Asperger's Syndrome and Friendliness

One of the Diagnostic Criteria for Asperger's Syndrome is an "Impairment in social interactions" and although there are people with Asperger's Syndrome who can be quite friendly, there are many who are quite unfriendly and this unfriendliness affects their ability to form peer relationships.

I never really noticed that my son was an unfriendly child until he started school. Whenever we had people over to visit he seemed friendly enough except for the fact that I had to drag his attention away from what he was doing at the time in order to get him to say "Hi".

When he started kindergarten and children would come up to him in the hallways and make overtures of friendliness, he didn't even seem to see them, much less respond to them. I was forever prompting him to say "Hi". Between the ages of 4 - 7, we had many discussions in our house about how to be a friend, how you can recognize good friends. We kept repeating a sentence to him that he just didn't seem to understand. "You have to be friendly in order to make friends." We tried role playing, gave him suggestions for starting conversations and prompted him when he was around his peers.

Between the ages of 7 to 9, having friends seemed to be the biggest topic of conversation in our house. My son would be devastated if a friend of his decided that he didn't want to play with him anymore at school. He didn't want to be friends with more than one or two children in the classroom and if they rejected him, he withdrew into himself. He couldn't seem to find a way to relate to his peers that was acceptable to them. He began stating that he didn't need friends, he didn't need anyone and he didn't want to go to school.

When he started Grade 3, he made two friends who are still his friends 3 years later. He has had his ups and downs with these friends but for the most part, it has been a good experience. His friends have the ability to accept my son the way he is and relate to him on his level. This has improved his sociability at home and given him more confidence in dealing with social situations. He still tends to be extremely unfriendly with children that he is not interested in and hasn't quite mastered the knack of turning down overtures of friendship tactfully.

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