Girls and Asperger's: Difficulty Picking up on Social Cues

Girls and Asperger's: Difficulty Picking up on Social Cues

Social skills are necessary for successful interpersonal functioning. In every interaction we have with others, we pick up cues from another's facial expressions, tone of voice, body language, and even cultural behaviors. We then process this information so that we can interact with the other person appropriately.

But girls with Asperger's Syndrome have difficulty with interpersonal relationships. This is in part because they have a lack of desire to interact with peers, but also because they have trouble interpreting social cues. More specifically, some of the difficulties are:

Children with Asperger's are often distractable and have trouble sustaining attention. They may have a hard time paying attention to another person's speech and behavior because attention may be on something else.
Those with Asperger's seem to be less able to gather the same information from facial features such as eyes and do not spend as much time watching other's facial expressions.
There may be impairment in hearing subtle vocal cues such as tone, volume and pitch. This results in problems interpreting another person's emotional state.
Asperger's children have difficulty with understanding personal space and may stand too close to another person, causing discomfort for that person.

Because of an inability to pick up on social cues, those girls with Asperger's are unaware that others have thoughts, beliefs and viewpoints different than their own. In missing or misinterpreting another person's words, meaning, or mood, they process information incorrectly. As a result, they may blurt out something that hurts another child's feelings, such as telling her that her hair is ugly or her story boring, without understanding that the remark hurt someone else or realizing that an apology is in order. They may also respond to another by interrupting while the other person is speaking, acting silly, giving an irrelevant answer, or even becoming angry. Such behavior can cause confusion and anger in others, leading to eventual ostracism of the child with Asperger's.

The good news is that girls with Asperger's can be guided toward better social skills. In fact, girls may be more motivated to learn and quicker to understand concepts of social interaction than their male counterparts. This translates to a good prognosis for many in becoming fluent in social skills.