"Given that humans are social animals, interpersonal intelligence is perhaps that most important natural human skills" (Gardner), says Howard Gardner, a Harvard psychologist. Gardner also agrees that a child needs to begin to develop social skills at an early stage in their life to be on the right path of success. The addition of Asperger's to the DSM was ultimately the right decision.
Most children who are diagnosed with Asperger's in the early stages of their lives have their treatment focused on the problems in interactive language use because this is where most of their complications arise. Although these children can communicate and show no struggle in speech, they have issues with interpretations of things like metaphors, idioms, irony, or sarcasm. Due to the lack of knowledge in those areas, they can ultimately have problems fully comprehending a conversation with someone who does not have a disability (Eira). These things that are considered common knowledge to most people come as a struggle to a person with AS. Jansson Eira, whose main area of research is on how the brain works cognitively, reviewed a study where 22 children with Asperger's were tested on their language abilities that were measured using over ten different tests. It was concluded that these children scored significantly worse in the area of comprehension of instructions in relation to the control group of children who were not diagnosed to have Asperger's (Eira). "Results showed that although many linguistic skills may develop normally, comprehension of language may be affected in children with AS" (Eria), says Eria after conducting her research. Even though no two people who are diagnosed with Asperger are the same, the main affected area will be social and behavioral skills and these are also the areas that are most cortical in success and independence. .
In recent years there have been many new forms of intervention and treatment to improve the social skills of children with Asperger's.
