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According to the diagnostic criteria set forth by Gillberg and Gillberg (1989), people with AS have: social interaction impairments, narrow interests, and insistence on repetitive routines, speech and language particularities, non-verbal communication problems and motor clumsiness. (it is essential to realise that each of these symptoms is manifested in a variety of unique and diverse ways, depending upon the overall abilities of the person affected.)
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I mean, if we are only interested in changing the AS person so that they can better meld themselves into society, a tenuous and nebulous concept to begin with, then perhaps we are misguided. The AS community gives us much cause to celebrate. Never, I think, should we expect or want them to be carbon copies of the most socially adept among us. We should only suggest whatever help they need to insure they had every opportunity of leading productive, rewarding and self-sufficient lives.
Chapter 1: Remebering When
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Remembering can teach me who I am and guide me towards who I will be. Remembering can set me free. I would never turn back in search of regrets or mistakes or misdirected thoughts. I simply use my past as a catalyst for conscious thought and for self appreciation.
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When I think of my earliest years, I recall an overwhelming desire to be away from my peers. I much preferred the company of my imaginary friends. I remember playing school with my pretend friends. I would climb in the dumpsters behind the classrooms and dig through the reams of trash to collect old textbooks and mimeographs and workbooks. I would take all my finds home and treat them with great respect. I loved those treasures.
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Using the materials to teach Penny and Johnna was of secondary importance. Far more interesting to me was the arranging of the supplies. Like with my tea parties, the fun came from setting up and arranging things. Maybe this desire to organise things rather than play with things is the reason I never had a great interest in my peers. They always wanted to use the things I had so carefully arranged. They would want to rearrange and re-do. They did not let me control the environment. They did not act the way I thought they should act. Children needed more freedom than I could provide them.
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To me, the logic was simple. I had my friend. She had me.End of story. Anyone else was an obvious intrusion, an intrusion that, if allowed, would force me into a very uncomfortable and generally impossible situation. I never understood group dynamics, particularly casual friendship dynamics that work on giving and taking, role-playing and modelling, rule following and turn taking. Somewhere along the way, I had learned to cope with the intricacies of young friendships well enough to manage one friend. I marched myself up to the little girl and asked her just why she was at Maureen’s house. I can’t remember what she told me, but I do remember I punched her right in the belly the moment she finished her explanation. I guess she said something I didn’t like!
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That’s how I understood language. Words had yet to develop into metaphors or similes or analogies or main ideas. It was all about details and pedantic rules and one-way semantics. I never considered a statement had more than one meaning. I always assumed the meaning I inferred was the intent of the speaker. My parents, assuming I was acting audaciously, were constantly baffled as to why I found it so necessary to challenge the authority. They found themselves weighing their every directive to be certain I would not find a way to weave their words with mine. Which is of course, exactly what I did. I had to make their language fit into mine. I was not able to make mine fit into theirs.
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My parents knew how to get my attention, usually by allowing me the freedom to find my own way of expressing my interests. They knew I had my own way of doing things, and it didn’t interfere with my methods so long as the efforts was genuine and the results positive. I had control over my learning environment at home and because I was so academically gifted, my parents saw no reason to interfere with a good thing. But at school, the rules changed. Suddenly, I was expected to comply with agendas and schedules that were stifling and illogical. Typically, my teachers took it upon themselves to analyse this pedantic behaviour of mine and I’m told the fondest memories of me included adjectives like obstinate, disobedient and everyone’s favourite, mentally retarded. But because my parents were learning how to talk to me, it never occurred to them that I was not following other peoples’ directions.
