When it comes to the symptoms of Aspergers disease, one area stands out above all others and that is communication. Taking things other people say literally for instance, coupled with not lying, even if it upsets others is because we give honest communication and expect it in return, even if we don't get it (mirroring). We are the little boy, who tells The Emperor that he is naked, not that he is wearing new clothes (not diplomatic).
Selective mutism occurs because we are not sure how to speak to outsiders (non family members). This also ties in with avoiding looking other people directly in the eye, so we don't engage with them, if we don't want to or staring straight at them, to give the impression we are 'normal,' which usually freaks them out more.
Wanting to 'fit in' can lead to over-rehearsed speech in our heads, which sounds cold and robotic. It can also lead to complex speech patterns (long winded / abstruse), aimed at impressing others. We can also miss emotional 'in your face' responses by others because social cues are missed. We can also jump in and interrupt conversations because we think what we have to say can't wait.
The autistic don't know how to speak properly, that is use verbal tools, so fail to moderate volume, tone, rate (speed) or rhythm: Think of setting up setting up amplifiers at a rock concert as well as coordinating a full orchestra or even tuning an individual instrument, in this case the human voice.
We are generally hypersensitive to reality but not always responsive to it: loud noise, bright lights, strong tastes and smells or rough / strange feeling textures can freak us out. Strong concentration may create the illusion that we are insensitive to pain, heat or cold etc but this is not the case, just that we ignore these conditions in our pursuit of our goals, becoming trance-like in such engagements of our attention (only our goals exist, not the outside world).
This severance from reality can lead to clumsiness as in me continually breaking glasses, when washing up (King Alfred burning the cakes because his attention was elsewhere).
We hate being hugged, getting patted on the head as adults do to children or people bumping into us and generally crowding our space, however we can do the same to others when we get caught up in the moment and forget they exist in turn.
Our obsessive interests can lead to self isolation, with little or no interaction with others (home loving / indifference to socialising). Like monks we cut ourselves off from the rest of the world, so that we can concentrate whole heartedly on the task in hand, with as little interruption and disruption to our routines and pursuits as possible (stable environment).
In my case this shows up in world war two tanks, the Daleks, Welsh castles (an English man's castle is his home), filling plastic eggs as a hobby and circling things in the TV guide I want to watch the following week. All these show the urge to contain or hold in / shut out outside influences or interference (defensive barriers or control points as exist within the body, a country's borders or creatures like insects and crabs that have an external skeleton).
I also create collages (mixtures of words and images) plus take photographs with my phone camera, which shows the visual orientation Temple Grandin, the autistic personality, talks about continually in her books and lectures. I have also created a series of books, eight in total, taking English apart and reconstructing it to display its patterns, in columns, which shows my obsession with language and another of our common traits (communication again and understanding words and phrases).
As we are 'Strangers in a strange land' as The Bible puts it, we have a terror of getting things wrong and standing out as outsiders (being ostracised, when we don't choose it). We blunder anyway, so this is not entirely unexpected as a result but like 'Zelig' in Woody Allen's film of the same name, we do our best to imitate those around us and fit in.
We are not compatible with the school system because we don't know how to behave and it doesn't stretch us (I hated it but fitted in better than many in my position, except when it came to maths. A certain teacher aimed questions at me, in front of the whole class, deliberately to humiliate me as he knew I couldn't answer them).
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