The present guidebook is addressed to parents who have recently discovered that their child was dignosed with the Asperger Syndrome, to beginner teachers and not only them - as a work tool for those who want to become acquainted with the Asperger child and reach out to his soul.

Coordinators

• Florin Verza, PhD Professor - University of Bucharest, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences
• Doru Vlad Popovici, PhD Professor - University of Bucharest, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences

Authors:

• Liana Maria Mitran Duţu - Ministry of Education and Scientific Research, Romania
• Romeo Adrian Cozma - School Inspectorate of Bucharest
• Stoica Florica - “St. Mary” Special Middle School for Hearing-Impaired, Bucharest
• Ţîrlui Ileana - St. Mary” Special Middle School for Hearing-Impaired, Bucharest
• Stănescu Ramona - Special Middle School No.1, Bucharest
• Șerban Mihaiela - “St. Nicholas” Special Middle School, Bucharest

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

CHAPTER I MENTAL DEFICIENCY – OVERVIEW

CHAPTER II. CLASSIFICATION OF MENTAL DEFICIENCY

CHAPTER III SPECIFIC FEATURES OF THE MENTAL PROCESSES AND FUNCTIONS IN VARIOUS FORMS OF ACTIVITY WITH CHILDREN WITH ASPERGER SYNDROME

CHAPTER IV THE ASPERGER SYNDROME

CHAPTER V POSITIVE FEATURES ASSOCIATED WITH AUTISM / THE ASPERGER SYNDROME

CHAPTER VI 20 QUESTIONS ABOUT THE ASPERGER SYNDROME IN CHILDREN

CHAPTER VII. RULES AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR DEALING WITH THE ASPERGER CHILD

GLOSSARY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Preface

Dear parents and teachers, this guidebook is meant to offer more detailed information and suggestions related to the Asperger Syndrome. The richer the theoretical content of this book and the more accurately it is explained, the better informed you will be about how to work with a child diagnosed with this syndrome.

The Asperger Syndrome is an acute developmental disorder among the autistic disorders. Its name comes from the Austrian physician Hans Asperger who, in the year 1944, was the first to describe four boy patients as being “autistic. Along with the Kanner Syndrome, a less frequent disorder, it represents one of the most widespread forms of autism.

The affected persons manifest behavioral disorders in their relationships, without their mental and physical development being impaired. Thus, Asperger children do not have difficulty in their acquisition of speech. Their thinking processes develop normally and these children show interest towards the surrounding world.

However, issues occur in their social interactions: they avoid eye contact and their facial expression is devoid of emotions. They have trouble deciphering gestures and expressions, cannot understand the meaning behind metaphors used in speech, the phrases being taken literally. Most Asperger children have a rich vocabulary, at times even pedantic in expression. Once they become adults, they prefer to spend their time by themselves; however, they have the capacity to integrate into society and be professionally active.

CHAPTER I . MENTAL DEFICIENCY - OVERVIEW

Mental deficiency is a global disorder which covers an individual’s entire personality: its structure, organization, its intellectual, emotional, psychomotor and adaptative-behavioral development. The defining mark of mental deficiency is the alteration of the overall component, the bio-physiological and psychological integrity being actually a differentiated form of personality organization. Mental deficiency represents a set of highly heterogeneous manifestations, due to the psychological features in relation to certain norms validated by human life and activity.

The main relevant aspects in formulating a unitary, synthetic definition are: the biological, psychological and social aspects. Unlike other pathological conditions characterized by an intellectual deficit, in the case of mental deficiency the disorders in the normal development appear right from the beginning of the structuring personality. Disorders appearing at an older age show essential differences from the mental deficiency. Mental deficiency does not mean the impairment of a single function, but a set of deficiencies among which the intellectual deficit is the central part. The permanent presence of sense, speech and activity disorders beside the intellectual deficit are symptoms of great diagnostic value for mental deficiency. Emphasizing the specific character of mental deficiency has also a practical value, as the diagnosis of mental deficiency is based on specificity. The social aspect reveals the fact that mental deficiency is also a question of adaptation to the educational requirements and, later on, to the demands of adult life.

Adaptation to school requirements differs from the adaptation to social-professional demands. Intelligence is but one of the many adaptive psychological “tools”, along with the emotional-motivational and volitional character qualities of personality. A mentally deficient child can become a normal adult, though his intelectual level will remain relatively constant.

