3egc/4egcs - the Curious Incident - Asperger's syndrome

Asperger's syndrome


Christopher, 15 suffers from Asperger's syndrome, a kind of autism. His impairment (=prizadetost) is not a single disorder. It is shown in the following areas:

· Social interaction – an autistic person has difficulty in making and keeping relationships with people and living in society. Their permanent question is: Why do people behave the way they do?

· Language and communication – an autistic person has difficulties both verbal and non-verbal. Their language is simple, no long, complex sentences. But if there are such sentences, they are linked by “and”, “because” or “but”. Although Christopher knows many words he is unable to use them to make his writing more interesting, and has little or no awareness of subtle emotional gradations between words (scared-frightened-terrified-petrified). He cannot express irony, sarcasm, wit, but puts a premium on detailed description of events. An autistic person is unable to describe anything that has not been seen and uses very few examples of idiomatic or colloquial speech.

· Vocabularies may be extraordinarily rich and some autistic children sound like "little professors." However, although extremely literal, they have difficulty using language in a social context.


· Imagination - an autistic person has difficulties with creative ideas and abstract thinking. Symbolic meaning, metaphors or abstract thought are difficult to understand for them. (“Raining cats and dogs” is quite unimaginable for Christopher)

· An autistic person sees colours in a different way and feels the sounds differently.

· By definition, autistic people have a normal IQ and many individuals (although not all), exhibit exceptional skill or talent in a specific area. Because of their high degree of functionality and their naiveté, they are often viewed as eccentric or odd and can easily become victims of teasing and bullying.


For more information read . http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~alistair/survival/looking.html
He is an "autist" and gives advice to people who have AS just like him.

Some Further info on the disease on page http://www.autismandcomputing.org.uk/marc1.en.html