My AS son wants to know...

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I'm sure he'll be able to do anything he wants. Most Aspies don't have the desire to go into things they aren't good at anyway. Or if there is something they are interested in that wouldn't normally be a path an Aspie is good at, they generally have the passion and obsession to BECOME good at it.

I'm a writer, author and editor and one of the many topics I write about is exercise DVDs - to review them, I do the DVD, sometimes more than once (I exercise every day as a result! ). Although I grew up being clumsy and uncoordinated (a trait for some with AS), when I decided I wanted to know everything about fitness, I taught myself things like hand-eye coordination and worked hard to learn choreography so I could do cardio dance DVDs well enough to review (I always have liked to dance anyhow, but actually learning choreography did not come naturally to me). So now I'm sure I'm more athletic as an adult than the kids I grew up with! Plus, when I'm tossing a crumbled up piece of paper into a trash can halfway across the room, I make a hole in one! (Never could do that before. )

On the other hand, I've never been good at sales (too much human contact for me and I feel like I'm lying or bothering people, even when I'm not), but I've never had the desire to become good at it. But believe me, if one day I decided I wanted to do it, I would immerse myself in it and probably do a pretty decent job.

So tell your son there are no limits and if he applies himself chances are he will wind up being better than anyone else at whatever he wants to do.

-J.

BTW, I've also heard that Bill Gates may be AS, and that Dan Ackroyd actually admitted to being AS in an interview. Good company!

-J.

The best answer I have heard so far is to build on his special interests, and then he can do anything related to that field.

Ever since finding out about Aspergers i've been looking at my family and evaluating them. I am pretty sure my mother, my father, one of my uncles, one of my aunts and my grandmother all are well adjusted aspergians, oh and i have a 2nd cousin who is Dx HFA. My gram is a bookkeeper, my mom and dad are both RN's, my Aunt is a social worker for the elderly at a group center, and my uncle is an auto-mechanic.

They all lead happy lives because they've found their niche and stuck with it. I am kinda floundering. I have my interests, but i am going to school for something that doesn't correlate to them, because i don't want to work in the field that my interest would place me in, and in order to get a degree in that field, i would have to do a ton of structured, time-sensitive writing. Now, don't get me wrong, i like the work i'll be doing once i'm out, it's just the learning about it is tedious.

And musician is an option too . . .

I'm becoming a music therapist, and I think that would make a good job for some with AS, because of the way music therapists are all connected to one another. You graduate with an already in place network at your fingertips.

If you're interested in famous peoples with AS, then you might enjoy reading the book "Asperger Syndrome: A Gift or a Curse?" by Viktoria Lyons and Michael Fitzgerald. They discuss the characteristics of about 10 people or so who probably had AS.

Your son is still quite young for all of this, but when he's older you might want to consider helping him "try out" various professions which he's interested in. (Internships, talking to someone who has the job, researching about the job, etc.) For years I thought I wanted to be a journalist. I was on my school paper for two years and did an internship at a newspaper only to discover that journalism isn't for me because there's too much interviewing involved. I would never have known that if I hadn't tried, though, and I might have ended up at a journalism program at college by mistake. Remember that most people change their minds about these sorts of things these days (even well into adulthood!), so that's okay. My college career center gives people "career tests" to fill out to tell you what kinds of jobs you might be interested in. That's not a bad place to start, when the time comes.

I met a medical technician in the hospital who was clearly on the spectrum. His job was to prep patients for admission into the hospital. He was so focused on the job and he did everything so precisely. It got me thinking that my son might be able to work in the medical profession some day. Maybe ultrasound technician or something that requires the person to do the same thing the same way each time. Only minimal small talk with the patient.

Library work is good.