Socialization of the mentally deficient depends on their age, their family, school and socio-professional background. Mental deficiency manifests itself also in difficulties in adaptation, social integration and self-management in life.

Identification of the etiology of mental retardation is considered by some authors as an “academic exercise” which will allow prevention and treatment measures with beneficial effects. It is considered that etiology can be identified in:

• 80% of the cases of severe mental retard
• 50% of the cases of mild mental retard
• 25-30% of the cases of borderline intellect.

Classification of these etiological factors can be done according to several criteria. The following classification tries to combine several criteria, while the main criterion is the moment when the causative factor is in action and the modification takes place mainly at the level of the CNS (Central Nervous System):

1. Antenatal factors

   1. Genetic anomalies: 4-28%

      • chromosomal aberrations: - the Down Syndrome
      • monogenic mutations:- Tuberous sclerosis, Fenilcetonuria, the Fragile X Syndrome
      • multifactor disorder: Family mental retard
      • microdeletions: the Prader -Willi, Williams, Angelman Syndromes

   2. Congenital malformations: 7-17%

      • malformations of the central nervous system: defects of the neural tube
      • syndromes with multiple malformations: the Cornelia de Lange Syndrome

   3. The mother’s exposure: 5-13%

      • Congenital infections: HIV, syphilis, rubella, toxoplasmosis, herpes
      • Gestational abnormalities
      • Other teratogen agents (radiations, psychological trauma, drugs, medicines, alcohol) Alți agenți teratogeni (radiații, inaparențe, traume psihice, droguri, medicamente, alcool)

2. Perinatal factors: 2-10%

   1. Problems at birth, due to the quality of pregnancy, labor, or others
   2. Hypoxia /asphyxia due to: overdue pregnancy, precipitated delivery, circular umbilical cord distocia, obstetrical maneuvering
   3. Prematurity
   4. Infections at birth

3. Postnatal factors: 3-12%

   1. Infections (meningitis, encephalitis)
   2. Brain tumors
   3. Severe cranial injuries.

CHAPTER II. CLASSIFICATION OF MENTAL DEFICIENCY

According to the degree of deficiency, there are:

• Borderline intellect – intellectual ability of social adaptation, situated at the border with amentia; while the mental deficient cannot cover the situations provided in the mainstream school curriculum, the borderline intellect can, though not at the required pace.

  The borderline intellect is characterized by affective immaturity, emotional instability, and an IQ of 70 – 90, which does not include it into the category of the mentally deficient.

• Mild mental deficiency (amentia, oligophreny I) – is the most frequent form and the mildest degree debility. It was introduced by SEGUIN to differentiate it from idiocy, and it reaches the mental age of 7-11years, with an IQ of 50, 70.

  The mild mental deficiency is the first zone of mental deficiency, expressed by a relative insufficiency versus the demands of the society, variable from one society to another, from one age to another; its determinants are biological – either normal or pathological – and have an irreversible effect.

• Severe mental deficiency (oligophreny II and imbecility) – an IQ of 25 – 50 and the mental age of 3 – 7 years. This category represents 18-20% of the total mentally deficient (Lewis).

  Characteristic features: the subjects acquire elementary operations with difficulty, but can learn to read and write short words; have a limited vocabulary, defective grammar structures, little knowledge about the surrounding world; are incapable of supporting themselves, but have elementary autonomy skills and can perform simple routine activities; have a normal ability of self-protection, therefore do not need permanent assistance and can be integrated into the community in sheltered conditions.

• Profound mental deficiency (oligophreny III, idiocy) – an IQ under 25; mental age - 3 years, is the rarest form, representing 5% of the total deficients. It was introduced by PINEL as “idiocy” – a disease which includes profound mental disorders. ESQUIROL: “Idiocy is the condition in which the mental faculties are never manifest, it is not a disease, it is a condition”.

  Characteristic features: subjects display physical malformations, imprecise motions, palsy; learn to walk later or never; have sensory deficiencies – poor development of smell and low pain sensitivity; do not communicate through speech, but through inarticulated sounds or sounds improperly articulated; react to simple orders without understanding them, though they have previously performed them for long; need permanent assistance, being unable of self-protection.

