Aspergers: Loneliness & Friendships

It is hard to know if kids with Aspergers are as lonely as their moms & dads believe they are. Psychologists do know that playing with a friend, making a friend and being with a friend are "overwhelming skills" for Aspergers kids. Other people make no sense to kids with Aspergers and as one author writes, "they are totally preoccupied with their own agendas."

Teaching Aspergers kids social skills is a formidable task for moms & dads and teachers. It is not like teaching how to ride a bicycle or tie a shoe, but rather trying to teach something no one formally taught you. How did you learn how to read a room? How do you teach someone how to read a room, especially someone who has no understanding of other people's emotions and body language? Kids with Aspergers have no idea about how to reason socially and come up with proper courses of action in social situations. For example, one boy with Aspergers got lost in the school corridors on his way to gym. He had forgotten the route, but he did not think to simply follow his classmates to the gym.

Yet clinicians emphasize the need to teach Aspergers kids social skills because they desperately need them to get along in life. As one author writes, the Aspergers child lack of social understanding "virtually colors every other experience in their lives." Yet the question of whether kids with Aspergers are truly lonely and want friends is a different discussion. Like all kids, some are extroverted and others are more withdrawn. Like all kids, they probably vary in their need for social interactions.

When researchers ask kids with Aspergers about friendship, they are usually very negative. They think of friendship with other kids as too much work and often prefer adults. For example, when a teacher was forcing a five-year-old to participate in a playgroup with other kids, he said, "I hate kids. I don't play with kids. I'm not a kid. I was born a grown-up." Luke Jackson, a thirteen-year-old author with Aspergers, advises other Aspergers kids, "If you like being on your own, then be happy with your own company and don't let anyone convince you it's wrong." His advice to "pushy moms & dads" is "Never force your youngster to socialize. Most Aspergers kids and autistic people are happy to just be by themselves."

However, these kids might be happier by themselves because social activity has caused them so much pain in the past. In one study, gifted kids with Aspergers could not describe friendship in positive terms such as "a friend is someone who is nice to you." They had only negative associations such as "a friend is someone who does not hit you." These kids told interviewers only about how mean people had been to them and seemed to lack any idea of what reciprocal friendship really means.

Yet as Aspergers kids go through adolescence, most realize that they are missing out by not fitting in. It is at this point in their lives that they crave friendships, yet this unfulfilled desire on top of high school pressure to conform, constant rejection and harassment can often cause clinical depression in Aspergers teens. They grow more isolated even as they crave more interaction with others. Young Aspergers kids often believe everyone in their kindergarten is the same and everyone is a friend. Aspergers teens know better.

Some research shows that the more time an Aspergers child spends socializing, the happier he is. Aspergers kids can and do form friendships. When they do, research shows that even one friendship will speed up their entire social development. Temple Grandin, Liane Willey and other adult Aspergers kids have written about compassionate people who took the time to form friendships with them and by doing so, changed their lives for the better.

Families of people with Aspergers often talk about their own feelings of loneliness. They tell counselors that marriage to an Aspergers spouse feels like living alone. An Aspergers spouse often does not attend to details like anniversaries, may not connect with the couple's kids on an emotional basis, and may not benefit from marriage counseling. A mom or dad of a youngster with Aspergers may feel rejection when their youngster refuses to cuddle or express affection. The youngster's needs are unrelenting and yet the moms & dads' rewards are sometimes rare. Siblings hide their lonely feelings about living in a family where one youngster monopolizes their moms & dads' precious time and they miss the normal give and take of sibling relationships. One psychologist writes many siblings believe that the Aspergers child's "disability is an advantage - a passport to special attention, recognition and privilege."

Helping kids with Aspergers develop social skills will no doubt become easier in the future. Every day educators are developing better techniques. Scientists are closing in on the genetic and environmental causes of autism and may someday develop a cure. There is promising new research being conducted at the University of Western Australia in a comprehensive study of "Friendship and Loneliness in People with Aspergers." Perhaps someday the answers will be clearer for people with Aspergers and those who love them.

The Parenting Aspergers Resource Guide: A Complete
Resource Guide For Parents Who Have Children Diagnosed
With Aspergers Syndrome.