Just realised my dad has Aspergers - do I tell him?

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i need advice...I just realised a couple days ago that my 78 year old dad almost certainly has Aspergers. He's visiting Australia (where I have lived for 30 years - grew up in Rochester NY) and I haven't seen him since my mum died in April last year. They were married for 53 years...anyway since then a lot of his habits and ways, which used to be little eccentricities, are now very extreme, weird, & inappropriate. We were staying with my daughter and her family of young children and it was painfully obvious to everyone that something was 'wrong'. I realised it might be Aspergers and when I looked it up, he has all but one of the indicators. All his behaviour made sense then and it explains so much, everything in fact.

My sisters and I are wondering now whether - and if so, how - to tell him. I'm inclined to say yes because
a)if it were me, I would want to know
b)he specifically told my sister years ago that if he ever started acting strange in his later years, to please PLEASE tell him
c)he's always been someone who respects and honours truth and honesty above all else besides compassion, and I respect him enough to tell him the truth. If everyone else in the family knows, I think he should know too so we're not all talking behind his back
d)he's a very fit & active 78 year old with a lot of life to live still. Self-awareness is important to him, and I think this knowledge (although it may be a shock at first) could significantly improve his quality of life.

I need to address the situation in some way because it's gotten to the point where he comes across to people as a really rude, arrogant jerk when actually he's a very sweet, kind, gentle person...it's causing a lot of problems.

Any advice or help you could offer would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much.

Aspergers does not simply appear one day. It's a life long condition.

Beginning to display odd behaviours in your 70s does not equate to having Aspergers or any Autistic Spectrum Disorder. A lot of peoples behaviour begins to deteriorate at that age. It's called getting old.

....At most you suspect.

You may simply be symptom-clustering. There's every chance you could look at the symptoms of, say, dementia and find 'proof' of the condition.

Personally, I think you have no authority/experience/qualifications etc to make anything even resembling a diagnosis.

This thread is a can of worms and I'll contribute no more to it other than this post.

I predict you'll have lots of what you'll perceive to be positive feedback in replies here, with others encouraging you to tell your Dad, at which point he can join the cult.


I say - respectfully but firmly - you have absolutely no authority to make such a claim, and could very easily disturb your Dad by telling him 'what he is'.


Think very carefully as you could cause major problems throughout your family - long after your Dad is gone.

Has he always been that way or is this all new?

If he has always been that way and he has just gotten worse, it could be a sign of aging or him developing Alzheimer's or dementia and the disease is no longer letting him hide it or keeping it under control. If he has displayed none of that before, then it's just called getting old and he could be entering his second childhood and he could be starting to get dementia or Alzheimer's and sadly those two never get better, they get worse. Only medications slows it down.

Basically what everyone above said.

Your post doesnt make sense. You cant "realize" that someone has aspergers. You are not a trained mental health care worker. So you are not qualified to "realize" it on your own. Even if you took him to an actual shrink who specializes in autism that shrink would still have to give him a battery of tests that take a number of days to administer to the subject, before he could be officially diagnosed. And you dont "get" aspergers suddenly when you're 78. Its a lifelong condition.

His behavior change is probably old age related. Worst case- the early stages of Alzheimers. Or he could just be becoming a normal crotchety old man.

I'm not saying he has suddenly 'got Aspergers'. I'm saying that the traits he has always displayed, which previously could be explained away as eccentricities, are now very pronounced - perhaps partially triggered by grief or just the absence of my mother to smooth things over socially (which she was great at). I'm not claiming to be a professional, please don't attack me, I'm just looking for some help for my family and my father who I love very much. I know him very well, I have personal experience with dementia and aging generally, I have just spent two weeks with him 24-7 and in my opinion this is something else. His behaviour is making his visit very difficult or we would all just let it slide like we've been doing up till now, but it was never like this before.

Just to clarify, "it was never like this before" as in, not this bad. He was always like this but if you imagine a stereo volume knob, it used to be set on 25 or 30 but is now turned up to 100.

It's a possibility his dementia or Alzheimer's (if he has it) is making him show his AS more (if he also has it) because his disease is making him not hide it anymore or control it. When my grandmother's Alzheimer's got worse, she started to get very strange and have abrupt mood change and wild mood swings and get very nasty, etc. and I wondered if she was always like this or is it her aging and I think it was both because my mom said she was always like that. What I believe about her is when her Alzheimer's started to get worse, she no longer hid her bad side and she couldn't control that side of her anymore so I started to see it. If your father does have AS, he had all those years of learning to cope and adapt to society and now with him being old and his brain aging, he is starting to not do that anymore so he is getting worse. It's called second childhood. It happens with NTs too who starts to get dementia or Alzheimer's. Now imagine if Temple Grandin started to get Alzheimer's so she goes back to being very autistic like she was in her 20's. That would be very interesting to see if she did start to get that disease but also very sad.

Ok my original post could be rephrased like this:

'A beloved family member is exhibiting strange behaviour that is having a negative impact on their quality of life. I'm not a medical professional and I suspect AS. What do you suggest I do?'

I would get them tested for Alzheimer's.

And if age were not a factor? Let's say he were 48 instead, then what would you advise?

To get a medical professional. It could be something serious, whatever the age. Autism isn't something that causes challenging behaviour to appear in adulthood.

He's not 48 though. So it's a pointless question.

Since his "triats" are causing problems and considering his age I would suggest trying to get him to a neurologist to check for some form of dementia. If the neurologist finds no sign of dementia I am positive he or she will recommend that he see a psychologist.

But I don't think his age is relevant to the behaviour. He's really always been like this. For example, it's been a family joke for decades that our dad is 'missing a social chip' (his career was in computing).

A change in behaviour, whatever the age, is a concern. His age makes it even more of a concern. Tell a medical professional his behaviour is making things very difficult, because that's not normal.