My niece is starting to ask me why I do certain things.

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I've been staying at my moms while I'm recovering from my amputation. That means I see my 7 year old niece a lot more because my mom watches her on Thursdays. Since we're around each other more, we're getting to know each other better and I think she's starting to notice some of my "odd" traits.

She's asked me several times about why I sometimes make "weird sounds", why I don't talk much and why I don't always look at people when I talk to them. I've just told her that's just the way I am.
I don't think she likes that answer because she keeps asking me.

I still don't feel comfortable saying I have Aspergers since I don't have a Dx. My mom knows about my suspicions of AS and she seems to agree with me. I don't know if she has told my niece anything about AS.

I can't decide what to tell my niece if she keeps asking me this stuff. It seems to be common knowledge in my family that I'm kinda "odd". I've only told my mom and my oldest brother that I think I have Aspergers. They seemed to agree that it's a good explanation. I don't know if they've talked to anyone else in the family about it so I don't know who all knows.

I'm making a big deal about whether or not to tell people about it because I yet to have an official Dx. I really don't like the idea of telling people I have AS when I don't have a Dx, and if I only say I think I have it, people won't take me seriously.

Okay..... back to my main topic\ question. What should I tell my niece when she comments\ asks about the things I do?

I'm sure that you could show her a video about AS from youtube I think that there is one there for kids

Maybe she doesn't want to know a diagnosis, but actually why you do it.

For example, maybe she's looking for an answer like 'I find it calming to make those noises' or 'I find it overwhelming to look people in the eyes'. You can explain what motivates your odd behavior without getting into diagnostic labels.

You have specific kind of behaviors. So the sum of all of these might be Asperger, and you dont know yet if its really, but you know that you have specific behavior, so why do you need Aspergers to explain that.

So to explain why you dont do eyecontact, you dont need the word Asperger. You need to explain, that whyever a part of you, that is responsible for specific face- and mimic recognition is not working as it is for most other people. The reason why people normally instinctive look into each others faces, are because they receive lots of usable informations out of the mimic of a person. Each person can do that better or worse. Just like nearly everyone can see, but some people have really sharp eyes, and some people see pretty bad. And when it comes to mimic and face recognition you are completly bad, and so cant recognize most of the informations you get from looking into an face. Because of that, you never started to instincitve look into someones face when talking to him/her. The reason why she does it instinctivily is because her body is good at recognizing mimics and emotion from someones face, and so she gets lots of for her useful informations when doing so. Because of it being good, her body is doing that instinctive since she is a little child and her brain started to understand, that the information she gets from that can be useful for her to understand other person better.

Asperger is simply a sum of different kind of issues, that are all reasonable for themselves. So as long as she dont ask specific for "Asperger" but simply for different kind of issues, I see no need to change the topic from that issues to "Asperger".


My friends also do not know about Aspergers. But they know that I have specific hearing issues, making it hard for me to separate different kind of noises, and that great celebrities in restaurants are not so much to my liking, because of it being very hard for me to follow peoples chitchat, and that I really need to work on understanding different voices, which is very tiring for me. So normally after 1 hour I sit their and only understand "noise" and cant talk to other people because of hardly understanding them. So they understand, why I dont like big celebrities or tend to separate myself to the typical kitchen groups at parties, or smaller groups that are not around the centre of a party, but separate themselves.

I don't make much eye contact because I become too distracted by the face and have trouble following the conversation - and because after a few seconds the sensory stimuli becomes overwhelming and uncomfortable. I instinctively look away from the television when actors and late night talk show hosts look directly into the camera and I feel like they're staring at me.

Whyever, we simply dont receive the propper information. For me a face dont tell me that much and I agree wiht the eye thing. So I tried to do more eye contact, specific when I learned about correct social behavior, but either I seem to stare creepy at people or I have the feeling that they look somehow weird at me. Whyever, its not functioning. Looking at the top of the noise, is for me the best solution if I try to fake "eye contact". ^^

There's no point in giving it a name that no one understands anyway.
Even adults are confused by it. Add the fact that you don't have a proper diagnosis can only do harm.
I suppose you could explain a few specifics, like the fact that eye-contact is uncomfortable (or however you explain it to yourself).
Or that you often just don't enjoy talking.

You could say, "Instead of talking, I'd rather play with..." (Legos, Barbie, video, whatever the kid is into that you can share)
and let your relationship be based on that?
Then, if more questions come up, it could be more relaxed and easy to answer.
It could be that she's just looking for a way to connect.