Since I am a foster care parent, I sometimes have kids in my care that aren't mine. I got the privilege of spending a week with a girl still in foster care at age 20. She has Aspergers. In many ways, she reminds me of my oldest son. She is very high functioning and at this age, she is very independent in many ways, but you see the need to "walk her through" new stuff. I already do this with my son, so it felt "right at home". She sticks to a bus schedule with certain bus stops she knows and having to take a different bus stop to my home made her uneasy. I could see it. I could see the disconnect in her mind as it was unfamiliar territory and she didn't like the change.
I was told she is very social. She was very engaging in conversation. However, her social abilities seemed limited to me. She would go on and on about her interests. I noticed she lost interest when it was not HER interest. I am told that is typical and definitely an Aspergers trait. I was telling stories to the younger foster kid I also had this week about how awkward middle school was. I laughed a lot with the younger girl. I did notice that the older girl with Aspergers did not laugh and seem to miss the humor in it all. If she did laugh, then it was sorta a forced laugh because she didn't want to be left out. My son does that when we tell jokes. My son likes to take the initiative to tell jokes or at least try and they never make sense. We usually laugh to be kind, but he really is clueless in that department. Sometimes, when we are alone, I try to help him tell jokes.
Later, I can say that this girl also tried to share a story that was similar, like an embarrassing sort of story that would make one laugh....and she connected beautifully with what we were talking about and showed the ability to follow up with a similar story....however, she told her story in rather a mechanical way telling details that were kind of irrelevant to the story and you kinda felt lost in the story but in the end, there was the embarrassing part in the story. I think most people would have stopped listening and be bored with the story but we hung in there and let her finish. At the end, it was kinda funny. We all laughed. I think she just thinks in a more technical kind of way.