According to E. Verza, the psychometric classification of mental deficiency is as follows:

• borderline intellect situated between IQ 85 and 90;
• amentia (also named “mild intellectual handicap”) between IQ 50 and 85;
• severe intellectual handicap (also known as “imbecility”) with an IQ between 20 and 50;
• profound intellectual handicap (also named “idiocy”) situated under IQ 20

The World Health Organization (WHO) has made the following classification:

QI = 50-70

mild mental retardation, amentia (approximately 85% of the mentally retarded persons);

QI = 35-49

medium mental retardation (approximately 10% of the total population with mental retard);

QI = 20-34

severe mental retardation (approximately 3-4% of the total persons with mental retard);

QI sub 20

profound mental retardation (approximately 1-2% of the total number of persons with a mental retard);

• Mental retardation of unspecified level (mental insufficiency) (is the case when there are signs of mental retard, but the person’s intelligence cannot be assessed by standard testing (with subjects who are heavily de-structured, uncooperative, autistic or very young children whose age would make it difficult to appreciate their intelligence level correctly);
• Rigidity (KOUNIN) is the resistance to change, including the idea of fixation, hence the difficulties in adapting oneself to new situations:
  • In normal subjects, it occurs with age;
  • In adults there are several psychological regions, but the borders between them become more rigid with age (psychological regions - the reflection of the brain’s functionality, associative connections between various regions of the brain);
  • In mentally deficient persons these regions are rigid and the change does not occur in accordance with chronological age – the mentally deficient cannot apply the learned knowledge in a new form, their development is slow and the progress curve is limited by mental blockages;
  • Rigidity in their adaptive, behavioral reactions (LURIA – oligophrenic inertia).

This oligophrenic inertia represents the failure of the adaptive, behavioral reactions to adjust to the changes in the environment, a phenomenon described by:

• a very weak mobility of their reactions;
• slow thinking;
• apathy in behavioral reactions or hasty reactions due to the overloading of some centers of excitation;
• apatie în reacţiile comportamentale sau reacţii precipitate din cauza stocării peste limitele normale a unor focare de excitaţie),
• a continuous repetition of an activity long after the trigger stimulus has disappeared, by maintaining some gestures even though not necessary.

CHAPTER III. SPECIFIC FEATURES OF THE MENTAL PROCESSES AND FUNCTIONS, IN VARIOUS FORMS OF ACTIVITY, WITH ASPERGER CHILDREN

1. Perception

   • Subject has difficulty analyzing;
   • captures fewer details, mixes up things due to low activeness and the masking of elements easier to grasp – this difficulty can be alleviated by asking questions, delimiting contours, marking in colors (color is more easily perceived than shape or weight);
   • does not grasp the peripheral elements in an image;
   • the poor vocabulary causes a low perceptive analysis;
   • synthesis is achieved with difficulty, any situation that is too fragmentary becomes hard to reconstruct (Mariana Roşca: e.g. the image of a cat which is drawn on two cards – a mentally deficient sees two cats);
   • the duration of analysis and synthesis is improved if the objects are shown to them for a longer time;
   • narrowness of their perceptive field – a reduced capacity in establishing intuitively relationships between objects;
   • the perceptive constant is weaker due to deficient analysis and synthesis;
   • perceptive illusions occur more rarely than with normal people (e.g. the illusion of weight – two cylinders of different sizes, but of equal weight – normal subjects say that the smaller cylinder is heavier, while mental deficients rarely say so);
   • representations are poor, incomplete, lacking fidelity.

2. Thinking : is the essential feature in assessing the subjects’ degree of deficiency.

   • R. Zazzo: their thinking represents the lowest pace of development of all mental processes;
   • at mental level, analysis and synthesis are performed with difficulty;
   • the determining of perceptive similarities occurs later (differentiation from the categorial ones);
   • the capacity of generalization occurs late; though not absent, it works at a low level, the elements described being connected to the sensory experience;
   • definition of the notions is done by indicating the agents (e.g. the spoon – the thing we eat with);
   • understanding (integration of new knowledge into the already existing system) is achieved with difficulty; they do not understand the contents of a new text even if they possess the knowledge, because they do not update this knowledge; cognitive resources are used in a passive manner; they would rather look for already existing experiences than find out new solutions; their judgement is retrospective;
   • a limited zone of proximal development (after L.S. Vîgotski) – mental deficients can hardly solve a task which was demonstrated by an adult – they can perform the shown task only after many trials;
   • they do not reach the stage of formal operations; though not absent, generalization is achieved with difficulty.

