Home

Life With Aspergers: Aspergers Syndrome and Acting

Submitted by Landon Bryce on Fri, 11/12/2010 - 06:00
Published in

From the Blogosphere

Gavin Bollard's Life With Aspergers is one of the best resources for figuring out how to live a successful life on the spectrum.  The father of children on the autism spectrum, Gavin has Aspergers  himself. 

His latest post is about Aspergers Syndrome and Acting.  Because I learned most of the social skills I have by acting in plays, I can't tell you how much I agree with what he has to say.

Here's an excerpt:

I think that aspies tend to be good at acting because they spend so much of their daily lives acting - and from a very early age.

For example, it's true that aspies often don't get jokes (although you rarely hear us complaining when neurotypicals don't get ours). Young aspies quickly learn that it's easier to "act like you got the joke" than it is to take the brunt and embarrassment of being the only one who didn't. We are quite often called upon to "act amused".

Then there are those sad and solemn occasions where sometimes we feel intense waves of emotion - and sometimes we don't. Again, honesty in these situations leads to ostracisation. Sometimes it's simply better to "act sad" or "act shocked".

Read the rest here.