Your top 3 difficulties caused by autism

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1) Social interaction.
2) Sensory sensitivities.
3) Understanding emotions.
4) Anxiety.
5) Depression.

I hope your work goes well.

-Sensory issues. It's not constant, but when light/sound starts to get to me, there is NOTHING I can do about it except fight off the illness/panic until I can get home and shut myself in my room. Not fun. Kind of like a migraine without the headache.

-Saying dumb/inappropriate stuff. Things may just "come out wrong." I have to shrug it off (after a few hours of obsessing over it) and tell myself that they'll probably forget about it (most do).

-Social exhaustion. I can keep up a "normal" front at work (cashiering at Walmart part-time; my other job is teaching online so that doesn't happen) but often, even after a short shift (4-5 hours), I feel like I've just run a marathon.

These are the results so far:

Social: 20
Sensory: 13
Anxiety: 5
Being organised: 4
Dealing with changes: 4
Multitasking: 3
Too logical: 2
Low self esteem: 2
Isolation: 2
Depression: 2
Getting diagnosis as female: 2
Expressing emotion: 1
Understanding body language: 1
Bad diet: 1
Overwhelming interests: 1
Weak memory: 1
Maintaining job: 1
Not using social speech: 1
Accepting other's views: 1
Understanding emotions: 1
Concern over wasting time: 1
Group conversations: 1
Knowing social status: 1
Ineffectiveness: 1
Bad sleep patterns: 1

Your posts have been immensely useful. I hadn't realised (not having them myself) that sensory issues are so prevalent. Also, interesting to see that my main problem of overwhelming obsessions is not usually the main problem for people with autism. These results may take the project in a different and hopefully more beneficial direction. Thanks so much!

Worst: Sensory Issues (Hypersensitivities)

Other current top difficulities ones:
-Alexithymia
-Being unable to follow directions in ways other than very literally unless I'm confident (leading to issues with feeding myself and cooking)
-Always turning to the same person to communicate
-feeling dependent on others

Worst issue in terms of how other people interact with me: Being treated like a child

Interesting how this thread has developed. I'm still struggling to see how software could help with sensory issues. (Other than wearing Iron Man's suit or something.) I totally agree that sensory issues are the #1 concern, but I can't quite wrap my mind around how software could help with them. The problem is between the sensory input/output (skin, eyes, ears, etc) and the brain, where things get scrambled.

This is just me, but I personally would find a heads up display nagging me to be yet another distraction to deal with if I was in a social situation, further dividing my fragmented attention.

1) anxiety

2) social stuff

3) over sensitive to unexpected sounds

2) and 3) cause 1)
1) causes me to avoid 2) so that I wont have to deal with 3)

reading a book at home fixes 1, 2 and 3

guess that's the solution - no technology required

Let me be as helpful and specific as possible, trying to get to the root cause of many of my problems.

My top 3 problems:

1. Simultaneous processing (for example, processing both visual cues and listening to what the person is saying in a conversation)

2. recognizing nonverbal social cues

3. Being shut out from the world since being a child due to #2 and #3 has made me unaware of many social customs and rules (especially small, subtle ones), and as an adult, I have fewer opportunities to practice and a smaller capacity to learn.

What would be helpful to solve them:

1. A game that emphasizes one's ability to process multiple small changes in one's environment, as well as "audio" information. It would be like the "Demon Souls" game (where everything's out to kill you) except maybe more targeted and with a way to integrate complex audio information.

2. A high-quality software program that shows lots of emotions and situations and then zooms in close on people's faces or bodies to show what to look for. Helpful markers to know what to watch out for. And a sensitive camera software that teaches the learner how to mimic NT emotions and nonverbal language.

To have some fun, you could develop a game where you have to distinguish friends and enemies, and pick up other cues from the nonverbal language of characters in the game.

3. I have a software program that runs through multiple social situations for children that I found helpful even as an adult. It teaches recognizing simple cues situationally. There is just so much potential in this arena that hasn't even been tapped. So make a version for adults that is more complex than the one for kids, targeted as specific mistakes that aspies often make.

A very simple example: In this software program, there was a situation where a girl walks up to a chef and asks if he works at the fire station, even though he's wearing a chef hat. I immediately made the connection to dumb things I do like that, but in a much, much more subtle context. Also a boy who asks another boy what type of video games he likes when the other kid is reading a book. (He should have asked about books). We aspies/ASD's have a poorly developed concept to use clues in our environment to make inferences about another person. If we knew what to look for, I believe these skills would be learned by an intelligent person.

Also, a complex exercise to teach us how to stay on another person's "wavelength" (also related to context and seeing the person's "intentions"). Maybe exercises on "mirroring" also. This is why many NT's don't like us -- people naturally like you if you mirror them and naturally dislike if your cues are out of sync with theirs.

Hope this helps!

Anxiety
Learning problems
Shyness or relationship stuff

my main problem is interaction, isolation sensitive to noise and depression..sorry but more than three ..the list of major problems could go on!

1) Absolute inability to form relationships with the opposite gender (many, many problems here, in my head of course)
2) Being interested in a few things and considering everything else in life meaningless
3) Unable to control my emotions sometimes

My main difficulties:

- Socialization

- Memory

- attention, changes and multitasking skills and a lot more.

For me, these are the worst ones:

- Not being able to understand facial expressions and body language;
- Not being able to recognize my own emotions, and, because of this, not being able to show them;
- Overreacting in some situations, like having meltdowns because of sounds that bother me.

In order of severity:

Socialization
Sensory related issues
Anxiety and depression
Obsessions
Multitasking
Organization

not having sensory retreats (upstairs neighbor's constant loud music was probably a large part of why I dropped out of school this semester)

social anxiety

bad time management (I spend most of my time recovering from work or school by stimming rituals (e.g. make a bowl of popcorn, doing the same thing while the popcorn is being made, then read a book by the same author while I eat the popcorn sitting in the same chair because otherwise I can barely cope with having gone to class or talked to my room mate) and severe procrastination results...the only reason I get anything done ever is because my social anxiety overrides my need to recover from overstimulation, and I complete homework or laundry or whatever, instead of stimming, so I won't feel judged. this cycle repeats with me having nearly flawless academic or work performance and ends up with me quitting jobs where they were about to offer me management positions or dropping out right before finals and so on because I never let the stress show and it just explodes)

gender roles - subset of social anxiety but my GOD I can't function in all-male environments if they're straight NTs

forgetting things - I either memorize a subject flawlessly because I find it interesting and can relate it to my interests, or I don't do it. I never learned how to take notes because I usually didn't need them, or to write down due-dates or things like that.

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edit: to the people criticizing the OP for implying ASD is a "problem" - here's how I see it. I'm gay. that's not a problem, but people's expectations and the reality of trying to navigate life as a gay person living in the south is problematic. if there was an app that helped me navigate a heteronormative world better I'd buy that sucker immediately, without feeling judged in the slightest.

- Social interaction
- Sensory issues