Autism and Aspergers: 5 intriguing differences (YOU need to know)

Anyone ever feel like they’re in a play they didn’t get the script for?

Also, when my brother was nonverbal, I wanted him to have a language. So I taught him sign language. But with every single word he learned, he spoke it. The sign language opened up his ability to speak. Fascinating!

I have 2 autistic sons. Both are high functioning Asperger's. It's really disheartening to see how much people try to shove them into a box. I've spent the last 17 years teaching my oldest, and now my youngest to never apologize for being who they are, they're perfect in all their imperfections and to love themselves.

I am a parent, my son was diagnosed with in the spectrum. He just graduated from high school in 2020. Currently he's studying culinary, he's aiming for his associates. Whenh e started he was scared and wanted to give up, but he communicated with his professors and continued. We are extremely proud of how far he has come. ❤ you son.

I’m Aspergers, I’m good at one-on-one conversations, but in social groups I tend to not communicate well with the Normies.

After I received a diagnosis it all made sense. I remember my grandma always forcing me to do eye contact and forcing me to eat the food I hated. And how they said something was wrong with me when I was in elementary school and I was always being bullied for being quiet. I never understood why my being quiet or being alone made everyone around me so uncomfortable.

I was just diagnosed with ASD and ADHD at the age of 35. It's incredibly frustrating because I had evaluations as a very young child that clearly show I've been symptomatic of both these conditions my entire life. I believe it was ignored or overlooked because I'm both female and high intelligence. Under DSM-IV I should have been ADD/Aspergers, but nobody helped me.

I have Asperger’s. And I do have a degree in the medical field. I didn’t find out that I had Asperger’s syndrome until I was in my 40s I have a high IQ. And as an person who studied in the field of psychology, I found that some adults who have autism are smarter than we know. They don’t verbally tell us because they don’t want to waste their time explaining what they know, because they think people should already know.

The problem isn't talking, it's knowing when to stop xD Conversations with me is 80% you listening to me having a conversation with myself and occasionally having some input if you get the chance.

I’m 35 and just now figuring that I’m on the spectrum. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Two of my children were diagnosed, which ironically led to my wife's diagnosis. Which was actually comforting because she masked but there were always those odd moments. Love channels like this to better understand their world.

Always. Since I was very young I’ve felt that everyone else seemed to know how to do things, understand the rules of games, and socializing. It’s always felt like being on the outside and watching life as if it’s on a TV.

My personal observation is that Aspergers have no difficultly talking or communicating, even complex subjects. The problem is that Aspergers will attempt to engage in the conversations but lack the social awareness to understand if the other person(s) want to engage. What's personally frustrating is that I'll attempt to engage with a group and not have any takers. But will be approached later in private by a member of that group who understood and wanted to talk but didn't because they realized the others didn't. I feel like there are secret Aspergers everywhere. They may have better social awareness or they simply can observe that I am the same but the conversation isn't a popular move. I have embarrassed myself plenty of times, but I've met some really awesome people hiding in the crowd. I have never had a private conversation with a "stupid" person. No matter how complex the subject even the most unsuspecting person wonders about black holes and theoretical physics, the cutting edge, new ideas in general. What is so disappointing is how many people love talking about that stuff but will hide it because they think the group doesn't. People shine so bright as individuals. We are so stupid in groups.

My brother is autistic. He has fragmented speech and considered low IQ. But it isn't true. He helps out at his friend's farm. If a tractor isn't working, he will stand there and stare at it. After a few minutes he will go to the farmer and say, "That broke there". So then the farmer will have someone come look at it and every single time, that's EXACTLY what is wrong. Also, my brother can sit in any tractor, look at the controls and then right away know how to drive it. He wasn't taught. / I have Aspergers. I might know a lot but I can't do what he can do.

I am 70, self-diagnosed Asperger’s. I had a successful career in physics and had not heard the term until my 50s. I always felt I was odd. My son was professionally diagnosed Asperger’s but not until his 20s. He struggled in school but got into college. He lives independently but low wage. He has more challenges than me. I think he presents as an underachieving neurotypical.

My grandson, age 21 , has never been diagnosed. He has always been unusually bright with excellent verbal skills since a baby. However social skills very slow. He is now an adult and see him blossoming. I have also seen him struggle all of his life. I want to be the best support I can be 4 him. This video is excellent. Thank u 4 sharing such important information.

