# How Violent Are High-Functioning Aspergers? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 17, 2011, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-violent-are-high-functioning-aspergers/571666 "2011-02-17T04:01:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-violent-are-high-functioning-aspergers/571666/1 "2011-02-17T04:01:40Z")
How violent are kids who are high-functioning but have Asperger’s from your own experience? For instance I have Asperger’s but I officially dropped any sort of “special ed” last year and am have normal status as a student but when in distress I have cursed and in my younger years have occasionally struck people. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-violent-are-high-functioning-aspergers/571666/2 "2011-02-17T04:10:05Z")
I seem to be doing pretty good, and violence has _never_ been a factor in my life. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-violent-are-high-functioning-aspergers/571666/3 "2011-02-17T04:11:29Z")
Cursing is not violent behavior. But violence and Asperger’s are not correlated in any manner of which I am aware. Perhaps anger at misunderstanding situations based on the classic Aspie’s tendency toward misperception of social cues (although Aspies I’ve known tend to be more clueless than angry), but that’s not the same thing. You can be angry without cursing and hitting people. ---
**Author:** ![Pai325](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Pai325](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pai325)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-violent-are-high-functioning-aspergers/571666/4 "2011-02-17T04:16:53Z")
In my limited experience in teaching in a public junior -high, it is not common. The students with high-functioning Asperger’s were no different than any other kid in violent behavior, and really not that different in any behavior. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-violent-are-high-functioning-aspergers/571666/5 "2011-02-17T04:16:54Z")
My son gets angry at himself when he gets stuck, but striking out at others would never occur to him. ---
**Author:** ![evilbeth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/evilbeth/32/2268_2.png) [@evilbeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/evilbeth)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-violent-are-high-functioning-aspergers/571666/6 "2011-02-17T08:20:30Z")
I am not prone to physical violence against others but I will inflict damage on myself in anger if it gets to that point. ---
**Author:** ![rhubarbarin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eb9ed0/32.png) [@rhubarbarin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rhubarbarin)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-violent-are-high-functioning-aspergers/571666/7 "2011-02-17T11:35:09Z")
Well, not at all, judging only by the kids with Aspergers I have known. I’ve known some more severely autistic kids who were ‘violent’, but not in terms of trying to inflict harm on other people - they just had problems with self-control and expressing anger, and sometimes reacted in a way which could or did hurt others. More often themselves. I think it’s pretty normal for most kids to have hit others in anger or frustration on a few occasions. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-violent-are-high-functioning-aspergers/571666/8 "2011-02-17T11:47:53Z")
I _think_ I had/have Aspergers but am not at all violent. I do get very angry, but content myself with verbal abuse. (Occasionally my pranks or snide remarks provoke others to turn violent against me. :eek: ) I first heard of Aspergers when I was almost middle-aged, suspect I had it as a child, wonder if knowing of a named condition would have improved my prognosis. Don’t know if my case was mild or severe, but certainly from an early age I knew I wasn’t as others were. Recently I saw an Internet post of 13 symptoms; I scored a strong 13 out of 13. (Since I got straight A’s in High School, captained the Chess team, etc., I suppose I was a “high-functioning” autist, though could tell stories of times when I functioned very poorly.) ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-violent-are-high-functioning-aspergers/571666/9 "2011-02-17T12:20:12Z")
I’m not an Aspie, but share some Aspie-like features and I have a some knowledge about the effects of atypical neurological wiring. One thing that parents with kids on the Spectrum[sup]TM[/sup] should be aware of is that hormones can cause dramatic shifts in autistic teens. Rarely, people can develop what has been called “autistic catatonia”. Violence isn’t necessarily associated with it, but agitation and bizarre behavior is. Aggression could also result from depression, which is not uncommon in normal adolescents, but is definitely not uncommon in kids with poor social skills, emotional impairments, and poor verbal ability. ---
