Reddit mentions of Freaks, Geeks and Aspergers Syndrome: A User Guide to Adolescence

I never took things literally (in fact I only ever knew one aspie guy who actually did this), but when I was about 9 years old my dad gave me the book Freaks, Geeks and Asperger syndrome. This book was written by a 13 year old aspie guy who described what having aspergers is like. My dad hoped that this book would help me to learn about my condition, but for some reason I thought that because I also had aspergers, I had to act the same way as the author of the book did when he was my age. So my dad was really surprised when I suddenly started to take everything literally and performing rituals before going to bed.

Haven't read it, I'll look into it! I read Freaks, Geeks and Asperger Syndrome, which is written in part as a self-help book for Asperger's teens, by a 13 year old with Aspergers. He talks a lot about how his home life is different - one younger sibling has ADHD and another is on the lower end of the autism spectrum - and how he has to handle school and social life differently.

A lot of ASD folks don't want to be forced to change and lose what they feel is an integral part of themselves. It's one of the many reasons most autistic people feel a huge disconnect from groups like Autism Speaks (where it's an organization for parents of children with autism, they don't take input from people with autism themselves). Instead there's what's called the neurodiversity movement - sort of like disability rights for people with neurological differences, so they are not treated as malfunctioning people, but people who function differently than most.

If she was just diagnosed, I'm thinking it's probably more likely that she's high-functioning since you probably would've noticed earlier on if she was low-functioning. And the fact that she doesn't resist affection is a really wonderful sign! My brother wasn't very affectionate when he was her age but he did have some of those same behaviours - not responding to commands, self-focused etc. The word Autism itself comes from 'auto', so naturally a huge component of Autism is a focus on oneself rather than others which makes for more difficulties in social situations. Like I said, our situations are very different because my brother is 3 years older than me but going back to my 5 year old mindset, how I managed to communicate with my brother was through his common interest which is music. He'd play piano and I'd sit with him, we'd talk about our favourite artists etc. Since your sister is still pretty young, it might be difficult to establish a common interest right now but my advice would be interest yourself in whatever she finds interesting, getting her to talk about what she's doing, what she likes. And I hope that as she gets older, she's put in 'typical' child environments so that she doesn't miss out. I'm really happy to say that my brother had a lot of support when he was younger and now he's 23 and extremely well-adjusted and living in his own apartment and has a job that he loves. I wish I could offer you some reference books or something but all of the ones that I read were for younger siblings of Autistic children. If you're interested though here are a few that helped me:

Freaks, Geeks & Asperger Syndrome <-- it's about Aspergers but a lot of the characteristics are similar and more importantly, it provides a lot of information for siblings

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime <-- fictional but takes place completely inside the mind of an Autistic person! And it's an amazing read!

The Reason I Jump

Been There, Done That - Try This (edited by tony Atwood) might be useful. There are a couple of good books aimed at teenagers also which may or may not be helpful - freaks, geeks and Asperger syndrome by Luke Jackson and the asperkids book of (secret) social rules by Jennifer O’Toole

The other thing to consider is using trusted neurotypicals as social rules translators - no book is going to cover every situation fully or enable you to see clues that may be obvious to NTs.

Yes, there are a lot of rules!

What kind of rules do you want? Social interaction in general, or romantic interaction?

The problem is that people (NTs) in general learn them intuitively from a very young age by interacting with other people. Trying to learn social rules from a book without actually practicing in the real world those rules is IMPOSSIBLE. You will have to practice them (with real people) A LOT to actually make a difference.

Also, rules are dependent on the context and sometimes the culture. For example shaking hand with friends, family, coworkers, and random strangers. IT DEPENDS.

There are two books that I haven't read yet but they seem exactly for that:

• The Asperkid's (Secret) Book of Social Rules: The Handbook of Not-So-Obvious Social Guidelines for Tweens and Teens with Asperger Syndrome
  
• Freaks, Geeks and Asperger Syndrome: A User Guide to Adolescence

I remember reading this when I was a lot younger. I still find it to be incredibly useful.

Freaks, Geeks and Aspergers Syndrome: A User Guide to Adolescence https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1843100983/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_hV8JzbQ685CQB

Be aware it's written for early teenagers, though!