The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome

by Anthony Attwood

The underlying assumption in the diagnostic criteria is that someone who has an ASD has difficulty ‘reading’ social situations. From my clinical experience, there are three adaptations to this characteristic. The most conspicuous is a tendency to be withdrawn, shy and introspective in social situations, avoiding or minimizing participation or conversations; or, conversely, actively seeking social engagement and being conspicuously intrusive and intense, dominating the interaction and being unaware of social conventions such as acknowledging personal space. In each example, there is an imbalance in social reciprocity. However, I have identified a third strategy for coping with difficulties with ‘reading’ social situations, and that is to avidly observe and intellectually analyze social behaviour and to achieve reciprocal social interaction by imitation and using an observed and practised social ‘script’ based on intellectual analysis rather than intuition. This is a compensatory mechanism often (but not exclusively) used by girls with Asperger’s syndrome, who are thus able to express superficial social abilities that can be confusing to the diagnostician.