Asperger Syndrome Symptoms Checklist

Reading the signs and symptoms of Asperger’s

Asperger’s symptoms normally start to appear around age 3 or later. While early detection helps, Asperger syndrome can be significantly improved at any age.

While difficulty with social interaction is the signature trait, there are other Asperger’s signs and symptoms.

Behavioral Checklist of Asperger Symptoms

The characteristics and signs of Asperger syndrome vary — no two children are the same. If your child has more than two of the signs of Asperger’s on this checklist, you should seek professional advice. Children with Asperger’s:

• Have a very hard time relating to others. They don’t necessarily avoid social contact, but they have difficulty expressing thoughts and noticing the feelings of others.
• Do not like change; they prefer fixed routines.
• Tend to focus on a few interests, e.g., dinosaurs, with unusual intensity.
• Get tripped up by missing verbal and nonverbal cues.
• Speaking can be monotone or unusually formal for their age.

Social Communication and Language Skill Symptoms

For an individual with Asperger’s, following a conversation is like trying to understand a foreign language. This difficulty causes a number of social and language symptoms common to most children with Asperger syndrome. People with Asperger syndrome sometimes find it difficult to express themselves emotionally and socially. For example, they may:

• Have difficulty interpreting hand gestures or tone of voice.
• Be awkward in conversation.
• Be very literal in their language, missing the nuances in jokes or sarcasm.
• To help a person with Asperger syndrome, keep your sentences clear and concise.

A child may have fluent speech but struggle with conversation skills, be pedantic, have unusual prosody, and make literal interpretations. The potential impacts on language skills are:

• Delayed speech development
• Formal pedantic language
• Difficulty with comprehension
• Problems with literal and implied meanings

At least three signs and symptoms of Asperger’s are required for a diagnosis of Asperger syndrome. (Source: Gilberg and Gilberg diagnostic criteria of speech and language peculiarities 1989).

If you see 3 or more of the Asperger symptoms in any of the lists above and you are concerned about your child’s behavior or communication style, talk to your child’s doctor.

Read about our speech and language software here.

Cognitive skill delays at the source of the Asperger syndrome diagnosis can be improved with exercise. Learn more about our programs to help with reading and learning for individuals with ASD.