I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome when I was in my early 20s. At that time, I had some Shotokan and Aikido under my belt, neither of which had really hit the mark for me.
I seem to have settled in Bujinkan, although time constraints have had me on sabbatical for the last couple of years and I'm just now getting back into it. To my sensibilities, Bujinkan has a good flavor - I have yet to come across an instructor whose demands don't make sense, and I really feel as though the techniques I'm learning have an intrinsic value.
Additionally, I haven't found Bujinkan instructors or students that take themselves *nearly* as seriously as in other arts. This is a good thing for me, as I approach the mat with the impression that we're all adults, even if some of us can hold others down and make them squeak - an attitude not well received in some venues.
Asperger's Syndrome tends to run along a continuum, with some folks *really* turning inward while others, seeing value in social interaction, try and build our own guidelines for interpreting social cues. I *still* don't have any idea how to tell when someone is laughing or crying by the way their face moves or the sounds they're making, but I have learned that folks don't tend to pet and console folks who are laughing, and that the phrases 'it'll be all right' and 'don't worry' are not generally directed to the mirthful, so I look for those and similar cues to make the call. If these cues are not available, I've had decent luck asking directly ("Are you crying or laughing?") but only with folk who are close to me - this is apparently an intimacy which is unwelcome between strangers.
Additionally, a large problem for me in terms of dealing with social interaction has been determining what constitutes an acceptable topic in certain settings. For example, I have learned the hard way that one does not discuss techniques in eye surgery in any amount of detail at the dinner table, no matter how complex, new, and exciting they may be. I have added this to my list, although it makes no subjective sense to me that that topic should be taboo at that time. I learn more and more of these social oddities every day and in doing so, expand my repertoire of techniques for dealing with other human beings.
This is a factor that should definitely be taken into consideration - martial arts training is an intensely social endeavor, fraught and riddles with opportunities for this child to prove yet again to everyone just how differently his mind works. This can be a positive experience, but not if he's subjected to ridicule when he doesn't put slot A into tab B 100% of the time.
Checking again, I notice the last post on this topic was in 2006 - I'd be interested in hearing how things have gone for this child in the interim.
Carl Hamlin
-----------------------------------------
'The etiquette that underlies all martial arts is based on the assumption that the person with whom you are dealing is standing before you wearing three feet of razor sharp steel.' - George Ledyard