Maybe I am an Aspie
ETA: I started thinking about this after reading this article.
One of the things that has made it pretty difficult for me to believe that the older son has Asperger's is the notion that Aspies have no empathy. The reason I find this problematic is that I know older son is extremely empathetic: this is the same kid who cried all afternoon because he felt bad about a dead fish we'd used to do a biology lesson. It wasn't that he felt the world was unjust, but kept talking about how the fish was feeling.
Another thing we noticed early on: he could pick on the least bit of negativity a person exhibited. I remember one of the employees at a daycare center he went to. She was very domineering and didn't take well at all to any deviation in "proper behavior". Older son would always have problems when she was in charge of his group. If it was another teacher, it'd be fine. A lot of people might attribute that to a teacher being strict versus lenient, but it didn't have as much to do with that as the way a person approached him. The person he liked could get him to do anything while he'd be absolutely obstinant about the same thing with a person he didn't like.
I have often said that I don't "feel" like an Aspie, even though I was very much like older son at that age. (Maybe a matter of degree, but some of the fundamentals were the same.) I can very easily tell when someone is upset: I pick up body language like a toddler picks up germs in a daycare. (That would be a lot.) Unfortunately, I very often don't have a context. A good example is a meeting I had last week. One of the people in the meeting came across as exceptionally negative, and I was worried she was angry with me. As it turns out, someone informed me that she'd received some bad news right before our meeting. I was correct that she was upset and angry, but it had nothing to do with me. Being able to pick up a lot of non-verbal communication can be a problem when it doesn't always mesh with what people are saying or gives you the idea that they feel something about you that they don't. And, unfortunately, the things I perceive and the way they make me feel are seldom subtle. It's usually really bad or really good, but nothing in between.
So is autism shutting out of those non-verbal signals which can be so distressing when they contradict the verbal? If so, then I'd fully believe that both the older son and I have this problem. It would only make sense if someone is highly visual that they would be able to pick up all those little things that others miss. We both are and we both do. It never made sense to me that someone who is highly visual would miss out entirely on the visual aspect of interacting with another person.
It is a perhaps an issue where the NTs live in a state of ignorant bliss rather than the Aspies, never knowing that there are so many other things going on with a person that can lead to confusing and contradictory interpretations. I have had to train myself to "screen out" some of those messages, even though it is sometimes not possible (like the family member who has never liked me, but no one would believe me for years). So perhaps a little ignorance makes it easier to get along with others.
One of the things that has made it pretty difficult for me to believe that the older son has Asperger's is the notion that Aspies have no empathy. The reason I find this problematic is that I know older son is extremely empathetic: this is the same kid who cried all afternoon because he felt bad about a dead fish we'd used to do a biology lesson. It wasn't that he felt the world was unjust, but kept talking about how the fish was feeling.
Another thing we noticed early on: he could pick on the least bit of negativity a person exhibited. I remember one of the employees at a daycare center he went to. She was very domineering and didn't take well at all to any deviation in "proper behavior". Older son would always have problems when she was in charge of his group. If it was another teacher, it'd be fine. A lot of people might attribute that to a teacher being strict versus lenient, but it didn't have as much to do with that as the way a person approached him. The person he liked could get him to do anything while he'd be absolutely obstinant about the same thing with a person he didn't like.
I have often said that I don't "feel" like an Aspie, even though I was very much like older son at that age. (Maybe a matter of degree, but some of the fundamentals were the same.) I can very easily tell when someone is upset: I pick up body language like a toddler picks up germs in a daycare. (That would be a lot.) Unfortunately, I very often don't have a context. A good example is a meeting I had last week. One of the people in the meeting came across as exceptionally negative, and I was worried she was angry with me. As it turns out, someone informed me that she'd received some bad news right before our meeting. I was correct that she was upset and angry, but it had nothing to do with me. Being able to pick up a lot of non-verbal communication can be a problem when it doesn't always mesh with what people are saying or gives you the idea that they feel something about you that they don't. And, unfortunately, the things I perceive and the way they make me feel are seldom subtle. It's usually really bad or really good, but nothing in between.
So is autism shutting out of those non-verbal signals which can be so distressing when they contradict the verbal? If so, then I'd fully believe that both the older son and I have this problem. It would only make sense if someone is highly visual that they would be able to pick up all those little things that others miss. We both are and we both do. It never made sense to me that someone who is highly visual would miss out entirely on the visual aspect of interacting with another person.
It is a perhaps an issue where the NTs live in a state of ignorant bliss rather than the Aspies, never knowing that there are so many other things going on with a person that can lead to confusing and contradictory interpretations. I have had to train myself to "screen out" some of those messages, even though it is sometimes not possible (like the family member who has never liked me, but no one would believe me for years). So perhaps a little ignorance makes it easier to get along with others.