3. Speech – the inertia manifested at the level of thinking leaves marks upon speech as well.

   • delayed emergence of speech; poor vocabulary; maintaining its situational character; (parameters of detecting the level of mental development);
   • wrong usage of notions with an abstract character, if they are placed in a different context from the familiar one;
   • difficult grasping of the meaning from the context;
   • sentences with a reduced number of words and faulty grammatical construction.

4. Memory – Their memory is inferior to that of a normal child; there are cases of hypermnesia (the “scholarly idiots”) – (A. BINET – e.g. at a mental age of 7 years, a subject can recall 45 digits after a first reading, due to heterochromia, but it is to no avail…the development of one process does not influence the overall development of the other processes).

   Characteristic features of the memory:

   • rigidity of the recording and reproduction leads to difficulties in achieving the transfer of knowledge;
   • their recall is not voluntary enough, they do not have a plan for a deliberate recording of the material;
   • the difference between voluntary and involuntary memory is insignificant.

   e.g. Mariana Roşca – In an experiment to memorize two similar texts, the subjects were asked to retain and reproduce one text and to report what they did not understand from the other text (the main purpose was also reproduction). The texts were read twice. Results: with normal subjects, voluntary memory was 80% at the first text and 50 % at the second text; with mental deficients, involuntary memory was 46% at the first text and 40 % at the second text;

   1. recall is not active enough – following questioning, the mental deficient may add other elements, too;
   2. lack of fidelity – when telling a story, they may add foreign elements from other situations, from similar previous experiences;
   3. they need a greater number of repetitions in order to retain a material, as well as an adequate motivation and stimulation of activeness;
   4. memory is less affected.

5. Voluntary activity

   • evinces deficiencies all along its development; ;
   • the subjects set themselves near goals, generated by immediate needs, and they give up if they meet with difficulties and choose to perform an easier task;
   • they do not heed instructions but start action promptly, do not ask for clarifications, do not foresee the difficulties, all of which will lead to failure;
   • if directions are given in the course of activity, mistakes will appear less frequently (the plan must be presented sequentially);
   • they react negatively to firm commands, due to reduced capacities (they need stimulation in order to cooperate);
   • they should be suggested what to do, not what they should not do;
   • speaking in a high tone should be avoided.

6. The emotional – affective level

   • Subjects are affectively immature;
   • Mentally deficient schoolchildren have affective manifestations specific to pre-school children, i.e. inappropriate to the cause that produced them: frustration becomes an outburst of fury; aggressive and self-aggressive manifestations; joy becomes an outburst of irrepressible laughter; manifestations of irrepressible affection. All these are not the expression of some deep, stable feelings, but the effect of the reduced capacity of the cortex to exercise control over the subcortical centers; thus, trivial causes can make these outbursts stop or turn into a contrary manifestation.
   • Some mentally deficient are apathetic, with reduced capacities of establishing contacts, characterized by some autistic features.

7. The motricity level – is closely linked to the level of amentia;

   • The force, precision, speed, coordination and prehension are inferior, because motions are linked to the individual’s mentalism (his physical power and development are not sufficient); it is also present in the case of mild mental deficiency;
   • Laterality – is affected; it sets in late or it appears to be criss-cross (the dominant for hand-eye-foot), faulty, causing delays at the lexical-graphic level;
   • Adjustment of the force of movements is poor (insufficiency of kinesthetic sensations);
   • Subjects display stereotypical motions (which are more frequent with more severe deficiencies – at an IQ under 60, they are incapable of precision motions);
   • In a stimulating environment we can establish graded motivations and skills to enhance the learning process.

CHAPTER IV. THE ASPERGER SYNDROME

The Asperger Syndrome is part of the autism spectrum disorders. Incidence of this disease is higher among boys than girls.

Among the clinical names used for the Asperger Syndrome are the autistic psychopathy or the schizoid disorder of childhood.

The onset of the disease is around 3 years of age.

