When most people hear the word autism, they think of a child or adult, who is nonverbal, has serious learning disabilities, totally uninterested in interacting with the outside world, or who sits in a corner rocking back and forth screaming to the top of their lungs. Although there are some individuals who have this form of severe autism, otherwise known as low-functioning autism or classic autism where there are profound mental disabilities, there are many individuals who have a form of autism called Asperger’s Syndrome, which is at the higher-functioning end of the autism spectrum. Since autism is a spectrum disorder, there are some people on the autism spectrum that will remain nonverbal and profoundly disabled for the rest of their lives and there are some autistics at the higher end of the spectrum that are considered “genius” with very high IQ but have impaired intuitive social skills. In fact, there are many famous people who may have had autism or Asperger’s Syndrome that have made significant contributions in the world of science, technology, and the arts such as Albert Einstein, Mozart (the famous composer), Isaac Newton (the famous mathematician and physicist), Emily Dickinson (the famous poet), Dan Aykroyd (actor and comedian), Bill Gates (the creator of Microsoft), and a plethora of other famous people in a variety of fields and disciplines.[1] People with Asperger’s Syndrome, for the most part, have normal to above normal intelligence but who have serious deficits in social skills, emotional control, executive function and motor skills. In addition to impaired social skills, other symptoms of Asperger’s Syndrome include the following: restricted or repetitive interests in a certain topic (i.e.: maps, cars, radio stations, etc.), dislikes changes in routine, lacks appropriate eye contact when speaking to another person, has an unusual posture or facial expressions, and conversations with other people may appear to be one-sided about their particular area of interest. In addition, a person with Asperger’s may be slightly clumsy or uncoordinated and may struggle with such activities as catching a ball, tying a shoe, riding a bike, or writing. Unlike classic autism, which is characterized by a significant delay in language acquisition or cognitive function before the age of three, the person with Asperger’s doesn’t have a delay in cognitive and language acquisition. In other words, a child with Asperger’s learns language and information at the same rate as non-autistic, or neurotypical children, but they often have trouble making or keeping friends because they lack the instinctive ability to recognize social cues and other skills needed to facilitate and promote social interaction.[2] The neurological disorder was named after an Austrian pediatrician and child psychologist Dr. Hans Asperger, who studied children who have “a lack of empathy, little ability to form friendships with peers, one-sided conversations, an intense absorption in a special interest, and clumsy movements”. The primary reason he became interested with these children because Dr. Asperger himself had many of the same personality traits as the children he studied when he was a child growing up in Austria.[3] Furthermore, he also wrote a landmark paper describing children who had this condition, which he termed “autistic psychopathy”, in 1944 but the paper, which was originally written in German, wasn’t translated into English until 1991. As a result, little was known about this condition in the English-speaking world until 1991 so there are many adults like myself who were considered “a little odd or eccentric” when they were children might have Asperger’s Syndrome and don’t even know it. In this article, I will talk about my experiences growing up with Asperger’s as a child and how it has affected my life as an adult.
My Experiences with Asperger’s As a Child:
In the first years of life, I was considered to be pretty normal because I lacked the language and cognitive delay that is the most commonly associated with classic autism. As a result, no one in my family knew that I was “different” from other boys my age. However, I had some problems with learning how to walk because my mother told me that I didn’t start walking until I was 14 months old, which is a little later than normal. Also, I had difficulty with learning how to tie my shoes when I was a young child. In fact, I didn’t master the skill of tying my shoes until I was in the 2nd grade at the age of 8, which is about three or four years later than the average child. However, most other developmental milestones were normal, such as toilet training, feeding myself, talking, learning how to ride a bicycle, etc. As with other autistic children, I had special interests that might seem odd or unusual for a child my age. For example, while other boys my age were more interested in playing sports that involve intense social interaction like basketball and football (I didn’t become interested in watching football until 1995 when I was 14 years old.), my first special interest as a child was reading road maps and drawing road maps and streets in which I named streets after classmates, which lasted to the time I was in the 4th or 5th grade. In fact, my fascination with roads and expressways started when I used to stay after school in kindergarten, which was dismissed earlier than the rest of the school. Since my grandmother worked in the cafeteria kitchen at the same school I attended, I used to stay after school with my kindergarten teacher who used to give me wooden toy blocks to play with after class. On these blocks, I used to write on these blocks exit signs and names of streets in Jacksonville, FL, which is the city where I was born and where I have resided in for all 30 years of my life. When I was 8 years old, on the other hand, I developed an interest in meteorology and I began watching The Weather Channel. Moreover, I started reading car books like Car and Driver and Consumer Reports magazines around age 9 or 10 and learned about the on-road performance and reliability of cars. However, the special interest that I developed as a child and remains the most prominent in life today as an adult is radio, which began around age 12 or 13. To this day, I still find enjoyment in testing radio signals of radio stations in various areas. Every time I go on a trip, I bring along my portable radio to find out what stations are in the area and testing their signal strength in that particular area. To the average person, all of these interests may seem weird, eccentric, odd, or unusual but I used to enjoy these activities, especially when the environment around me is stressful and I prefer immersing myself in these special interests than being around people, which is a common characteristic of people of autism. Other unusual behavior that I used to do (and still do occasionally) in order to comfort myself or when I was excited was running back and forth while making noises when I was excited about something when I was around the house, which is called stemming, which is a typical autistic behavior. Moreover, I also notice that I have a tendency to rock back and forth in a chair without being aware of it until I noticed it myself, which is also called stemming.
