Your top 3 difficulties caused by autism

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sensory stimuli being overwhelming

people are confusing and think weird

??????

profit

I think the best way of helping adults with ASD is more awareness and education of the disorder in the general public. Human resources and hiring personal would benefit greatly from knowing how to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of people on the spectrum. You wouldn't expect a blind person to pretend to be able to see and walk without a cane in order to fit in and find a job. Autistic people may have talents, but they can't be made normal. A mind is a terrible thing to wast and everyone would benefit from acceptance.

1) The difficulty obtaining a diagnosis in (particularly older) adult females. Included in this is accessibility if you do find someone with this experience (ex: travel, cost). I was 'lucky', after a tough run.

2) Social expectations and interactions (confusion, pressure, misunderstandings, frustration, embarrassment, etc). Again, I relate my experience as an older female. I am sure fatigue and depression enter into this fold.

3) The dichotomy of being highly capable in some ways (as in academia) and in other ways quite incapable (ex: not being able to make necessary phone calls on through not holding a job consistently), and the ensuing judgment from self and others, 'over'- or 'under'- estimation of abilities, etc.

4) Sensory issues such as lighting; certain noises ( a speech inflection in someone's voice, an engine idling, coughing, breathing, chairs screeching, etc), movement (shadows, flickering, people's faces moving during speech, etc); smells, such as raw onions, certain perfumes, chemicals that no one else can seem to smell. Some sensory things affect balance, such as trying to step onto escalator and inability to walk out on deck at ocean, certain lighting throws me off. Food: sensitivities to texture, smell, "tinny" or chemical tastes (again not always apparent to others), people angry at me for my preferences and sensitivities.

5) Isolation. Different than my preferred and needed time alone. More of a persistent feeling of 'otherness' and chronic disappointment in trying to find people who will be the least-little bit excited about my interests, rather than getting annoyed with me. I think my age is factor because I don't share a lot of (most) interests with women in my age group. I have hard time with getting relegated to talking to "wives" which I find painful and avoid as much as possible. I hardly bother with 'couples' activities for this reason.

- Having to interact with other people at other moments than those of my choosing
- Doing daily chores quickly enough to not fall behind on them
- Dealing with changes in my weekly schedule

THANK YOU

-Social ineptitude
-Inability to understand body language
-Proprioception

I have Aspergers and my biggest difficulties are...

1. Social problems... I love to be social with people and I even do okay with asking other people questions, but I tend to feel like it isn't natural or that it's scripted. I'm socially akward and my interests are so vague that nobody really cares about them and I have a hard time relating to people my own age because they just want to talk about pointless things like shopping, Twilight, Justin Beiber, sports and the like. I also have trouble pleasing my fiance.
2. Overwhelming stresses of the senses - I can for the most part cope with a lot of sensory overloads to the point where I only panic once in a while. I don't have sensitivity to light and colors, noise is kind of hard. It's something I can cope with, but it still happens once in a while.
3. My relationship with food is unpredictable and inconsistent. Sometimes I stuff my face and other days I just need to starve. My stomach is weak and I'm a very picky eater. I love trying new things but I have weird food turn-offs.

I'm diagnosed with Asperger's and my difficulties are:

1.Social issues-I have a difficult time getting a job based on interviewing as while I might look great on paper, the tiny social things screw the whole thing up in most cases.

2. Sensory-I have problems with tags in clothing and certain fabrics.

3. The difficulty of being a female with Asperger's, it wasn't until my late 20's and struggling to get a job that I was diagnosed. If I had been diagnosed earlier, I would have finished college sooner as I would have taken full advantage of the disabled students services which includes priority registration, getting me the required classes faster.

1) Social Interaction - Spontaneous social interaction
2) Social interaction - everything else
2) Obsessiveness, ruminations

-social interaction
-sensory stuff
-doing anything other than the interest

Pretty stereotypical there.

1. Sensory Issues:
I'm 26 and have severe sensory issues. Daylight will cause me to have migraines. I wear thick sunglasses always. I have to listen to my iPod because of my sensitive hearing. But I can still be visually overwhelmed. Fortunately my ADHD medication eases this somewhat.

2. Fear of Change:
I've had this problem all of my life. I get angry, scared and avoidant when it comes to change coming suddenly or when it's someone else's decision. It's hard to adjust to my own change but if my environment is secure and I take it step by step I'm ok. But in a changing environment I begin to panic. I miss out on a lot of opportunities including travelling overseas, fan conventions, heck even when it snowed in Blue Mountains a week ago. It didn't snow in the winter by the way.

3. Socialisation issues (being too linear, wanting to be right, and other problems):
I've learned a lot of social skills and with medication I get along with most people. I haven't got social anxiety anymore but I get annoyed with people who would argue with me and who are not just like me. I know that it's a bad thing but I can't control it times. When I'm not on medication I lose that patience with people. I don't even want to talk to them and I can't think clearly enough or even pronounce my words properly. I also have mild ODD and just get into arguments for the sake of it.
I'm ok to be on my own though. I don't get lonely and I think people get in the way of me achieving my goals and spending time on my interests, and completely disrupt my routine.


On the whole autism as a positive or negative thing: it is both. It is a neurological disorder (a differently structured brain) that can cause real impairments in peoples lives. If you have it mild, that's great, but keep in mind those that have it more severe. Your experience is not everyone's experience.
I used to think 'why should I get better social skills' then I realised how rude I sounded, and now that I've developed better social skills and empathy I feel like I'm better for it. I actually think NT's are the ones who have less awareness about their own words now, unless they be sociopaths.
If you don't want help for your symptoms, fine, but that doesn't mean the rest of us will be the same.

