My friends son has this and she recently sent me the following article so I thought I would share.
Answer, but No Cure, for a Social Disorder That Isolates Many
By AMY HARMON from the NY Times
Published: April 29, 2004
Last July, Steven Miller, a university librarian, came across an article about a set of neurological conditions he had never heard of called autistic spectrum disorders. By the time he finished reading, his face was wet with tears.
"This is me," Mr. Miller remembers thinking in the minutes and months of eager research that followed. "To read about it and feel that I'm not the only one, that maybe it's O.K., maybe it's just a human difference, was extremely emotional. In a way it has changed everything, even though nothing has changed."
Mr. Miller, 49, who excels at his job but finds the art of small talk
impossible to master, has since been given a diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome, an autistic disorder notable for the often vast discrepancy between the intellectual and social abilities of those who have it.
Because Asperger's was not widely identified until recently, thousands of adults like Mr. Miller people who have never fit in socially are only now stumbling across a neurological explanation for their lifelong struggles with ordinary human contact.
As Mr. Miller learned from the article, autism is now believed to encompass a wide spectrum of impairment and intelligence, from the classically unreachable child to people with Asperger's and a similar condition called high-functioning autism, who have normal intelligence and often superior skills in a given area. But they all share a defining trait: They are what autism researchers call "mind blind." Lacking the ability to read cues like
body language to intuit what other people are thinking, they have profound difficulty navigating basic social interactions. The diagnosis is reordering their lives. Some have become newly determined to learn how to compensate.
They are filling up scarce classes that teach skills like how close to stand next to someone at a party, or how to tell when people are angry even when they are smiling. Others, like Mr. Miller, have decided to disclose their diagnosis, hoping to deflect the often-hostile responses their odd manners and miscues provoke. In some cases, it has helped. In others, it seemed only to elicit one more rejection.
This new wave of discovery among Aspies, as many call themselves, is also sending ripples through the lives of their families, soothing tension among some married couples, prompting others to call it quits. Parents who saw their adult children as lost causes or black sheep are fumbling for ways to
help them, suddenly realizing that they are disabled, not stubborn or lazy.
For both Aspies and their families, relief that their difficulties are not a result of bad parenting or a fundamental character flaw is often coupled with acute disappointment at the news that there is no cure for the disorder and no drug to treat it.
"We are with Asperger's where we were 20 years ago with mental illness," said Lynda Geller, director of community services at the Cody Center for Autism in Stony Brook, N.Y. "It is thought to be your fault, you should just shape up, work harder, be nicer. The fact that your brain actually works differently so you can't is not universally appreciated."
Some Aspies interviewed asked to remain anonymous for fear of being stigmatized. But with the knowledge that their dysfunction is rooted in biology, many say remaining silent to pass as normal has become an even greater strain.
"I would like nothing better than to shout it out to everyone," a pastor in California whose Asperger's was just diagnosed wrote in an e-mail message. "But there is so much explanation and education that needs to happen that I risk being judged incompetent."
Some are finding solace in support groups where they are meeting others like themselves for the first time. And a growing number are beginning to celebrate their own unique way of seeing the world. They question the superiority of people they call "neurotypicals" or "N.T.'s"and challenge them to adopt a more enlightened, gentle outlook toward social eccentricities.
Asks the tag line of one online Asperger support group: "Is ANYONE really `normal?' "
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not somthing I am happy about, but our family can't go on like this. We also have a DD5 who we have to take care of. Right now we walk on eggshells around her brother.
