4. Eye Contact
One of the most common difficulties faced by AS individuals are maintaining eye contact. Many Aspergic individuals struggle to make and hold eye contact and this is very similar to the precise same thing that is seen in autism.
This is likewise one of the earliest signs of AS and one of the biggest ‘tells’ that a parent can look out for when they are raising their children – if a child won’t look them in the eye, then it might well suggest Asperger’s or Autism. Of course, there are other potential explanations for this trait however, which is why it is always important to try to diagnose these conditions by looking for clusters of symptoms rather than considering them in isolation.
It has been suggested that difficulty maintaining eye contact in ASD is due to hyper arousal. In other words, simply looking someone in the eye causes too much stress and excitement, to the point that the AS individual almost feels as though it ‘burns’.