Asperger's Symptoms

Asperger's syndrome is named after the Austrian child psychologist Hans Asperger who found this disorder in 1944. It is a neurobiological (neuro transmitters) and an autistic disorder that can occur in children and adults too. It is one of the autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Autism spectrum is a category of disabilities, mainly developmental, which includes many other disorders having similar characteristics. There are many disorders with different combinations and degrees of severity in autism spectrum disorder. Often symptoms can cause attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or dyslexia too in people.

Causes

Asperger's syndrome is classified as one of the five pervasive development disorders (PDD) and is thought to result from a combination of psychological, physiologic, and sociological factors. It is rare, with the ration of 4/5:10,000, but is found around four times more in boys than girls. Tony Attwood, a famous Asperger syndrome specialist, named this disorder as autistic psychopathy and says eight years old is the average age when children are diagnosed with Asperger's. The causes of Asperger's syndrome can be brain dysfunction which may result from a disease, trauma or an abnormal brain structure.

Autistic disorders in general are linked with maternal rubella, anoxia during birth, infantile spasms, untreated phenylketonuria, tuberous sclerosis, encephalitis and fragile X syndrome. Increased hormone levels of dopamine and serotonin are also observed in some cases. Asperger's symptoms can persist if it is present in the family history. It means the genes might carry the autistic symptoms though the percentage is very low. Find the symptoms of Asperger's Syndrome in the following paragraphs.

Asperger's Symptoms in Children

The symptoms in toddlers can be seen in very early stages like 18 months. But the detection can be reliable only after a child has attained the age of three.The symptoms in children can be enlisted as follows:

• Children with Asperger's have problems with eye contact. They avoid eye contact while communicating, do not maintain eye contact or else just cannot look into anyone's eyes.
• Their facial expressions are not normal. People, including other children find their expressions and non-verbal communication weird.
• Uncoordinated motor movements, i.e. they have odd body postures, rigid gait, awkward movements, e.g. a clumsy and imbalanced way of walking, poor coordination and motor skills, and are not able to notice body language.
• Need for sameness - repetitive routines or rituals, fear of changes, engages in highly repetitive play. Repetitive rituals, routines, body movements like hand flapping, head swiveling, mirroring, etc.
• Impaired social interaction - eccentric personality.
• Social withdrawal - aloof, indifferent, lack of interest in other people, lack of empathy, socially non-adapted personality, single-mindedness, rigid thinking.
• Speech peculiarities - they are not so expressive in their tone of speaking. They are monotonous, i.e. without any pitch or tone, rigid, cheerless and can be unusually fast or loud. Speech therapy exercises help to evade these problems.
• They often use overformal speech and take everything literally, are unable to recognize figure of speech or sarcasm, repeat words.
• Unusual preoccupations - preoccupied with their own agenda, inflexible thinking, lack of imagination.
• Impaired social interaction is one big problem area in these children. They have difficulty initiating conversation, do not pick up subtle changes in someone's tone of voice and hence are often unable to develop peer relationships.
• These children find it very difficult to understand emotions. They are also unable to understand and are oblivious to others emotions and reactions. They have few facial expressions and are unable to pick up facial expressions too.
• Children with Asperger's syndrome have excellent rote memory and may present many facts about the subject that interests them but will not be able to form any conclusion.
• They have limited interests hence they over focus on the subjects they are usually obsessed about and can go on and on incessantly stating them and while in conversation, can completely ignore the opponent's reactions of being disinterested. One or two subjects is what interests them. They usually ignore all other topics.
• They are unable to take turns while talking and to listen to others. They can be obsessed with casual things like train schedule, weather, basketball, any machine or gadget, e.g. vacuum cleaner, etc.
• They do not respond to names very well, are unaware of unwritten rules, do not have a strong response to pain, have an extreme dislike of certain noises, textures or situations, are easily over stimulated by sounds, crowds or lights, are unaware of personal space and tend to invade their privacy without realization, and make inappropriate remarks.

Asperger's Symptoms in Adults

Symptoms in adults stay throughout their lives, but can be stabilized to some extent. Adults with Asperger's syndrome can lead a normal married life and also pursue their studies as they have excellent scope of remembering details and are very thorough with their areas of interest. They can be successful in their chosen careers. Usually technology interests them and engineering or computer programming are very common choices in which they excel due to their traits of being extremely focused, one-tracked and eye for detail. However, Asperger syndrome behavior in adults include the tendency to get depressed and suffering from anxiety because the level of perception grows with age in terms of understanding if they are being singled out or ignored. They often try hard to be accepted in their peer group. Although it is not completely curable, improvements are seen over a period of time. In addition to the symptoms mentioned above for children, the following characteristics are also noticed in Asperger's syndrome symptoms in adults:

• They have very specialized fields of interest and are incredibly intelligent.
• They are quite rigid and inflexible in their thinking.
• They cannot manage their social conduct very well.
• They have troubles in managing anger, controlling feelings of anxiety and depression and fear.
• They cannot empathize with others.
• They feel the need to be secured always hence find solace in repetitiveness.
• They come under stress if their routine is changed.

Treatment

Different treatments of psychotherapy can be given to Asperger's affected people from the ones listed below:

• Cognitive behavioral therapy.
• Social skills training.
• Speech therapy games and activities will prove helpful for adults with Asperger's syndrome.
• Speech therapy activities and exercises for kids can help Asperger's kids.
• There are no medicines as such for helping Asperger's but they can be used to reduce depression and anxiety, i.e. antidepressants, psychostimulants, beta blockers, etc.
• Physical therapy helps in motor control, i.e. limb movements.

There are many world-famous scientists and people like Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Bill Gates, Keanu Reeves, Al Gore, Woody Allen, Bob Dylan, etc. who are known to have Asperger's syndrome too. Many people are not aware of the symptoms, and the syndrome altogether, so misunderstand an affected person's behavior, these people are seen as egoistic, selfish, not caring, cold, etc. by their peers and often labeled with negative attributes. No doubt, their behavior appears to be unkind and not so responsive but it has got nothing to do with malice. In the first place they are never aware of their behavior as to how others take it. It is important to understand that they do not behave inappropriately on purpose. If you keep nagging and complaining to them that their actions or remarks are hurting or rude, it shocks them, since they have no intention of doing such things. Adults with Asperger's syndrome have a different brain and that is why they are unable to see things from a normal person's point of view. So the onus lies on the family and friends of people affected with Asperger's syndrome to make people around them understand them better and make it easy for both the parties to adjust and live in symbiosis.