Just like other children, I went to public schools and was in the same classes as normal, neurotypical children because I wasn’t diagnosed as autistic. However, the biggest challenges that faced as a child in school was the inability for me to “fit in” with my peers, make and keep friends, and the occasional emotional outbursts or meltdowns that happen when I am stressed or upset over seemingly trivial matters. Another way that I stood out differently from my peers was my lazy right eye, which is also a condition I was born with but got progressively worse with time. The lazy eye, however, is unrelated to my autism or Asperger’s Syndrome. When I was in the fourth grade, my teacher at the time recommended me to the Child Study Team of the Duval County (Jacksonville, FL) Public School Child Psychology Department in order to receive a psychological evaluation because of my “academic and behavioral difficulties” in class. The evaluation took place at the end of May in 1991 when I was a 10-year old child at the elementary school I attended, which was right behind the middle school where my mother taught and where I would later attend when I got to middle school. The primary reason why I was referred was because my fourth grade teacher said that I was “an extremely distractible child” who didn’t complete his class assignments on time. Moreover, I had emotional outbursts or meltdowns for “no apparent reason” and I was “extremely difficult to control” during those meltdowns. The person who examined me during the evaluation noticed that I did not smile when they were trying to joke with me and I had a sad facial expression throughout the examination. Also, they had to use words of “praise and encouragement” in order to get me to talk because I didn’t speak freely. During the examination, they gave me an IQ test to measure my intellectual functioning at the time. According to the results, my full-scale IQ was 89, which is in the low average range of intelligence. However, my verbal IQ (103) was much higher than my performance IQ (77). My verbal IQ was in the average range but my performance IQ was in the “borderline range of intellectual functioning” according to the results of the test. Based on the results of the evaluation, my strongest areas were for acquiring general information, verbal concept formation, and language processing skills. On the other hand, the areas where I was the weakest were auditory processing skills and short-term memory skills; on the other hand, my long-term memory skills are excellent. Another observation that they discovered when they were examining me is that I had “interpersonal difficulties” because I said that I had no friends in school and was extremely sad or depressed. Since this evaluation took place nearly 21 years ago, which was years before most psychologists knew anything about Asperger’s Syndrome; the psychologist who evaluated me basically concluded that I was a “lonely, isolated, and depressed child” who has “a tendency toward mood swings” along with “emotional and interpersonal difficulties”. In retrospect, I was surprised that I was such a depressed child 21 years ago because I don’t remember witnessing or wasn’t a victim of any abuse, either verbal, sexual, or physical, and I didn’t experience any kind of major trauma in my home environment within my first decade of life.
