Possible Strengths:

Intelligence, Special Interest, Memory

• Average to very high intelligence.
• Good verbal skills; rich vocabulary.
• Ability to absorb and retain large amounts of information, especially about topics of special interest.
• Ability to think in visual images.
• Be self-motivated, independent learners.
• Propensity to think outside the box and generate novel solutions to problems.
• Some people may show a strong aptitude for a particular field of study or topic.

Strong Focus

• Ability (in some cases a preference) for spending time alone.
• Take an interest in arcane or off-beat fields of knowledge.
• Concentrate for long periods of time on reading, experimenting, writing,
• Avoid wasting time in some activities that appeal to neurotypical people.
• Some special interests can be channeled into productive hobbies or even careers, where the person may be creative or make new discoveries.

Detail-oriented

• Ability to notice small details of an idea, theory, number pattern, book, film, object or visual image.
• Ability to perform repetitive tasks where accuracy, rules and routine are important.
• Strong work ethic; commitment to quality and accuracy of work.

Unique humor

• Play with language and create puns.
• Enjoy sarcasm and satire.
• Relish life’s absurd, dark, or incongruous side.
• See through empty rhetoric or conventional pieties.

Honesty

• Ability and tendency to tell the truth—even if it’s not tactful or in one’s self-interest.
• Desire and tendency to follow rules.

Desire to Connect

• Expend effort and energy to learn social skills that do not come naturally.
• Persevere in the face of rejection, confusion or frustration.
• Believe the best of everyone (sometimes naively).
• Accept quirkiness or imperfection in others, and become a loyal friend.

Fair and Just

• Tendency to be unconventional, open-minded, and tolerant.
• Intensely responsive when made aware of injustice.
• Advocate for the underdog, victims of bullying or member of an oppressed group.
• Propensity to express caring in non-traditional ways.
• Tendency to relate to and defend animals.

Possible Challenges:

Sensory Regulation

• Aversion to or craving for certain types/intensities of sensory input. Extreme sensitivity — or relative insensitivity — to sights, sounds, smells, tastes, or textures. Many people outgrow these sensory issues at least to some extent as they mature.
• Integrating multiple sensations and responding appropriately.
• Knowing where one’s body is in space; avoiding bumping into people or objects.
• Motor planning (using the body to accomplish a task).
• Auditory, visual, or intellectual processing, which can contribute to difficulties keeping up in a range of social settings.

Regulation of Emotions and Anxiety

• Recognizing what emotions feel like and look like in self and others.
• Understanding gradations of emotion; matching emotional response to people, activities and settings.

Regulation of Attention and Impulses

• Controlling flight or fight response when anxious.
• Filtering out extraneous stimuli.
• Analyzing relevant vs. irrelevant information.
• Sustaining attention to relevant information.
• Switching attention from one thing to another.
• Intense, narrow, time-consuming personal interest(s) — sometimes eccentric in nature — that may result in social isolation, or interfere with the completion of everyday tasks.
• Vulnerability to stress, sometimes escalating to psychological or emotional problems including low self-esteem, depression, anxiety or obsessive-compulsive behaviors.

Flexible Thinking

• Coping with changes in familiar routines.
• Seeing more than one way to accomplish a task/solve a problem.
• Realizing there are exceptions to rules; tolerating when other people bend rules.
• Accepting feedback, advice, suggestions or help from others.
• Change may trigger anxiety, while familiar objects, settings, and routines offer reassurance. One result is difficulty transitioning from one activity to another: from one class to another, from work-time to lunch or from talking to listening.

Central Coherence/Generalization/Main Idea

• Seeing “the forest for the trees.” Seeing the big picture due to a tendency to focus on the details of a given situation.
• Abstracting the main idea from text or conversation.
• Recognizing and categorizing information.
• Understanding complex or abstract concepts.
• Generalizing skills from one setting to another.

Executive Functioning/Problem-Solving:

• Organizing thoughts and materials.
• Written expression.
• Time management.
• Prioritizing, initiating, and completing tasks.
• Generating novel or alternative solutions.

Theory of Mind/Perspective Taking:

• Recognizing and understanding other people’s thoughts, feelings, and intentions due to a tendency to ignore or misinterpret such cues as facial expression, body language and vocal intonation.
• Processing social information quickly and efficiently.
• Being tactful; being able to tell “white lies.”

Hidden Curriculum:

• Understanding the unwritten or implied social rules.
• Knowing what to do or say in various social situations.

Social Pragmatics:

• Appearing awkward or rude, and unintentionally upset others.
• Noticing and correctly interpreting other people’s nonverbal communication (gestures, body position, facial expression and tone of voice).
• Modulating one’s own nonverbal communication.
• Initiating, joining, and maintaining conversation.
• Using humor and sarcasm appropriately; understanding other people’s use of sarcasm and humor.
• Feeling somehow different and disconnected from the rest of the world and not “fitting in” — sometimes called “Wrong Planet” Syndrome.

Self-Awareness/Self-Advocacy:

• Perceiving and expressing one’s own feelings.
• Understanding/accepting one’s own strengths and weaknesses.
• Developing strategies to offset weaknesses and build on strengths.
• Knowing when one needs help; asking for help.
• Recognizing and protecting oneself from bullies.

Chronic Fatigue:

• Difficulties with sleep patterns.
• Fatigue due to sensory stimulation in certain environments.
• Fatigue due to conscious mental processing of information that others might process intuitively.
• Exhaustion due to easily-triggered nervous system (active “Fight or Flight” response).