What would you tell the parents of a child...

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...who has just been diagnosed with AS?

A friend told me that a couple he knows has just had their nine-year-old son diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome. What advice would you give them?

If it was me Id remind them that the kid is still the same person the diagnosis doesnt change anything and if anything they can now breath a sigh of relief that it wasnt something more serious or all their imagination and now they know where to start to learn to understand him.

Maybe the kid (and parents) could come over here!

I think a good analogy is that of learning to fly.Whereas other kids have the option of switching to 'automatic pilot' on more occasions,
AS just means their son will be learning to fly manually for most of the time,i.e. more thought will go into situations that others take
for granted.In the long run he should end up being just as good a
'pilot' through life,if not better.Parents and helpers make up his
'Air Traffic Control'.
Unfortunately I don't have experience of kids with AS so this is
the best I could think of !

I might start with the quotation from Hans Asperger, for them to digest:

"Able autistic individuals can rise to eminent positions with such outstanding success that one may conclude that only such people are capable of certain achievements. Their unswerving determination and penetrating intellectual powers, part of their spontaneous and original mental activity, their narrowness and single-mindedness, as manifested in their special interests, can be immensely valuable and can lead to outstanding achievements in their chosen areas."
(Hans Asperger, 1944)

Then go to the basic ideas of encouraging strengths and special interests,
while showing how "the games people play" can be learned and better coped with.
Which can be a very different thing from "teaching to be more normal" (Blechhh!)