When I entered middle school and high school, I noticed the social schism between my peers and I was growing larger and larger and I felt even more out of place. For instance, the majority of my peers cared about trivial matters such as fashion and wearing “name-brand shoes”. If you didn’t wear the latest fashions or wear name-brand shoes such as Nike, Fila, or Reebok, then you were a prime target to get picked on. In middle school, I didn’t care about what shoes or clothes were “in style”. For instance, I remember in the sixth grade my classmates would wear a certain name brand of clothing apparel called “Duck Head”, which was the apparel that was “in style” in the early 1990s. In my logical mind, I wondered why other children in my class thought that wearing a plain T-shirt with the “Duck Head” logo was so important because I thought it was irrational that people are judged by the brand of clothes they wore. But in high school, however, I gave into some of the peer pressure by wearing name-brand shoes because I was tired of being teased for wearing non-name brand shoes or “bo-bo shoes” although I still didn’t care about what clothes were in style. Another thing that made me “different” from the rest of my peers was the emotional outbursts or meltdowns that I would often have in class, which made me stand out in a negative way. As a result of my odd, eccentric behavior and the fact that my mother was a teacher at the middle school I attended, I was well known at the school but I also became a target for teasing from my classmates who would make fun of me or take advantage of me because I was socially naïve and emotionally immature for my age. For example, somebody placed a condom in my backpack in the seventh grade but I was so naïve that I didn’t know what it was at the time so I ended up feeling like an idiot after I discovered it. Since the majority of middle school classmates also went to the high school I attended, I was also popular there but I became even more well known in a negative way because of those occasional emotional outbursts or meltdowns that have plagued me all of my life, which I now know is a common problem for many people with autism and Asperger’s Syndrome.
Because of my deficits in short-term memory skills, auditory processing skills and organizational skills, I used to forget or lose things often and made me a poor listener, especially when it came to following verbal instructions. Despite the fact that I could read at grade level when I was a child, my reading comprehension ability was poor, which caused problems in reading class, especially when it came to reading novels and fictional stories. My favorite subject in school was history because my grandfather, who was almost 78 years old when he passed away in 1996, got me interested because of the stories that he would tell about things that happened and what Jacksonville, FL was like when he was young in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. I also remember the stories he used to tell about the time he served in the US Army during World War II. On the other hand, I was an average student in math but slightly above average in science. For the most part, my grades were about the same as most of my classmates, which was average overall, and I graduated from high school with a 3.0 GPA in 1999. Overall, I was generally a well-behaved child who followed the rules, was honest, and respected authority because I had a healthy fear of the consequences of breaking these ethical, moral, cultural and religious rules that society has created in order to maintain peace, stability, and order.
How Asperger’s Syndrome Has Affected My Ability to Live an Independent and Productive Life as an Adult:
For the most part, a lot of the issues that I struggled with as a child continued into adulthood. As a matter of fact, I took an informal Asperger’s quiz about a few weeks ago that asked a lot of questions related to certain personality traits that are considered “Aspie”, or a person with Asperger’s, traits and those that are considered “neurotypical” traits. Out of a maximum total score of 200, I scored a 160 for “Aspie” traits; on the other hand, I scored a 40 for “neurotypical” personality traits. Based on this evaluation, I fit more of the profile of a person who has Asperger’s Syndrome than a description of a person who is considered “neurotypical”. As with childhood, I have difficulty in social skills, “fitting in” with my peers, and the occasional emotional outbursts. However, the emotional outbursts are less frequent now than when I was a child but they are still present but they are still troublesome and are nothing to be proud of. In my opinion, I wish that the occasional meltdowns would completely go away because they have the potential to cause serious problems in my life such as being arrested, getting fired, or worse. As a devout Christian, the only thing that keeps me going is my faith in God and the faith that He would help me or heal me from this potentially dangerous tendency and serious flaw in my character as a man. Even at the age of 31, I still feel like a little child trapped inside a grown man’s body because of my autistic quirks and traits that have prevented me from maturing at the same rate as my neurotypical peers I went to school with as children, all of whom are now grown adults themselves and have families and adult responsibilities of their own.