Being a form of autism, it includes many common features, such as:

1. Difficult communication – Asperger persons can speak fluently, but do not pay attention to the reactions of their listeners; they can talk for hours, regardless of the listeners’ interest or they may appear insensitive to their feelings. Despite having language skills, Asperger persons may appear too precise, their jesting too literal, causing problems in the same way as exaggerated speech, reversed phrases or metaphors do.
2. Difficulty in forming social relationships – Unlike persons with classical autism, who often seem to be withdrawn and lacking interest in the outer world, many Asperger persons wish to be sociable and they enjoy human contact.
3. Lack of imagination and creativity – While normal persons often excel in learning facts and figures, Asperger persons often find it difficult to think in an abstract manner.

Asperger persons usually have fewer problems speaking than autistic persons, they often speak fluently, though their words may sometimes sound too formal or bombastic. That is why many persons diagnosed with Asperger syndrome in their childhood were often admitted in schools and, with adequate support and encouragement, made considerable educational progress.

Asperger persons often develop an obsessive interest for a particular hobby or for collecting. Their interest usually involves ordering or memorizing facts about a particular topic such as the timetable of trains, derby winners or the dimensions of cathedrals. With adequate encouragement, their preoccupation can be expanded so that Asperger persons could work or study in their area of interest.

Among the characteristic features of Asperger persons are:

• social isolation and an eccentric behavior;
• presence of deficiencies in their social interaction and non-verbal communication.

Asperger children and adults meet with problems in establishing social relationships and maintaining them long-term; they show interest only for certain domains and mechanically retain much information about the one they are preoccupied with. Their interest areas can be special (collections and certain specific topics or concepts) upon which they are focused and about which they will learn, mechanically, as much information as possible. The role of these special, pronounced interests is: to overcome anxiety, offer enjoyment and relaxation, help them understand physical world, create an alternative world, a feeling of identity, facilitate conversation (even though this may be one-way) and strengthen self-esteem.

As compared to other autistic disorders, Asperger subjects do not have significant delays in the cognitive development or speech. Some of them often possess quite a rich vocabulary, relative to one domain of interest. In point of grammar, the manner in which these persons communicate may be rather atypical, due to the anomalous inflections and the verbal repetitions. Sometimes these children change their voice and can speak in a too dramatic or theatrical manner, too loud, with incorrect intonation; they can speak either too slowly or too fast, their voice having a peculiar rhythm or intonation.

There are often difficulties in starting or concluding a conversation and in choosing the topics of discussion. In certain cases are present dyslexia, dyspraxia, as well as the ADHD syndrome. Motor development may be delayed, causing disarticulated movements.

Asperger children do not have the capacity to resonate emotionally or feel empathy.

Emotionally, Asperger persons are approximately 3 years behind their actual age.

The following behaviors are often associated with the Asperger syndrome (with different intensities from one individual to another):

• limited or inadequate social interactions
• impossibility to understand sarcasm, metaphor or subtle messages
• sustaining repetitive speech, monologues and one-way social relationships, without the possibility that their complex words and phrases could be understood
• tendency to rather talk about themselves
• problems in the non-verbal communication, accompanied by advanced verbal skills
• presence of peculiar attitudes
• lack of visual contact or, on the contrary, a persistent gaze
• overreaction to certain visual, olfactory or tactile stimuli
• tendency to focus upon the details of a situation and to miss the overall image
• absence of mutual conversation
• obsession for unusual topics
• addiction to routine and resistance to changing it
• low empathy
• difficulties in acquiring organisational skills
• one-way conversations
• vulnerability to stress
• rigidity and inflexibility to change
• difficulties in understanding conventional social norms
• absence of gestures or failure to interpret them
• uncoordinated, disjointed movements; awkwardness and clumsiness.

In elementary school Asperger children can get good results, based on mechanical learning. They might, however, have difficulty in reading and understanding the written requirements.

Asperger children may take a longer time processing social information, because they use their intelligence and logic in this process, rather than their intuition.

Asperger children grow to maturity more slowly, therefore their parents should not expect them to act according to their actual age. To Asperger children, an important role in alleviating this disorder is played by the social and educational support which aims at developing their communication and adaptation skills, based on structured activities.

One of the major goals of the specially designed curricula for the therapy addressed to these children is to increase their self-esteem and develop their adaptative behavior. Parents should be involved in these curricula, too, helping their children continue the respective activities at home. Behavioral cognitive therapy can be of real help as well.

