Children with Asperger’s syndrome possess unique behavioural patterns that can make life complicated for them at home and school. In the early 1940s, Hans Asperger, a Viennese pediatrician, was the first one to record a collection of traits, widely known as Asperger’s syndrome. He encountered a bunch of kids with the disorder, who had varying levels of intelligence and learning skills but seemed to struggle with communication and socialization.
It took until the mid-1990s for psychiatry to understand the condition in the DSM-IV, and much longer for physicians and parents to comprehend the disorder of Asperger’s syndrome.
Asperger’s syndrome is classified as an autism spectrum disorder or a chronic personality disorder. Since it is one of many on this continuum, and because Asperger’s syndrome presents in many different ways, children do not exhibit precisely the same list of conditions but may exhibit behavioural similarities. Because of these difficulties, diagnosing kids with Asperger’s syndrome can be difficult. Some researchers may use a number of terms, such as autism or high functioning autism, both of which have problems related to Asperger’s syndrome.
What distinguishes Asperger’s syndrome from autism is that autistic behaviour appears far earlier in life than Asperger’s syndrome. Asperger’s syndrome appears when an infant is well past the age of three, with the majority of symptoms happening between the ages of five and nine. Children with autism are often identified before the age of two.
Children with Asperger’s syndrome can display symptoms, including an inability to interact with others or develop intense fixations on items. These obsessive fixations may be mistaken for obsessive-compulsive disorder, which really is one condition that is mistaken for Asperger’s syndrome.
Children can even grow strange speech patterns and even strange movements. These habits may be the product of cognitive deficits, which are the cause of their Asperger’s syndrome. They are often not vocal and find it difficult to understand nonverbal contact from others. Because of the combination of these two traits, children are often singled out as targets for bullies and teasing. Some other children conclude that these children are self-centered, arrogant, or egotistical because they are unable to engage in social contact because they are unable to.
Children with Asperger’s syndrome are often known to be hypersensitive to some sensory triggers. Contact, sound, and light are examples of these. Fluorescent tube lighting can cause them to avert their eyes and position their hands over their ears in response to noises that many others feel soothing. These activities in children with Asperger’s syndrome limit their capacity to interact in normal society as well as improve their social isolation due to social immaturity, weirdness, or even forgetfulness.
Children would have little contact with others, not because they’d rather, but because they are unwilling to communicate in a social environment that involves the other person. They respond to other children in society that are inconsistent with the social situation.
A person with ASD will have delayed language growth, while children with Asperger’s syndrome will also have outstanding grammar skills as well as a large vocabulary. They may, however, read nonverbal cues in communication and misinterpret most humor.
Children can grow normally in terms of being able to dress, support themselves, and feed themselves; however, they would be unable to have a “natural” memory span and will have very limited organisational abilities.