M.R.
Hey L.,
Tony Attwood is the Asperger guru, you might check his books for tips. The person who is evaluating your husband would be the best source for a support group in your area, and I would imagine that as asperger awareness grows and the population ages, there will be more support groups for adults and the people who are invloved with them.
Asperger, and autism, are very inheritable, so it is more likely that your son has it if his father does, but it is not a forgone conclusion.
Our 18 year old aspie does not initiate any social contacts, but is quite happy to particiapte when others call her and is social on her level and within her scope of interest. She is not able to change her interest to meet the demands of a social situation that is not already to her liking, and has little ablity to adjust to anyone elses point of view, but she has a fairly large group of like minded individuals who continue to call her for social outtings.
She is just as happy to be home alone as she is to be with other people, but she has many other issues beyond this, so if failing to make social contact is his only issue, he would probably not meet the criteria for asperger or any other ASD. There would be language issues (pragmatic understanding primarily for Aspies) non verbal communication issues, some sensory and motor issues, and most aspies will meet all the diagnositc criteria for ADHD. Secondary psychological issues are common, anxiety and depression are frequently comorbid. Aspies must have at least an average IQ, an many will have a higher than average IQ but they will all have large gaps between many of the subtests, some being very, very high (usually fluid reasoning-mathmatic ablity) and some being very, very low, usually social reasoning scores or pragmatic langague abilties.
One hallmark of Asperger is an obsessive interest that is beyond typical knowlege. Trains, TV, pokemon, animals, bugs, science fiction, comic book characters, a movie or TV personality, batteries, clocks, maps, garden equipment; the list is as endless as the people who have asperger syndrome. People with Asperger are likely to monolouge about thier subject of interest and change the subject to thier interest and may corner people who are younger or older and capitalize converstaions about this one topic, failing to notice when they have bored thier converstaion partner. They will continue to replay this pattern, even when it is unsucessful, over and over again. Children with Asperger generally have difficulty relating well to peers, and are more comfortable with younger children or adults.
With our aspie, she has emotions, eye contact, and uses voice inflction. However, she does not have typical uses for any of these things. She may look someone in the eye, but she fails to see that they are angry or bored, uses voice inflection that she has learned (at inappropriate times, or goes over board) and can be very emotional, though she does not apply other people's emotions to her own understanding, because her emotions are quite different in scope and concequence to a typical persons. This can be quite confusing, as many people have heard (inaccurately) that autistic people "can't" look you in the eye, don't have any emotions, can't be empethetic, and have zero voice inflection. The diagnostic criteria for these issues only provides that these things not be typical, not that they be absent. Out daughter is empathetic to the degree that she feels emotions, and her intervention has tought her many appropriate responses that she knows by rote, but they are still not completly typical.
It is also possible that your son has some "shaddow" issues related to asperger, if your husband has it, and would not meet the whole diagnositic criteria. He could still bennefit from therapies for the issues that you see, a social skills group or class might be helpful, but chances are, if he is happy with the status quo, it may not change much (ours is perfectly happy!)
M.
