Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Asperger's?

'Unlearning from emotionally painful experiences is slow and unpredictable, so protect yourself!'

Similarities Between Asperger Children and Gifted ChildrenThere seem to be at least seven characteristics common to gifted children and to children with AS. These commonalities have not been verified in any controlled studies, but are pulled from the shared literature and clinical experience. For instance, verbal fluency or precocity is common to both, and both may have excellent memories (Clark, 1992; Frith, 1991; Levy, 1988; Silverman, 1993). Both may evidence a fascination with letters or numbers and enjoy memorizing factual information at an early age. Both may demonstrate an absorbing interest in a specialized topic and may acquire vast amounts of factual information about it (Clark; Gallagher, 1985; Klin & Volkmar, 1995). They may annoy peers with their limitless talk about their interests. They may ask endless questions or give such lengthy and elaborately specific responses to questions that it seems they are unable to stop. One gifted AS child known to the author, when asked who Christopher Columbus was, responded with a dozen sentences detailing his genealogy. Hypersensitivity to sensory stimuli is also not uncommon in both groups of children. Parents of gifted and AS children alike often can tell stories of their child's adamant refusal to wear certain kinds of materials, to eat foods of a certain texture, to recoil or run at the sound of noises they find particularly abrasive, or to refuse some kinds of touch. AS children are described as having quite a range of abilities, as are gifted children. It was Asperger's observation that all children with the disorder seem to have "a special interest which enables them to achieve quite extraordinary levels of performance in a certain area" (p. 45). This interest is similar to the way in which gifted children are said to have "passions" (Betts & Kercher, 1999; Torrance, 1965). While they may demonstrate extraordinary skill in selected areas, both AS children and gifted children may perform in the average range in other areas (Baum, Owen, & Dixon, 1991; Wing, 1991). Both the gifted and the AS child are described as experiencing uneven development, particularly when cognitive development is compared to social and affective development at a young age (Altman, 1983; Asperger, 1991; Hollingworth, 1942; Silverman, 1993).

...
Distinguishing Normal Giftedness From Asperger's SyndromeSeveral similarities between gifted children and children with AS have been noted. Some of the distinguishing criteria are listed in Table 1. One distinguishing characteristic may be found in speech patterns. AS children, like ordinary gifted children, can evidence fluent speech that seems characterized by original and analytic thinking. Although both groups of children can be highly verbal, AS children are typically pedantic, while normal gifted children are not. Frith (1991) suggested a distinction may be made by the seamlessness of the speech. AS individuals may demonstrate seamless mixtures of knowledge and personal accounts in their written or oral responses to questions. They run on and on, blending content, personal reflections, and autobiographical illustrations. They do so perhaps because they are not aware of the purpose of the questions.

A second difference lies in how they respond to routines or structure. Although both are sometimes described as resistant to routine at home or school, ordinary gifted children are not nearly as rigid about routines as some AS children are. Also, gifted children, as a rule, do not have the kinds of difficulties coping with change that AS children have. AS children can have great difficulty with the lockstep scheduling and routine of traditional classrooms, and they may refuse to cooperate with common learning tasks of school. Gifted children may express displeasure about routines and may passively resist them, but they are not as likely to panic or become aggressive as are AS children. Although both the gifted and the Asperger learner may complain about schedules and procedures, the latter is more likely to become obsessive about it (Barron & Barron, 1992; Clark, 1992; Klin & Volkmar, 1995).

There is also a difference in the whimsical behaviors that characterize AS children and some gifted children. Margaret Dewey (1992) wrote of the differences between autistic eccentricity and "garden variety eccentricity." Her observations may be useful to those trying to draw a line between normal gifted behaviors and AS behaviors. She noted that the normal eccentric person is aware that others will regard his or her eccentric behaviors as odd, while the individual with AS is not aware. People with AS often have no sense that they have done anything out of the ordinary. This obliviousness to social conventions is a trademark of the disorder. Several writers trace this obliviousness to the lack of a "theory of mind" (Atwood, 1998). Theory of mind is akin to metacognition; it refers to knowing what one knows and how one knows it, while simultaneously processing differences in others. Theory of mind also subsumes the ability to take perspective; to be aware of oneself and to take another's perspective at the same time. Children with AS have great difficulty understanding the perspective of others, which is what makes their social adjustment so challenging (Schopler & Mesibov, 1992; Wing, 1981; Wing & Gould, 1979). The criterion of obliviousness may serve to distinguish gifted children with and without Asperger's above age 7 or 8. For example, AS children may demonstrate excellent selective memory for people or events. Similarly, gifted children may demonstrate superb memory for selected topics of special interest to them. A difference, though, is that children with AS will assume others understand their references and will not be aware that others may find their memory remarkable in any way. In contrast, ordinary gifted children understand that others probably do not share their knowledge of selected topics and that others are surprised by their keen memory (Dewey, 1992).

A fourth distinction between the ordinary gifted child and the AS child has to do with the "disturbance of active attention" (Asperger, 1991, p. 76). Gifted children can have attention difficulties; but, when they do, it is usually because they are distracted by external stimuli. AS individuals are prone to distraction, but it is distraction that comes from within. They attend much less to external stimuli and more to their inner world. This internal distraction usually impairs their school performance.

Quality of humor is a fifth distinction. Gifted children with AS may be creative with word play and may even excel in making puns, but they lack the social reciprocity that underlies most humor (Atwood, 1998; Grandin, 1992; Van Bourgondien & Mesibov, 1987). They don't laugh at things that are funny to most people, and they often don't get the joke. Gifted children, on the other hand, are not characterized by deficits in their ability to understand humor.

Affective expression is the sixth potentially distinguishing feature. Children with Asperger's tend to present as automatons to some degree (Atwood, 1998). Their emotional response is often not what one would expect. It might be flattened or restricted, or they may laugh, get mad, or become anxious inappropriately. Inappropriate affective expression is not a common characteristic of gifted children. Perhaps the most pronounced feature to distinguish a gifted AS student is his or her remarkable lack of insight and awareness regarding the feelings, needs, and interests of other people. An AS child will talk interminably in a monotonous or pedantic tone about a favorite topic, unaware that the listener might not be interested, needs to leave, is bored, or wants to say something. AS children will also interrupt private conversations and enter or leave abruptly without concern for the wishes or needs of others. They seem oblivious to the simplest rules of social conduct, and repeated efforts to instruct them or remind them do not change these behaviors. A pronounced lack of social awareness is not a common characteristic of ordinary gifted children. It is this struggle to understand the simplest social guidelines that frequently makes active participation in secondary gifted programs such a challenge for gifted students with AS (Szatmari, Bartolucci, & Bremner, 1989; Tantam, 1988; Wing, 1992; Wing & Gould, 1979).

The difficulties of identifying gifted AS individuals are compounded by the variations found among AS children. Stereotypy, for example, is observed in some, but not all AS children. Twisting hands, opening and closing a book, rocking, knocking, and whirling are examples of stereotypy that are sometimes, though not always, observed in AS children. When stereotypy is observed in a gifted child, however, a diagnosis of AS or another pervasive developmental disorder may be warranted and merits further examination (APA, 1994).