A child or adult with Asperger’s syndrome can mistake friendliness for friendship and conceptualize friends as though they should be reliable machines. Jamie, a young child with Asperger’s syndrome, said of the child he used to play with, ‘He can’t play with me one day and then other friends another day, he wouldn’t be a true friend.’ A child with Asperger’s syndrome may conceptualize friendship to be about possession, and is intolerant of anyone who breaks his or her personal rules about friendship.
