Aspergers are known as little professors?

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Just because you had a bad relationship with your parents it doesn't mean everyone else's parents were the same. Quit telling everyone else that their parents were the same as your's.

I wasn't talking about my parents! I was talking about adults in general. Like my parents' friends who came over fairly often; whenever I said something intelligent or got yelled at by my parents, they laughed uproariously in unison. Or the time me and my older sister (by 10 years) were on a city bus, when I was telling her that Neptune's winds are 1500 mph (2400 km/h); two 60+ ladies overheard me, and started laughing in that derisive, tittering laughter. I wanted to run up to them and kick them both in the shins, preferably with steel toe boots on.

That's when learned my lesson: adults have no respect for "little professors". They see them as court jesters at best, and as subhuman filth at worst, with some in-between levels. All while having unfettered access to antidepressants, alcohol, and other mild-altering crap they could have and I couldn't, to keep themselves happy when life gets tough, the luxuries "little professors" lack. Needless to say, after a traumatic therapy session at age 12, I took up drinking.

My parents were actually good sports about my intelligence. They put up with my "smart" monologues like troopers, and bought me encyclopedias as holiday presents. Probably because they felt it was an acceptable price to pay for the bragging rights of having a "gifted" child. Of course, that came at a price of my own: because I was "gifted", I was expected to bring home good grades at all times. Anything less was treated like a catastrophe.

I used to tutor high school students in science (and occasionally math) when I was still in grade school. How about that being a little professor? Eventually I grew up to become a university professor. It was my destiny to do so.

The way I understand the term is not knowing more than your peers, or being able to educate them.
It's probably required to know a fair bit of the subject, but I think it has more to do with the trait of giving lectures rather than discussing or present theories or whatnot.
The little professor would say "well actually, this and that" instead of "well, I've read is a paper by professor xyz that this and that".
Anyways, it was a term coined by Hans, I don't know how much value it has today. Surely a possible trait, but not required for a diagnosis of Autism.

/Mats

When I was a teenager in high school I often felt more mature than my peers. They'd talk about pointless nonsense. Like for example I remember at the lunch table I was sitting with my cousin and a load of girls from her class, and one of them sat down with her lunch and said, "guess what, people, I'm pregnant," and when people doubted her she was like, "I am, I phoned [her best friend] up crying last night, and the baby's been kicking about all day." It was all meant to be as a joke but I didn't see the point in it.
Also kids would often randomly yell across the classroom, "Mike, Jane's pregnant with your baby!" Or something like that. And kids were amused by it. I found it all so stupid and immature. One time a boy in my class randomly said, "I love you, Joe90." I wasn't sure how to respond, and one of the other girls said, "you're supposed to say that you love him too." I knew it was all just joking around but I still didn't find it very amusing.

I understand age-appropriate jokes and banter us adults do, but as a teenager their jokes were just immature even for me.

Thank you

“Little Professor” was used for me back in the 1960s—well before there was a notion of Aspergers outside of a very small circle of psychologists/psychiatrists.

I was never called "little professor" as a kid, but I think that is mostly just because I have a vagina.
Ironically, I grew up to actually be a professor.

There are a lot of things in this job that I think are aspie friendly:
- being rewarded for hyper-focus & very niche special interests
- being in an environment rife with other socially awkward people
- flexible work hours

...but there are also some real downsides:
- huge pressure to secure grants for the university
- lots of situations where you have to perform in front of a crowd of people staring at you
- often difficult-to-navigate university politics
- intense travel schedules (for some, depends on what you are a professor of)

Damn! Tutoring kids older than you is as "professor" as it gets. "Young Sheldon" got nothing on you. Respect!

Still, I gotta ask you, though:

1. Did you quality of life actually IMPROVE because you were a "little professor"? Were you given extra rights or freedoms for it, or rewarded for it at least SOMEHOW? Like extra screen time, exemption from perfect grades, freedom to choose your meals, going to bed later, reduced restrictions in seeing friends, at least SOMETHING! If not, then, my fellow Wrong Planeteer, you've been had! Your family, your teachers, your therapists, and/or other adults rode you like a racehorse, and snickered behind your back while doing so.

2. Did your students/clients try to take advantage of your in any way, or even threaten you? Like try to make you believe that the facts you knew were wrong, when in fact they were right? Did they threaten you beat you up in the street, unless you told their parents that they were learning the material well? Did tutoring feel more like an imposed burden, than a mildly pleasant hobby? If former, then you've been had! Your family, your teachers, your therapists, and/or other adults rode you like a racehorse, and snickered behind your back while doing so.

I gather Hans Asperger noticed it was a common feature among children who had the Syndrome, that they talked like they were professors. It was never a surprise to me because I had a strong analytical, technical, logical, scientific thinking style when I was a child, and it didn't really change. I went through a phase where I started to feel concerned about being too much that way, too nerdy and unconcerned with feelings to be a complete human being, too prone to data-dump with tedious attention to detail, out of touch with most of the human race. Indeed, I don't like it myself when somebody talks too much like a walking encyclopaedia and uses big intellectual words when ordinary words are enough. I've tempered my tendency to live in my cerebellum, but it'll always be a big part of who I am.

One of my biggest sorrows is that every time I try to do any music, my brain wiring sucks me into the technical side of it at the expense of the artistic side. I must have spent ten times as much time and effort on electronics, computing and the scientific side of music as I've spent on music itself. So I'm an impressive sound engineer (within certain narrow limits - my methods are often pretty unconventional), but only moderately good at writing and performing music.

At the time, I was allowed full access to the high school library. That is what I wanted in trade for the tutoring. Many of the high school students that I tutored were friends of my sister who were failing in science and math. They wanted to graduate, so there was no harassment or bullying from them. My sister watched my back on this issue. She needed me to get through science, so that was a card I held over her. My parents knew I was smart and did their best to foster my learning. In a way, my father was the same way growing up. He was the master of pranks and that part passed on to me.

Most adults did not know how I was, as I could hide my true self from them most of the time. They just saw a young kid, until they asked me a question that they thought I could not answer. Little did they know that my reading comprehension was likely higher then their own. I absorbed books like they were candy. There was no snickering behind my back as I had a sense for picking up on that quite fast. However, it was not to last. I lost all of those “privileges” in school when my family moved out of state after fifth grade. At my new school, I had to hide everything from my classmates from that point on. I started getting bullied for being a fat nerd and the rest is history.

This feature may had acted on me as a child in an atypical way.
I absorbed literary works and scientific popular science books with equal energy.
Chinese teachers noticed that my vocabulary was classical and rhythmic. Math teachers noticed that I haven't encountered any obstacles in the content of the elementary math competitions.
But my knowledge was fragmented. I was not as knowledgeable in any field at the time.

I was called Encyclopedia by some of my regular peers in elementary school. It drove me crazy until one of my teachers told me to take it as a compliment.