Middle school, secondary school and higher education can be challenging for Asperger students, as the timetable is different everyday, teachers are different and sometimes classes are held in different classrooms. All these modifications can be hard to bear and stressful to a person who does not stand changes.

Sometimes Asperger teenagers may feel they are different from the others, they may even be socially isolated by their schoolmates. Unlike younger children, Asperger teenagers can manage stressful factors better. However, fatigue after a schoolday can become a problem. It would be advisable to discuss the issue with the teachers, in order to reduce the amount of homework or to extend it over a longer period of time. At maturity, the symptoms of the disease may stabilize, the understanding of the strong and weak points being more noticeable.

As adults, many Asperger persons can have enduring relationships with some friends, can get married and have children. Despite this, the difficulty in grasping the more subtle aspects of their relationship may be annoying both to partners and to children. Even if Asperger persons process information and sensory stimuli in a different manner, they can have manifold qualities that would help them live an independent life. In their case, attention to visual details, honesty, ingenuity, originality, a rich vocabulary, ethics, logical memory, could prove useful in many jobs, provided perfectionism and obsession for details did not intervene.

CHAPTER V. POSITIVE FEATURES ASSOCIATED WITH AUTISM /THE ASPERGER SYNDROME

As compared to other people, persons with the autistic disorder syndrome (ADS) can have certain advantages in some areas of their school experience, such as:

• Most people think that a busy social life interferes with their study. Generally, persons with autistic disorder syndrome (ADS) do not have this problem;
• Some persons with autistic disorder syndrome (ADS) have unusual memories and/ or natural affinity for computers – both of which could ensure them a start in life;
• The official style required for an academic essay is usually much easier to handle than a casual conversation;
• They are generally capable of studying a particular domain with great application;
• They can be very easily motivated and independent in their study;
• They can be very solitary;
• They are often original and creative as regards thought patterns and have great attention to detail and precision.

How can autism / the Asperger syndrome influence learning, teaching and training ?

Autistic persons can also have a number of features with a negative impact upon their way of learning; these may include any or all of the following:

• Difficulty in interacting with other students and the teachers/ instructors;
• Wrong or naïve understanding during social interactions;
• Anxiety in social interactions;
• Dependence on the routine and rejection of sudden changes;
• Poor organizational skills;
• Focused upon inadequate details.
• Easily distracted;
• Confused about relevant and irrelevant information;

Persons with the autistic disorder syndrome (ADS) can be confronted with problematic situations when working in groups, due to their difficulties in interacting socially. Difficulties specific to group work can include: absence of non-verbal messages performed through body language, facial expression or tone of the voice, remarks that seem inadequate to the context of the conversation, difficult adjustment to a different audience.

Persons with the autistic disorder syndrome (ADS) make extensive use of the language literally, considering it hard to understand metaphors, jokes or abstract concepts. Their difficulty in coping with abstract notions and their inflexibility in thinking can expand to other areas, for instance their routine behavior, repeated demonstratively – such as their desire to sit on the same seat; they may face misery if these routines are broken.

Communication training is among the standard therapy processes by which Asperger children learn the way in which social interactions work, how they can recognize the feelings of the others and their significance. As often as possible, Asperger children should attend mainstream schools, where they can be in permanent touch with other children of their age. The behavioral therapy is beneficial in overcoming certain specific fears and some stereotypic behaviors.

Ergotherapy (Occupational therapy) can be beneficial in overcoming certain motor difficulties, such as writing. Many Asperger persons have very specific interests and gifts, often in the field of arts and music, which should be investigated and supported.

CHAPTER VI. 20 ISSUES ABOUT THE ASPERGER SYNDROME IN CHILDREN

The first 10 features of the Asperger Syndrome and communication

1. Most Asperger children have an average or above average intelligence.
2. They have excellent thinking skills, but they are very poor in establishing social relationships.
3. They usually have intense preoccupations focused on particular toys or interest zones. Common obsessions include dinosaurs, means of transportation and how they work.
4. They will often look for other persons to talk to about their interests. Conversation is usually one-way – rather like a lecture in which they expose their knowledge and are not interested in the feedback.
5. Older children may enjoy being in a club that would meet their hobby, such as collecting coins or stamps.
6. Visual contact is not understood or used.
7. The child may seem cold and indifferent, but he does not deliberately want to be so, he cannot understand the social skills which maintain the functioning of the society.
8. They may acquire social skills, but during a long and slow process which will often need the parents’ intervention to remedy the social damages when their children act inadequately.
9. Short stories can be useful in teaching social skills. Use a written page to teach them how to listen, to keep the silence and to sit quiet while the others are talking.
10. Asperger children prefer the routine and can become irritable when something unexpected is happening.

