Traits of High Functioning Individuals on the Autism Spectrum
Traits of High Functioning Individuals on the Autism Spectrum
Children and Adults who are on the Autism Spectrum but are listed as a level 1 or as Social Communication Disorder or as being on the verge of having Autism, exhibit specific traits that are often seen in collaboration with other disorders and or can be misdiagnosed as being a disorder other than the Autism itself. Below is a list of traits that are common for individuals who fall within the High Functioning Autism category.
Transition Issues: The individual expresses a need to know beforehand what is to be done or the location they may be going to geographically. Such individuals often have very difficult times starting in a new school environment or learning a new academic subject at least for the first several weeks. While most children express some difficulty in transitions like these, those on the high functioning scale express the difficulty in more extreme ways. They may attempt to shut down emotionally, get very verbal, isolate themselves or as in many cases, attempt to not go to the new school or college / university.
These individuals rely heavily on routines. Once they grasp the rules of the routine then they often adapt quickly, even surpassing their peers particularly if it is an academic setting.
Emotional Intelligence: In many case individuals who are on the high functioning scale of Autism show lower levels of emotional intelligence. More specifically, they usually are very intelligent, express high levels of creative problem-solving skills but have difficulty both regulating their own emotions and or reading and responding correctly to other people’s emotions.
Anxiety: Individuals who have High Functioning Autism or traits of Autism often exhibit higher levels of anxiety. Multiple possible causalities exist for this. One of the more valid reasons, supported by clinical observation, is the tendency for individuals on the spectrum to feel they don’t “fit in,” to the surrounding community well, that they don’t understand the social rules innately. As a result, they rely on significantly developed creative problem-solving skills to analyze and determine the correct rules and etiquette to use in order to fit in. Often the rules they adopt are only marginally successful.
The brain waves known as Beta show in increased presence when problem solving. The more challenging the problem the more beta wave activity. Beta waves also induce levels of anxiety. As the children who are high functioning rely heavily on their problem-solving skills to move
within and fit into the surrounding community, but also don’t innately understand the social rules, they express higher than average beta waves and an increased level of anxiety.
Use of EEG and QEEG’s when standard testing for Autism does not show a “set diagnosis,” may be helpful in confirming the beta wave activity as well as high anxiety and the traits of Autism present in the individual.
Black and White Thinking Process: Most individuals who are high functioning also exhibit very black and white or linear thinking. This thinking process in the short term increases the difficulty to adapt to change. Over time, such individuals tend to adopt a continually growing list of rules, each future rule built onto the original rules. The more adopted rules are adopted, more complex the social interaction. This often allows individuals who are high functioning to better comprehend the social norms and develop abstract thinking processes. This process does take considerable time and may be seen as a child showing social skills development that is two to four years behind their chronological age.
High Levels of Creative Problem Solving: Paradoxically, individuals on the spectrum who are high functioning and exhibit black and white thinking processes also show very high creative abilities in which “out of the box,” thinking is present, often discerning solutions to problems that the general public do not know exist at present. Play with children who are high functioning often shows extremely high developed abilities at early ages of complex storytelling in which whole fantasy worlds or retelling of exiting history is expressed.
Humor: Individuals who show traits of High Functioning Autism tend to exhibit a complex form of humor based on word association. In such cases that child may focus on a particular word and develop humor around that word. For example, the word may be “head.” During conversation that child may smile and say, “Don’t get ahead of yourself doc,” or “This is a heady situation,”.
Comorbidities: Often individuals who have traits of High Functioning Autism, express comorbidities such as ADHD, Anxiety, Depression, Club Foot, fine motor issues etc. In many cases comorbidities may not meet standard criteria for diagnosis but would fall under the “Not otherwise specified,” category. As such many children with High Functioning Autism have multiple issues that may be masked by the Autism itself or mask the Autism.
For example, a child with Clubfoot, may be under extreme physical pain and the pain may hide the black and white thinking process or even difficulty in transitioning the child exhibits as the majority of effort given by the child is focused on physical discomfort. In the case of Anxiety, the overall fear and tendency to isolate may hide ADHD traits and or traits of Autism given the child tends to stay away from social settings. Discerning the comorbidities may require clinical analysis beyond standard test tasking. Physical observation, use of genograms, and detailed record of parental observations as well as possible EEG and QEEG tests could prove most helpful in discerning any underlying comorbidities.