1. I have Aspergers Syndrome and my IQ was tested at 137. Unfortunately I'm heavily cognitively impaired, meaning that my brain is just very, very slow to process information. I can cut through information quickly, but it just won't stick. My learning style is experiencing, and even then it takes me a hundred times of experiencing the same thing with the actual intention of seeing the lesson there. 2. Yes, we are able to mask well. That doesn't mean we're comfottable making conversation AT ALL. It's utterly draining. It's exhausting. Most of us need recovery time relative to talking time. I've had to call some people this week and whenever I experienced a setback due to the conversation not leading to the outcome I had expected, I needed one to two hours off basically wiping my brain clean before I could return to my desk and go on with my tasks. 3. True. I have a special interest in linguistics. The downside of that is that people tend to think, "oh, she's so eloquent, she's really on top of everything", when my cognitive hurdles really don't let me be on top of anything that I haven't built up from the bottom myself or is not a very special skill of mine. Additionally, speaking with wide vocabulary doesn't mean that what is said is also what is experienced, because we have the hardest time finding the right word to the way we feel inside. I have a record of not getting the help I was desperate to get because I couldn't make it clear how much I felt in danger. I don't know the 'trigger words' that make doctors/teachers/etc. realise a kind of urgency. Inability to transport emotion through tone of voice/being overwhelmed and unable to cry because we're so great at not falling apart in front of other people lets us walk away and suffer in silence when we were actually in dire need of help. 4. Yes, people with Aspergers Syndrome do better with understanding and following a schedule than 'classic autistics' are. Please keep in mind that the majority of us has gone through at least one episode if depression some time in their life, it's a very common comorbidity. And we're extremely sensitive to all kinds of things. There are many, many people with Aspergers out there struggling to get or hold down a job because our 'outward performance' is the actual work we do. And it's completely dependent on things going according to our inner schedule. We can be thrown off or at least distracted for a while when there are unexpected changes in our surroundings, they could be as small as a coworker having changed their hair. Now imagine arriving at work in the morning with a detailed mental outline for your day, and as you walk through the door, your boss runs past you just throwing a 'good morning, you're doing someone else's job today' your way. Every bit if grip you had on what was going to happen at work just flew out the window. Often times,  when that happened, I didn't get my grip back at least until the weekend. 5. Yes, I was very quick to talk, and also quick to write and read. I always grabbed the newspaper as a child, and when I was about 4, my grandma started to teach me the Alphabet. I learned to write my name and read within that year. When I was 5, I was already so ahead of everything that I started to learn English as a second language (they advertised Disney educational VHS on TV as a support for older children who took English classes in 3rd grade. Later in school, I beat every native speaker in every English class I attended.)

i have asperger's and am trying to figure out why cops treat me like a drug addict during confrontations.

I was diagnosed with Asperger’s when I was 40 (in 2020) after my therapist and friends recommended I do so. I’ve never been interested in being like other people but have always liked to make friends; I was lucky enough to be able to find friends at various points in my life but it’s become far harder as I’ve got older because I tend to feel as though I have to get it right first time. I’ve had a few jobs but most of them taught me that I can’t handle anything public facing (I did a lot of bar work but the public interactions, especially the false friendliness, exhausted me). I was passionate about music growing up and started to write songs, but even though I was in a band everyone around me kept discouraging me from it so I’ve had to keep it a secret that I still write and record. Along with songwriting (which is one of only a few interests I have) I read a lot of philosophy and am currently teaching it, though I had to drop out of a PhD because my supervisor wouldn’t give me a structure. I still have a somewhat childlike view of the world. I’m 42 but I dream about ‘what I want to do when I’m older’. I feel like I have to please others in order to avoid making them angry (I’ve been hit quite a lot because I’m quite direct and never apologise for anything that wasn’t my fault) but I also want to be different from them and not care what they think of me. It’s very difficult because I’ve found a lot of people don’t like it when someone is ‘just different’. Anyhow, my life isn’t all terrible! I’ve been in a great relationship for 16 years with someone who also has Asperger’s and we do a lot of things together, but she doesn’t want to live with me and it’s getting to a point where loneliness is affecting my physical health (I never lived alone until 2010, and have lived alone since then; I don’t like it). I have no financial security and while I dream about ways that might change they’re always far-fetched like being a professional songwriter (my dream job).

I’m a tattoo artist who recently got diagnosed with ASD or Aspergers. I went undiagnosed for 25 years and I really appreciate learning all of this. Thank you for the videos!