“While I am not as far gone as some Asperger’s folks are I still have problems identifying social cues and I’ve often struggled with sarcasm and metaphorical alliteration.”
Please, I’m not trying to be a moron here, I’m trying to understand something about the behaviour.
In the show “The Big Bang Theory” Sheldon Cooper doesn’t get sarcasm and other social cues. He has trouble reading people.
Is this the type of behaviour that you’re describing?
Sheldon Cooper is a caricature of a high functioning autistic, yes. The actor is a little too good at it to be entirely acting. Kind of like Ashton Kutcher playing a doofus, you know what I mean?
Those are characteristics that are common with the disorder of Autism (High Functioning and PDD-NOS), as well as Asperger's Syndrome. There are other characteristics, such as needing strict routines, having a strong interest in one or two specific areas (one student I worked with was able to at age 7 tell me about every plant in a garden at his day-care provider's home with details on germination, planting season, etc). Difficulty with maintaining direct eye contact, or a complete lack of eye contact. Sensitivity to sound, lighting, fabrics, taste, or texture (we have students where I work who cannot handle the warning bells or fire alarms). They often are extremely rigid with rules, except that they don't always understand how rules apply to them. These individuals often perseverate on things. A middle school student I worked with had to complete any single task or project before moving on to a different task or project, and often they had to follow a particular order. He was working on a geography project where he was to identify regions of ancient Palastine. Jerusalem was a region on the assignment, but because Jerusalem was also a city he could not grasp how it could be a region. He perseverated on the fact Jerusalem was a city, and could not move past that fact.
Sheldon Cooper is a fictional character who isn’t exactly anything to me because he smiles too much and he’s inconsistent with his rituals. In one episode he’ll put his tea bag in his cup before he pours the hot water in the cup and then in another episode he pours the water in and then puts the tea bag in. That’s just one inconsistency.