On the positive side, on the other hand, I went to college as a young adult and graduated from the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, FL with a Bachelor’s degree in Communications, which was fueled by my special interest in the radio industry. While I was in college, I attended school full time but I didn’t have a job during that time because I wanted to focus on my academics and become the best student that I could be but one of the consequences of this decision is the fact that I had little job experience when I graduated college in December 2005. In fact, the first job I’ve ever had was a work-study job where I was a Student Assistant for the Communications Department at the University of North Florida, which lasted for only for the fall 2003 college semester. About two years later, I was an unpaid student intern at a now-defunct radio company called Tama Broadcasting, which was based in Tampa, FL but it owned a few radio stations in Jacksonville, FL; Savannah, GA; Daytona Beach, FL; and other small cities in the South. Although I did a wonderful job while as a Student Assistant and as a Student Intern, my job experience was not very extensive because I was at both of these jobs for only a short duration of 3 months. Although I spent a month as a banquet server for a hospitality staffing company (April-May 2006), I didn’t land my first and only long-term job until December 2006 when I was hired as a Research Assistant at a small company called AVL Books, which was later named Worldview Media, where I remained until the owner and my supervisor became ill with cancer in November 2010. (Tragically, she passed away April 2011 due to the complications of the cancer.) During the nearly four years that I was employed at Worldview Media, I was a good writer who helped her write research papers about the availability of literature in various languages in the United States. She had two offices, one in Jacksonville, FL and one in Paris, France. For about two and a half years, I was the only employee, for the most part, at the Jacksonville office from June 2008 to November 2010. On the other hand, there were some shortcomings, primarily related to my lack of instinctive social skills, terrible short-term auditory memory skills, and my over-reliance on my boss to make certain decisions, that have led to some difficult moments while working there. For instance, there were times I was confronted and reprimanded by my boss when I accidently interrupted her in order to ask her how to do something while she was talking to someone on the phone or in person; however, I had absolutely no intentions of being rude or disrespectful to her. Basically, I was thinking more about the questions I wanted answered in order to complete the task at hand than about what was the socially appropriate way to approach her in that situation. Because of these flaws, I was nearly fired several times but because of the patience that my boss had with me, she dealt with it and we made the necessary accommodations in order for me to be a successful employee at the company.
The greatest difficulty in my life right now is finding a decent-paying job so I can live independently. Currently, I live at home with my parents in the same home that I grew up in, which I know is embarrassing for a 31-year old man but there are many adults with autism and Asperger’s Syndrome who are in this situation. Another reason is also the anemic shape of the American economy and the lack of jobs available for both autistic people and neurotypical people alike. Moreover, the majority of the jobs that are available require certain skills that I lack, such as great interpersonal skills, ability to multitask, ability to work under pressure, or the ability to work with difficult people and personalities. In other words, social competence is just as valuable in today’s workplace as intellectual competence. Since I am not the type of person to make excuses about my predicament, I made the decision to pursue a Master’s degree in Psychology at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, FL so I can help others who may have autism, Asperger’s Syndrome, Nonverbal Learning Disorder (which is similar to Asperger Syndrome but the individual is stronger in auditory processing rather than visual processing), ADD/ADHD and other learning disabilities. However, my heart is still in radio and music so I will continue to find ways in which the radio industry can use the latest technologies in order to expand the number of radio stations in a market, which will increase competition in markets across the country. Also, I want to buy two local radio stations in Jacksonville, FL, one which will be an Urban AC (R&B music) and an Urban Gospel station that is currently on the air. Also, when I receive an official diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome by a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, I want to start a nonprofit organization that will provide resources and assistance to those adults on the autism spectrum to find employment, manage emotions, deal with social situations, and help them with interpersonal skills. It will be staffed with well-trained psychologists, cognitive behavioral therapists, vocational rehabilitation counselors, and other professionals who specialize with adults on the autism spectrum. Although my struggles with interpersonal relationships and relating to other people have resulted such unpleasant behaviors such as emotional meltdowns and the inability to read social cues necessary in order to maintain friendships and relationships, I believe that “God made me different in order to make a difference in this world”.
NOTE: I have NOT been officially diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. However, based on the criteria listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which is the official book used by the American Psychological Association to diagnose individuals with mental disorders, I have a lot of the personality traits of a person with Asperger’s Syndrome.
[1] Michelle Fattig, “Famous People with Asperger’s Syndrome”. Disabled World towards Tomorrow (December 28, 2007). Retrieved December 31, 2011. http://www.disabled-world.com/artman/publish/article_2086.shtml
[2] WebMD, “Asperger’s Syndrome-Symptoms”. Retrieved December 19, 2011. http://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/tc/aspergers-syndrome-symptoms
[3] NNDB, “Hans Asperger”. Retrieved December 19, 2011. http://www.nndb.com/people/536/000178002/
Expanding the FM band will relieve overcrowding on the FM band, add more variety to the radio dial, and help struggling AM stations survive and compete.
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