A Look at Asperger's Syndrome: Part I

With all the news about the rise in autism, you may have also heard about Asperger's Syndrome. It's a sub-type of autism spectrum disorder first identified 65 years ago. As with autism, the cause of Asperger's is unknown, and it occurs more frequently in boys that in girls. In an article from the October, 2009 issue of Scholastic Parent and Child, Lynn Kern Koegel, Ph.D., the clinical director of the Koegel Autism Center and director of Eli and Edythe L. Board Center for Asperger Research at the University of California, Santa Barbara, to explain what Asperger's Syndrome is and how professionals are treating it.

Lynn Kern Koegel replied that to have autism, a person has to have language delay, problems with social communication and interaction, and restricted interests. Children with Asperger's have the social difficulties and the restricted interests, but they don't have the language delay.So when they're little, they'll have their words and their sentences on time, but they won't be playing with the same toys or even playing with toys in the same manner as typical children.

Lynn also goes on to state that Asperger's Syndrome didn't get picked up until and noticed until the early 1980s. She thinks part of reason fro that is the wrong notion that if kids don't have behavior problems and just don't socialize, there is no problem. If a child gets really good grades, every body's happy. But research shows that children who don't socialize have major problems as adults.

Check back tomorrow when Lynn Kern Koegel answers more questions about Asperger's Syndrome