Asperger Syndrome Charecteristics (Meyer) and (Fast)

for JMSS.
Physical Manifestations

• Fine motor coordination problems

• Stims
• Difficulty monitoring or controlling voice level
• Verbosity
• Failure to observe the personal space of others
• Strong food preferences and aversions
• Limited food choices and rigid eating behaviors
• Bad self care
• Concentration and attention problems
• Some depression
• Anxiety

Work Characteristics

• Difficulty with teamwork

• Does not like to compete, overreacts to losing
• Difficulty in handling relationships with authority figures
• Difficulty in giving or receiving criticism
• Reluctance to accept positions of authority
• Difficulty in negotiating conflict or being an effective self advocate
• Difficulty in accepting praise and will react inappropriately or with self
deprecation
• Sarcastic and critical towards others
• Difficulty in remembering where items used moments before are located
• Difficulty with starting projects
• Daydreaming
• Attention to detail
• Unorthodox work routines
• Some enjoyment of routine tasks
• Strong reaction to change in work routines
• Stress reaction to multi-tasking, change of priorities and conflict of
priorities
• Low motivation to perform tasks of no immediate personal interest
• Strong discomfort with unstructured time
• Uncomfortable with small talk on and off the job
• Anxiety about performance and acceptance, despite recognition and
commendation
• Conscientious about completing tasks

Cognitive Characteristics

• Stilted or pedantic conversational style

• Poor understanding of reciprocal rules of speech (interrupting,
monologues, trouble with shifting topics, intervention timing difficulty,
difficulty in repairing conversations)
• Some literal interpretation of words
• Literal interpretation of direction
• Low awareness of non-verbal conversation cues of others

Learning

• Preference for visually orientated training

• Preference for hands on learning
• Preference for rote learning
• Preference for step by step learning with practice of one step at a time
before proceeding to the next
• Preference for simple incremental steps without intervening global
explanations for conceptual information
• Agitation with instructions that assume knowledge and delete or
otherwise skip steps
• Dependence on routine and clear rules
• Concrete thinking
• Repetitive questions
• Excessive questions
• Highly susceptible to distractions and interruptions
• Reluctance to ask for help, knowing when, who, why and how to ask for
help (not as bad now)
• Difficulty in clearing expressing a problem
• Unorthodox methods in the solution of problems
• Extreme reaction to failure to solve problems
• Low interest to learn subjects of no interest
• Low threshold to certain kinds of sensory overload
• Some difficulty with handwriting

Thought

• Limited range of highly developed interests

• Some difficulty with short term memory
• Difficulty with recalling and rehashing dialogue
• Exceptional long term memory
• Lack of common sense
• Impulsiveness
• Shutdown during extreme sensory overload or stress
• Difficulty with identifying and expressing emotion
• Black and white thinking
• Problems understanding broad concepts due to getting lost in the details
• Difficulty in imagining the thoughts of others in the same setting
• Difficulty with understanding that other’s thoughts might be different
from ones own
• Missing or misunderstanding the meaning of others’ agendas, priorities or
preferences, words or behaviors

Executive Functioning Issues

• Some problems in knowing the relationship between a personal action

and its consequences
• Problems combining both facts and ideas (some contradictory) into a
grand schema.
• Difficulty assessing the relative importance of details
• Dropping details
• Problems establishing priorities
• Some problems estimating time to complete a task even if it has been
done before.
• Difficulty with organization and sequencing tasks
• Messy work area

Social Characteristics

• Problems perceiving and applying unwritten social rules

• Rigid adherence where flexibility is desired
• Frankness with no tact
• Bad manners
• In own world
• Occasional loner
• Some shyness
• Difficulty with manipulating or playing games with others
• Highly sensitive to injustice
• Difficulty in adopting a social mask to obscure real feelings, moods and
reactions
• Using social masks appropriately
• Excessive talk, always discussing things of self interest
• Some blunt emotional expression
• Difficulty with trust issues: some naïve trust in others. Dislike of forming
acquaintances, some problems with friendships and intimate
relationships, difficulty in differentiating with friendship, poor
understanding of boundaries in relationships
• Constant level of paranoia or vigilance
• Pouting, ruminating and fixating on bad experiences with people for an
inordinate length of time
• Flash temper
• Tantrums, rages, shutdown and self isolating behaviors appearing out of
nowhere (not so bad as when younger)
Cognitive Strengths
Bright
Articulate, eloquent (verbal,written)
Multi-lingual
Sequential processing, Step by step
problem-solving and decision making
Logical
Analytical
Exceptional long term memory
Attention to detail
Process words and symbols
Problem solving (verbal, visual)
Familiar and structured tasks
Computer literacy (good base0
Follows instructions
Alternate solutions and unorthodox
problem solving skills
Good finisher of tasks
Emotional Strengths
Mature
Persistent
Dependable, responsible, honest
Able to learn and willing to change
Helpful and serving others
Motivated
Enthusiastic
Thorough
Conscientious
Diligent, good worker
Dedicated
Able to work independently
Sense of humor
Cognitive Weaknesses
Visual Puzzles
Multi tasking
Integrating details into a current whole
Generalizing information, simultaneous
processing of info
Sticks to one strategy when problem solving
Thinks in words not pictures
Bad spatial perceptions and relations
Abstract reasoning
Novel or complex tasks
Slow processing speed
Difficulty improvising
Hard to make quick judgements (think on
my feet)
Difficulty follow diagrmmatic instructions
Difficulty with vague long winded
explanations or instructions
Rigid in methodology of tasks
Emotional Weaknesses
Some depressive tendency
Insecure
Taken advantage of (not as much)
Some helpless feelings
Anxious
Angry
Disorganized
Team skills
Unable to switch gears (improving)
Some impatience when problem solving
Open expressions of disgust
Social Strengths Social Weaknesses
Friendly Does not perceive/respond to non-
verbal cues
Dependable Talks too much and asks too many
questions
Conscientious Slow to react
Caring Deficits in social judgments and
interacts
Loyal Insecurity with not “fitting in”
Trustworthy Envious with the progress of others
Can become quiet or withdraw
Reciprocal speech
Boundaries in relationships
Small talk