We should get your DS together with my DD13. Except for the fact that she does well in EF, they have a lot in common:
- DD often bottles up her negative emotions, although she'll usually share them with me after a day or two.
- She is guarded and reticent when meeting new people. This has been an observable behavior since she was an infant. She prefers to observe and get a sense of a person before engaging.
- She is outgoing and extroverted, but odd about who she calls a friend. We've had multiple discussions about this. She'll tell me she has no friends, and then she'll tell me about the kid she was teasing mercilessly, or the one she picked up and wrestled with, all in good fun in both cases. And I tell her that if these kids are cool with her doing these things, there is only one reason: she was granted the special privileges attendant to being regarded as a friend.
In my completely unprofessional opinion, depending heavily on unreliable personal experience, I suggest that the Psych's analysis of Asperger's is based on socio-cultural differences and not on psychological differences.
