About Asperger's syndrome

Text: Sonia Pastrovicchio Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

If you are curious how to guide your child with Asperger's syndrome, this story might be interesting. 

On a Sunday in 2024, before I was to start my lessons with special needs children in Hannover Germany, I was listening to an Italian radio show. 

A person named Giovanni joined the conversation, referring to an interview with Bottura (the Michelin-starred chef) published a few days earlier in Corriere della Sera.

Bottura spoke about his son, a young man with special needs, who recently graduated thanks to Università 21 - an inclusive university that makes it possible for young people with disabilities to earn a degree.

Giovanni, from Caserta, spoke with a weary voice. Like driftwood bleached by the sun as he shared his story.

He has a 44-year-old daughter, and a late diagnosis: Asperger’s Syndrome.

He spoke of the sacrifices made by the family, of careers left behind, of a household that walked beside her, every day, for 44 years.

His voice carried the dust of countless days, closed doors, the silence of institutions. 

And a quiet sorrow for therapies never discovered, roads never taken—ones that might have led to a little more independence, a little more breath.

I wanted to call in.

To say something.

But I was already late.

Every day, I witness the solitude of parents raising children with special needs.

Information comes fragmented, often contradictory. 

Diagnoses don’t bring clarity. They often raise new questions.

And too often, diagnoses become cages, narrowing the child’s world to a single word: disability.

An endless list of nots: not able to walk, not able to eat independently, not this, not that, and a thousand more nots.

They wait months for wheelchairs, orthotics, braces.

Small miracles can happen in treatment of Asperger’s Syndrome

I see parents piece together puzzles made of scattered advice from different specialists, and alone, they choose which path to follow for their child.

They travel far, paying dearly in time and money, hoping for surgery that might improve one motor function.

Try a different kind of therapy.

And then there’s me—travelling for work, offering an alternative approach.

One that often brings surprising changes.

Small miracles, built with patience.

Asperger’s Syndrome is a form of neurodivergence—it is not a cage.

Famous people living with Asperger's syndrome 

Greta Thunberg, Susanna Tamaro, Bill Gates, Tim Burton… They too live with Asperger’s.

They too carry this vertical way of thinking, this sensitivity that cuts through the world from another angle.

The greatest imperative for every child with special needs is to intervene as early as possible, so that the brain’s plasticity might still surprise us.

This article might also be interesting for you:

This understanding will make it clear how the brain can improve your kid's possibilities to speak, eat or walk