A speech delay alone does not exclude AS. Einstein was in fact vey verbally advanced in many ways. His uncle started playing word and math games orally with him as a small child, but he was withdrawn and wouldn't speak in school or outside the family home. That's likely not a speech delay as much as a typical Aspie kid finding speaking in certain situations counterintuitive. I was the same way - technically no speech delay, but yet most of the time I refused to speak, up until I was about 14.
Other AS traits Einstein displayed as a child:
- intuitive awareness of falsity in adults
- a repulsion towards overt social conformity (like soldiers' uniforms)
- preferencee for socializing with adults rather than peers
- dominantly visual thinking
- clumsiness
- gulliability in social interactions
- uniquely advanced problem-solving skills for his age
- superior rational-intuitive and systematizing abilities, including understanding math, music and other systems
- a resistence to being instructed by conventional methods, often preferring to figure things out on his own in his own ways
- narrow interests
- had one friend in his age group for much of his childhood (his sister)
- possible face-blindness
- general disinterest in things other children liked/did
Seriously now, if you met a 11 year old kid who rather spend the day alone with his uncle solving math riddles rather than be in school with other kids, what would you think was going on with him?
02 Feb 2006, 8:47 pm