**Author:** ![bucketybuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@bucketybuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bucketybuck)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-violent-are-high-functioning-aspergers/571666/10 "2011-02-17T12:24:31Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > I have cursed and in my younger years have occasionally struck people. Fuck me, I never even knew I had a problem. This explains a few things. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-violent-are-high-functioning-aspergers/571666/11 "2011-02-17T12:56:04Z")
The only person I knew who actually has communicated with me about his treatment for Asperger’s definitely had to have anger management training. But the reason for this was that it was discovered rather late in life and, like everyone else, had picked up some bad habits. I also know that this one Aspie who edits Wikipedia has a temper problem, and that’s probably the only flaw you would notice about him. You see, once he gets angry, he gets stuck on his anger, and because he can’t quite communicate his anger, he gets frustrated. Finally, I believe the creator of Sonichu has Asperger’s, and he also has an anger problem–however, he is greatly reviled in the Aspie community because of that problem and not learning to deal with it. But, honestly, he just comes across like a fairly typical troll, almost as if he learned to handle anger from YouTube comments. ---
**Author:** ![Electric\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9de0a6/32.png) [@Electric\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Electric_Sky)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-violent-are-high-functioning-aspergers/571666/12 "2011-02-17T14:31:03Z")
None of the Aspies I know are violent. If anything, there’s a tendency to turn anger inward more than outward. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-violent-are-high-functioning-aspergers/571666/13 "2011-02-17T15:50:10Z")
My oldest son has Asperger’s, and in very early elementary (K and 1st grade) had a couple of incidents where he hit other kids. I’m not really sure why; out of frustration, maybe, that they weren’t doing things the way he wanted. He has a tendency to have a lot of trouble controlling his anger and frustration when people are not behaving the way he thinks that they should. But as he has matured somewhat (he is now in 3rd grade) he has learned how to handle this without actually lashing out and hitting others. We haven’t had such an incident for going on two years now. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-violent-are-high-functioning-aspergers/571666/14 "2011-02-17T16:31:45Z")
My son is an Aspie and has never hit anyone (except maybe his sister a time or two but that, unfortunately, is not limited to Aspie-ish behavior). He has, a time or two, expressed a wish to injure people who were teasing him at school and had pushed him to his limit. ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-violent-are-high-functioning-aspergers/571666/15 "2011-02-17T18:52:55Z")
Mrs. Homie has high-functioning Asperger’s, and she’d never hurt a fly. Other than being a total drama queen when things don’t go her way, she’s as far from violent as can be. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-violent-are-high-functioning-aspergers/571666/16 "2011-02-17T19:35:58Z")
[Does this sound violent to you?](http://www.aspergersyndrome.org/Articles/Kids-Called-Nerds--Challenge-and-Hope-For-Children.aspx) [Or this?](http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html) In my experience, kids with Asperger’s aren’t particularly violent. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-violent-are-high-functioning-aspergers/571666/17 "2011-02-17T19:48:51Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > How violent are kids who are high-functioning but have Asperger’s from your own experience? For instance I have Asperger’s but I officially dropped any sort of “special ed” last year and am have normal status as a student but when in distress I have cursed and in my younger years have occasionally struck people. Kids without Asperger’s lash out occasionally, too. Where did you get the idea that violence was a symptom? ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-violent-are-high-functioning-aspergers/571666/18 "2011-02-17T21:22:45Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Finally, I believe the creator of Sonichu has Asperger’s, and he also has an anger problem–however, he is greatly reviled in the Aspie community because of that problem and not learning to deal with it. But, honestly, he just comes across like a fairly typical troll, almost as if he learned to handle anger from YouTube comments. I know who you’re talking about it. He defines himself as a high-functioning autistic, and freaks if anyone calls him an Aspie. Dude’s got a lot more problems than autism, that’s for damned sure. ---
**Author:** ![Gleena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b3f665/32.png) [@Gleena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gleena)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-violent-are-high-functioning-aspergers/571666/19 "2011-02-17T23:22:36Z")
My kid isn’t violent, nor are any of the kids he’s been around in various AS related activities. Plus, hitting other kids and swearing is kinda normal at times. Now he just plays rugby, and his newest obsession is weightlifting. Does that count as violent? ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2011, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-violent-are-high-functioning-aspergers/571666/20 "2011-02-18T00:18:07Z")
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