This Saturday, May 8, 2021, in front of the Saturday Night Live cameras, billionaire Elon Musk revealed that he has Asperger’s syndrome.
“I know I’m saying or posting weird things [sur internet]but that’s just how my brain worksexplained the boss of Tesla and Space X. To everyone I’ve offended I say: I reinvented the electric car and I’m sending people to Mars. You really thought I was a normal, relaxed guy?“
Asperger’s syndrome: what is it exactly?
Asperger’s syndrome is part of the large family of autism spectrum disorders (ASD): these disorders (whose origin is “largely genetic” according to the researchers) have in common an alteration of social relations, communication problems (verbal and non-verbal), behavioral problems and unusual sensory reactions.
Attention ! ASDs are not mental illnesses: they are defined as neurodevelopmental disorders and result from abnormalities in the functioning of certain cerebral centers.
First described in 1943, Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) is an autism spectrum disorder which, according to Inserm, is “associated with very good intellectual development”. Indeed: people with this ASD amaze those around them with their general culture, their curiosity, their memory or even their talents/knowledge in a particular field (computers, foreign languages, poetry, etc.).
Beyond these positive aspects, people with Asperger’s syndrome generally experience difficulties integrating into society. “Their behavioral problems, their resistance to change and the anxieties that may result from it, their concerns limited to one or more centers of interest, their language, their memory… all this disconcerts“analyzes the Autism France association.
People with Asperger’s have difficulty understanding the implicit (the tone of a conversation, for example, or figurative expressions – giving the cat his tongue, a duck’s cold…), do not tolerate noises, smells and / or strong lights, need to be reassured frequently, need to live in a certain routine… In France, Asperger’s syndrome affects between 100,000 and 400,000 people.
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Read also :
- Testimonial: I have Asperger’s Autism
- “Monsieur Je-Sais-Tout”, a film that hopes to change the way we look at autism
- Asperger’s syndrome: the point of view of specialists
