Learning and working

People with Asperger Syndrome like to stay occupied which can be quite challenging because when interacting with others, people with Asperger's often go off on tangents while discussing their favorite topic(s) of interest to the point of boring others to death. It can also create problems with keeping a job unless the the job just happens to be in the field that the individual has a passion for. Those with Asperger's love a challenge when it comes to learning and working. They often need to learn in more visual ways.  People with Asperger's are logical thinkers and a lot of people find it easy to learn info about their interests and yet difficult to learn things they're not interested in. For the most part, they seem to be brilliant and are able to retain information better than most people I know. Sometimes they can be creative in the arts too. My friend Carrie loves to express herself through writing. She feels that people understand her much better or connect with her easier when she writes because, "my writing is straightforward and friendly in style for the most part. I'm often told that I come across way different in person than by what first impression was formed with someone initially via my writing, given they hadn't met me before in person." She recently discovered that she has Asperger's but only told me about it last night when I mentioned my blog to her.

In general, careers where the person can work alone are sometimes better, or where the structure of the job is rule-based and predictable; or where they can help others. These can include home-based business and computer programmer. Analytical type jobs are also good, such as mathematician and engineer. Even when the job might otherwise be too stressful, if it is related to one of the individual's special interest areas, that can be enough to make him or her able to handle it. Also, people with Asperger's seem less likely to get bored with repetition since they tend to find comfort in routines, so they can be better able to handle repetitive jobs that require attention to detail.Because of their interest in fairness and justice, lawyer or police officer works for some. Because of their desire to help people, medical researcher or pathologist can work well. Telephone order taking or survey taking can work for some because they have scripts and do not require face-to-face interaction. Because of the intense focus on a few special interests, they might pursue an interest as far as a PhD and become a professor. They often feel more comfortable with animals, so might find a job that involves more animals than people. People with Asperger's are more likely to be bullied or taken advantage of in the workplace. Some of them assume that whatever the supervisor tells them is true, so they do not question it, which makes it very easy for a supervisor to abuse them. It is beneficial for them to know the basics of employment law, so that if a supervisor tells them something different, they know better. It is beneficial for the person with Asperger's Syndrome to have someone to go to for advice and answers if he or she thinks something at work does not seem right.