What is Asperger, the condition that Elon Musk suffers from

Elon musk, the 49-year-old South African billionaire, CEO of Tesla and founder of SpaceX, surprised audiences on Saturday Night Live, the television show that airs Saturday night on NBC, by admitting that suffers from Asperger’s.

What is it about? “The Asperger’s syndrome is a neurodevelopmental disease, a developmental variation that accompanies people throughout life. It influences the way they make sense of the world, process information and relate to others.”, They define of the Argentine Asperger Association (AAA).

Previously, Asperger’s was included among pervasive developmental disorders (PDD) and today, it is integrated with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Likewise, the term disorder is replaced by Condition (CEA), as it is understood that this is just one more variant of human diversity.

According to the United States government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 1% of the world’s population suffers from some type of ASD.

According to the United States National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NIH, for its acronym in English), Asperger’s disease is characterized by its onset in people with “limited interests or unusual concern for a particular object to the exclusion of other activities such as repetitive routines or ritualsSpeech and language peculiarities, such as speaking too formal or monotonously, or take on speeches literally social and emotionally inappropriate behavior and the inability to interact successfully with others“.

Although its cause is unknown, there is a strong consensus in the scientific community to emphasize that it is neurobiological. Likewise, there is a universal acceptance that it is not produced by emotional problems or by the type of education received. It has a higher incidence in men than in women and in these it manifests in a more subtle and covert way, they add from AAA.

Although Asperger’s syndrome is seen in ASD, the symptoms that develop are far from those expected in a more compromised picture of autism. “People with this disease have an onset of speech within the expected age and tend to speak precisely, almost like adults, although they are short; leading the family to take them for gifted or extremely adult», Said Andrea Abadi, psychiatrist and director of the department of children and young people of Cites Ineco.

Among its characteristics, even if it cannot be generalized, since each person is unique, there are traits that can be considered very positive and others in which they tend to present difficulty. In the first group, according to the AAA, the capacities related to hard, rational, univocal, hyper-logical intelligence; in the second, those linked to soft and emotional intelligence, with multiple meanings, which are very important when it comes to connecting and fitting into all kinds of social environments.

Some distinctive aspects of the first group are the Memory (in many cases, stupendous), the attachment to detail (capturing data elusive for other observers), ease in math, technology, logical thinking, structuring, focused on a dominant interest, concentration and perseverance in this interest.

In the second group, the weak points linked to the social are the difficulty perceiving non-verbal aspects of language, in particular body and sign language, the codes implicit in communication, the relationship to the context, the simultaneous and dizzying changes in social situations, the tolerance for frustration, postponement and waiting. They used to be literal and they are limited in the interpretation of jokes and metaphors. This social difficulty is accompanied by a lot of anxiety and sometimes depression as well, shared by AAA.

Another aspect is the lack of mental and behavioral flexibility, composed of absorbing themes, obsessions and repetitions of rituals.

the sensory difficulties and stimulus overload that have an impact on behavior. Likewise, some motor difficulties are usually present in childhood, as this maturation usually takes a little longer.

In 2013, the American Psychiatric Association ruled that Asperger’s cases should be included in autism spectrum disorder in the DSM 5 edition of the manual that many mental health professionals around the world follow. Previously, Asperger’s was different from other autism spectrum disorders.

Among the personalities and celebrities diagnosed with Asperger’s is the scientist Albert Einstein, filmmaker Steven spielberg, the actor Keanu reeves, the singer Susan boyle, the director and producer Tim burton, the director, writer and actor Woody allen and the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg.

The disorder owes its name to Hans Asperger, a Viennese pediatrician who in 1944 first described a series of behavioral patterns that he observed in some of his patients mostly men. Asperger noted that these patients, despite normal development of intelligence and language, had severe impairments in social skills, were unable to communicate effectively with others, and had problems with coordination, according to the Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego.

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