The next 10 features of the Asperger Syndrome and behavior

1. Rough skills and fine skills are often underdeveloped, which causes balance problems and difficulties at practising sports.
2. The Asperger syndrome is often detected when a child starts going to kindergarten. In general, he will interact better with his teacher than with his schoolmates and can display withdrawn or aggressive social behavior, or the conduct of a child who lacks intelligence.
3. He will interpret things very literally, not being able to understand sarcasm, playful teasing, or figures of speech.
4. Rules are very important and a child can become angry when a game is not played fair or his schoolmates trespass the school rules.
5. In a more positive note, this dislike manifested by the Asperger child towards trespassing of the rules will diminish considerably the probability that he may experiment smoking, alcohol and drug consumption until maturity.
6. Many children are perfectionist and strive hard in case they do not succeed to be perfect at school.
7. Generalization is a difficult thing for them. If they have been taught that they must not hit a child at school, they will not know that they are not allowed to do this at the mall, either.
8. Asperger children express their feelings in unpredictable ways. Sometimes they may appear as if they had no emotions, other times they can display an extreme emotion, totally inadequate to the situation.
9. Breaking up a conversation is a common problem, as these children do not understand the social signals which allow a conversation to be passed from an interlocutor to the other.
10. A child can be helped if his parents work with him constantly, pointing out his strong points and supporting him with his weak ones.

CHAPTER VII. RULES AND RECOMMENDATIONS IN DEALING WITH ASPERGER CHILDREN

•  Watch for the child’s: reactions, aggressions, stereotypes.
•  Imitate him, place a mirror in front of him, without looking him in the eye.
•  Introduce small changes in the imitation (tempo, distance, order, tone).
•  Alternate imitation with normal behavior.
•  Slow down your activity, interrupt it, waiting for the child’s initiative.
•  If you feel the contact has been cut off, return to rule 1 and make a new start.
•  Always take advantage from what the child does and offers.
•  Pretend you do not notice him, but always do something substantial, interesting, attractive to him.
•  Watch for the child’s aggressiveness and whatever might generate it from the outside.
•  Try to figure out the boundaries of the child’s aggressive conduct.
•  Hide your fears and disillusionment about the child’s aggressivity.
•  Always respond with an impassible demeanour to the child’s bouts of anger.
•  Combine all these rules in a creative and strategic manner, as required by the case, situation or context.

GLOSSARY

Name	Meaning
CNS (Central Nervous System)	- is represented by the nervous organs that make up the brain contained in the skull, and the spinal cord in the medullary canal of the spine .
Imitation	- an object copied after a model
Skill	- capacity of doing everything easily, with ingenuity, dexterity, adroitness, art, competence
Deficiency	- loss of, impairment, absence of some physical or mental possibilities, with final or temporary character.
Rough skills	- skills mediated by the large groups of muscles, which allow the children to perform various activities involving basic motor abilities, such as the ability to climb up and down the stairs, to start, turn and stop while running, to jump and skip, etc.
Symptom	- functional disorder or abnormal sensation felt by a living being, which can indicate the presence of a disease.
Disability	- physical, mental or psychological condition which limits a person’s motion, activity, reception
Ante-natal	- that which precedes birth, takes place before birth
Perinatal	- referring to birth-related circumstances
Postnatal	- that which occurs right after birth
Hereditary	- which is transmitted through heredity; inherited
Disorder	- functional disorder of an anatomical organ, of a physical or mental faculty
Syndrome	- all the signs and symptoms that appear together in the course of a disease, giving it its characteristic note
Empathy	- a form of insight into reality through emotional identification
Socialization	- an individual’s process of social integration into a community
Psychomotricity	- integration of the motor functions with the mental functions, as a result of education and the development of the nervous system
Personality	- that which is specific, characteristic to each person and which distinguishes them as conscious and free individualities; a set of stable qualities which characterizes a person mentally and behaviorally; one’s own way of being.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

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