Thanks, BearBio.

My son, who is 42, is autistic, and has severe Asperger's Syndrome. I've mentioned this several times in posts, and it's good for someone to take the time to post some details about the world of autistics and AS folks.

When my son was born, autistics were "Rain Man". It wasn't defined as a spectrum disorder until the late 1980's, and even then Dr. Asperger's study sat on the shelves of some library in Austria.

In the late 1970's, our son's autism was completely unknown. Several psychologists diagnosed him with "a deep-seated, unknown, psychological disorder", that may never be uncovered.

It wasn't until 1980, that a local school psychologist, brought up the possibility that he didn't have any "psychological disorder", since she couldn't, no matter how she worked with our son, define the "deep-seated, unknown, psychological disorder". Since she didn't know for sure, she became his personal advocate, and refused to let the school administrators buttonhole him.

Several years in Special Education, and more Individualized Education Plans (IEP), finally got him the support and help he needed. When he was a senior in high school, we had a psychologist who was familiar with the "spectrum" of autism. Asperger's was still unknown, but we had a start.

Our son is at the severe end of AS, and as such, will never develop the means to recognize the "social contract", and create any real peer-to-peer relationships. Most all of his social relationships are mentor/mentee types.

In 2007, our son, who had been living independently, lost his job, and suffered a severe relapse. He moved back home, and we spent a lot of time, and money on new diagnoses, including testing for AS. I learned of AS, before he was diagnosed, by answering a questionnaire from an Australian support site. Our son "hit" on 24 of 25 symptoms. Testing for AS confirmed our observations.

Yes, there's no "cure". Our son is who he will always be. And the difficulty, is that, without continuous counseling and therapy, he will "back slide" into an "anti-social" shell.

By observation, we have concluded that autism and AS are exacerbated by overstimulation of the visual senses. We constantly have to limit his exposure on the computer, and most of all, television.

It's a vastly complicated condition, and once diagnosed, it's a lifetime of treatment and therapy.