Asperger's Y Amistad

Running head: ASPERGER’S SYNDROME: FRIENDSHIP AND SOCIAL UNDERSTANDING

Asperger’s Syndrome: Friendship and Social understanding
Dulce M. Saldaña Compañ
Boston College

Key Words: Aspiees, social skills, developmental stages

Abstract
Individuals with Asperger’s are aware of other people and desire friendship. They are often isolated because their approaches tend to be inappropriate andpeculiar. A person with Asperger’s syndrome is unable to be spontaneous and have a hard time reading other people’s intentions, emotions and conventions. Without specialized help with these skills, even the brightest person with this syndrome may end up unable to make and keep friends. As we grow up, the concept of friendship has different stages; for a person with Asperger’s each stage havespecific characteristics that distinguish each one of them from a typical person. Aspiees struggle with certain aspects but with the correct assistance and guidance they are able to maintain long lasting and true friendships.

What is the birthday party for? In a party we give a lot of eye contact: some of it asked for, some of it not, some of it withheld. We laugh at bad jokes, and create a“mini-myth for the four or five hours we are in the arena” (Goodyear, 2008, P. 145). We also listen to each other or we just make people laugh. This party helped us to make sure that others are feeling good; also we had a chance to check out how the people at the party feel about us, to enjoy the social interaction and gain a bit of advantage by being noticed. The thing is that we do this unconsciously,and we can distinguish rapidly if someone for one or another reason is acting. The social skills we use are unconscious and very hard to teach, hard to adopt if you don’t talk the language (Goodyear, 2008, p. 146). Our social skills are essentially responsive and interactive. Stoddart (2005), mentions in his book that social skills only really work if they are applied unconsciously, they don’twork too well if we do it in a conscious way. But, how do you know what people think of you when you are not even looking at them? What to do when you don’t understand the language? How are you going to establish a real a long lasting friendship if you don’t even know how to approach the people and ask their names? When is it a good time to say something you are thinking and when is not? Goodyear(2008) describes the people with Asperger’s when they are interacting, as individuals that can’t see what goes on the other side; they are behind a translucent wall with a few bricks taken out, they can sort of see but the whole picture is not quite clear. Rao, Beidel, and Murray (2007), define Social skills as specific behaviors that result in positive social interactions and encompass both verbaland non-verbal behaviors necessary for effective interpersonal communication. Castorina and Negri (2010) in a recent study found that the difficulties in social understanding for aspires arise from deficiencies in emotion perception, social perception, and cognitive process. Poor social awareness is a fundamental component of this disorder. Balfe and Tantam (2010) assure that social skills inchildhood have consistently been linked to positive developmental outcome, including peer acceptance, academic achievement, and mental health in the future. Goodyear et al. (2008) suggests that many people with Asperger’s tend to watch only the mouth in a conversation. They avoid all reference to the face, eyes, shoulders and so on. Social skills go much deeper than establishing a conversation andeye contact. This includes politeness, body placement, gestures and empathy. All the way through their lives people with Asperger’s have different stages in which they have different concepts of their own condition and in this specific case of study, friendship. They seem to have real difficulties in knowing what the other person feels and as a result it is hard to make friends and establish...