Do these people have Aspergers?

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There's a couple girls I know who I have begun to suspect might have Asperger's. I don't know either of them well; one is a co-worker, and the other is someone from one of my classes. I'll describe them separately as follows.

The co-worker, who is about 18, barely says anything whatsoever. She isn't just generally quiet though. Often she'll just stand there blankly and stare at something, and she'll be a bit hunched over. And, she rarely ever initiates any conversation, and if you ask her anything her responses are very brief. She's a good worker, but my boss commented to me that she only does things she is asked to do; she doesn't look for things to do.

The person in my class, who is about 19, is very similar to the girl above. She is very, very smart, especially in math. Her average in high school was in the 90s. In both cases, there is some eye contact, but they seem more aloof than almost all girls I know.

The question is, how should I approach this?

How should you approach this? You're not trying to initiate them into a club, are you? They are people, just like us.

You have much too little information about them to be doing any kind of diagnosis, and, anyway, it's none of your business.

How about you make an effort to get to know them. We often have toruble making friends, but I'll bet you that these two would welcome the opportunity to develop a friendship. If they are not, at first, they may well be understandably "gun shy." Can we blame them?

Just "be a person." You might gain two good friendships. Whether or not they have any sort of neurolgoical syndromes is a far way down the road of friendship.

Whoa, did someone soil your Frosted Flakes this morning? And yes, there is a club of sorts here. Since awareness of Asperger's is extremely low in Canada (when compared to the United States and parts of Europe), for me to meet anyone else that has Asperger's is a big thing. I know for some people, it's easy to find other Aspies in the community, but around here it is almost impossible because the masses have still never heard of it (even most educators and some doctors here still have never heard of it). It is particularly those on the higher functioning end of the spectrum that I am looking to meet. The few that I know from this region, you can't miss that there's something "different" about all of them, particularly since many of them have other conditions such as ADD or physical problems, but like me, these people have the subtle differences. People like myself appear to be NTs at first glance, and so do these two people I know.

People who might have AS are not going to know they have it until the very, very few people that have ever heard of it such as myself reach out and help them. It is up to people like me to increase awareness. Most existing awareness in Canada has all come from the United States through media spillover - for example, Dr. Phil.

My point is that I want to help these people, through being a friend to them, but I don't know how to approach it. My original post was rushed because my parents were bugging me to come downstairs to supper. I also want to be able to meet other Aspies that aren't almost full-blown autistics, because we can relate to our situations better (recall that none of the Aspies I know are able to drive, for example).

And, most of all, because my boss has complained to me once in private that this co-worker of mine is not a very motivated worker, I would like to be able to help this person keep her job if in fact she has Asperger's and her job is threatened. She isn't going to stand up for herself if she is criticized because she says almost absolutely nothing, and nobody else will be able to advise our boss other than myself that she may have the condition. I already know from my own experience that management knows very little about the condition itself. It would be up to me to at least initiate helping her. Perhaps that will involve mentioning the possibility to my boss, or making an aside comment to the girl that "you remind me a lot of me in some ways".

I'm not a doctor, but I have read enough about Asperger's and I know myself well enough to make a sound hypothesis about the possibility of someone else having Asperger's. There is a guy I know that I have suspected more and more that he has it, and I told him he might have it, because he has a lot of the same narrow interests as me and the same romantic problems. He agrees that he might have it.

ELLCIM

I can see you mean well, but be very careful. To go up to either of these girls and say "I think you have aspergers" is akin to telling them you think they have herpes or some other unpleasant social disease.

So first you need to teach them what Aspergers is and why it's good - and you can use yourself as an example though I wouldn't mention the label for as long as you possibly can. You could say "I find talking to other people really hard because I'm always scared I'll put my foot in it. I'm always upsetting people and I've got no idea what I said that was so bad" and see if she says "me too".

For the one that doesn't seem motivated - you just need to explain to her that looking for things that need doing and maybe doing them if she's run out of other things to do is also part of her job. If she can see something needs doing, that she'd like to do but doesn't know how to do it - she could ask you. Don't forget she may also need some time to just sit and decompress from time to time - which will look like she's being lazy. Suggest for those times she put a work type book like a computer manual or procedures manual in front of her and arrange herself so it looks like she is reading and working and not being lazy.

For both of them you could try to find out what their special interests are - and encourage them to talk about those. You could tell them one of your special interests is "Aspergers" and tell them some stories about famous people with aspie traits.

Well said, WOBBEGONG,

You said in detail what I meant when I said "be a person."

ELLCIM, I most certainly was not training to attack you. Your purpose is a good one. I just feel that your strategy of suggesting to two quiet women that they might have Aspergers Syndrome when scores of things could explain their behavior, would not be very productive. The suggestions that WOBBEGONG made were excellent ones. I'm sure you could think of more.

I guess, as an (admittedly undiagnosed) but fairly apparent aspie with two diagnosed autistic children and a very supportive and loving NT wife, I recognize the importance of supporting each other (as we do here, for example), but would never recommend that you make your decisions of whom to socialize with based upon whether or not they have aspergers syndrome. Life is much more complex than even AS.

You seem like a good guy, and I wasn't trying to flame you. I was just trying to bring many years of experience of success and failure in human relationships to the fore to prevent you from taking an approach that would only be hurtful to you and others, in my opinion.

Sorry if I said it in the wrong way. Sometimes I do.

And...by the way...forget Dr. Phil. That episode was the worst piece of accusatory, curbie crap I have ever seen in my life. It completely turned me off to the show (although I was no big fan before).

I agree. Most daytime television sucks anyway, especially American-made programming. That being said, Dr. Phil so far has been one of the only sources of Asperger awareness north of the 49th parallel, and that's scary to think. A couple television stations in Ontario have mentioned it a couple times in their reports, and there have been mentions of it in a couple newspapers (one of them repeatedly mis-spelling it as "Asperger's"), but that's it.