It's all about keeping a balance between positive and negative. The ADHD community are actually warring with those people who are half positive about their ADHD and can only see it as a disorder. I think one day they will be as accepting as this community. But being entirely positive about it is just as bad as being negative. Both mindsets are unrealistic. Look at why the disorder exists as a diagnosis in the first place. Accept it, deal with the symptoms you have issues with and keep a balanced mindset.
Maybe I just love people too much to want to see myself superior than them, as this 'it ain't a disorder it's a difference' mindset can bring - not that I'm saying people here are like that - and I don't want to see myself as less or more than them.
Just when people start seeing autism as only a good thing they forget that it's a real disorder that can cause severe impairments. And to be quite honest, I don't want to be around people like that. They are close minded.

I would tend to agree with that. There are a few others but these would be my top 3.

Written and spoken communication problems. It takes a lot of effort and time to find the words to express myself.

Poor working memory, memory retrieval problems, and unable to multitask.

Social isolation. Unable to relate to others, not comfortable with eye contact, sensory processing disorder.

Prefere to hybernate in my bubble rather than take risks that involve change.

(Those are just the bad things. I love having a hyper-systemizing, logical, and analytical mind and having intense interests, it makes it all worth while).

1. Required social interaction expected of anyone attempting to function in society independently vs. AS difficulties meeting those requirements. Speaking for myself specifically, distress and irritation over the fact that this requirement exists. For example, I must live alone. In order to live alone I must earn an income. In order to earn an income I must hold a job. In order to obtain a job I must jump through several highly social hoops, even if the job itself is mostly solitary. In order to keep a job I must maintain an amicable relationship with my superior(s). In order to eat, I must go to the grocery store filled with people. In order to obtain an apartment I must make a good impression with the owning landlord. I must maintain and amicable relationship with said landlord to keep residence. Or, if I were to purchase property, I must negotiate with the bank... et cetera.

2. Requirement to align my sleep/wake cycle with the NT norm. If this requirement did not exist I would likely maintain a 24.5 hour rotating cycle. It is what I have done during periods of unemployment. Freely doing this significantly decreases the effects of my depression and OCD, but because of the need for an income, I cannot do it.

3. fear of change, fervent need for stability.

4. Sensory overload (light, sound, texture)

My top 3 issues caused by autism:

1) social difficulties
2) sensory processing issues
3) inability to maintain a job

I'm self diagnosed/uncertain, but it does make sense to me after researching it and how I was as a child and how I present myself to others who have known me for years. I do consider my issues moderate though because I do present as normal in some situations. It's when they turn casual that the problems start. With that out of the way, here are my top issues.

1. Social. In particular, dealing with romantic situations and being able to tell when someone is flirting with me. Sometimes, I take it as anger and sometimes I will take anger as flirting. I also have difficulty judging friendly teasing versus mean teasing. I see it all as mean unless it is coming from someone I know well and know to trust. Lastly, sarcasm and joking. I can't always judge it and can take joking as literal and the literal as a joke. Once again, if I have learned the person this tends to be far less of a problem.

2. Anxiety. I have had anxiety problems my whole life. Some of them have been bad enough to cause me to have a nervous breakdown. I always live with a general sense of anxiety that rarely ever leaves me. It's exhausting to deal with and I just want to get away from it so I can think clearly.

3. Depression. Another life long issue for me. I have a hard time being positive because it seems that every time I am and I let my guard down something comes along and crashes my good mood.

4. Misunderstanding. People think I am talking down to them too often because I data dump and have a prodigious vocabulary. I don't use social speech patterns well unless I am around people I know. I am afraid to try it otherwise because of the fear of humiliation when I make mistakes. I tend to be very truthful and accurate in my speech. The two go hand in hand as I am accurate in order to avoid miscommunication and in order to be accurate I feel it's necessary to cover all the bases.

5. Rigidity. While I have gotten MUCH better at this later in life, it used to be a big problem for me. I would only do things I wanted to do and would not acquiesce to the desires of others in the name of compromise so that I could be around other people. It took a good friend of mine reasoning with me for me to change this. Even now though, I am still pretty rigid. I take control of other people's projects when I am helping them and generally have a hard time accepting that someone else may be right and I might be wrong. I am working on this though and trying not to reflexively say no to any idea that is different from my own. It's taken me a long time to realize that accepting someone else's idea as superior to my own does not make me somehow inferior.

6. Bonus round: Executive functioning. I have a hard time doing what needs to be done and so my life is in constant disorder. I don't know where to start on some things, so I overload and put it off for another time when I can deal with it. Only, I never reach that point. Because of my anxiety and lack of energy (due to the anxiety), every little thing is a struggle at times, especially when everything needs my attention and everything's a mess.

There's a few apps out there but almost all are for children or young adults. Building an app is one option but we ideally want to avoid this. The technology guy has some interesting devices such as augmented reality glasses, ones that generate images into the the surface of your glasses. These could be used to provide textual information (like giving reminders to make eye contact), or add visuals (like making giving eye contact easier by covering the other person's eyes). Another possibility is dampening visual sensation for people with sensory difficulties. I'm unsure if they can do feedback, take in information about the world and provide instructions (so detects facial expressions and text provides information based on this or even impose visuals, emphasizing facial expressions perhaps). Other ideas have been using virtual reality to simulate a situation so someone could practice doing something in advance. These are all just preliminary ideas, not sure what other technology he has and how difficult programming this sort of stuff would be but it's early days so far, first stage is producing a list of difficulties.

Thank you everyone who has posted, these posts are incredibly helpful!