome is really a separate disorder from autism.

But we cannot ignore some notable differences. The the major difference is that a person with asperger disorder can narrate their experience, their inner feelings, but an autistic person can not do that. With classical autism, there is no window of expression, leaving everything to the inference of the observers .With asperger disorder, we definitely discover some shades of introspective acumen, a conscious mind in action and some reporting capability. Still with known differences, it needs to be emphasized, both autism and asperger disorder fall in the same family of neuro-developmental deficiencies impairing and destabilizing the foundational traits of socialization, verbal communication and learning. Both are collectively termed as pervasive developmental disorders.

In terms of gender spread, the males with asperger's disorder outnumber their female counterparts by ten to one and they excel in maths and system-driven or systematized research and development.There are a number of intellectuals and celebrities with asperger's syndrome. These famous figures were socially awkward, recluse and alienated. Most of the times the people with asperger's disorder fail to distinguish between the subtleties of human expression - honest expression and sarcasm and between joke and serious statement. In 2001, Steve Silberman, a journalist talked about "Greek Syndrome" and commented that the high-tech IT industry is filled with people with asperger syndrome.