Can Asperger symptoms be controlled?

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Today I was commented on my slouching by my sisters and it sort of hurt my feelings. I felt like telling them that it's part of my Aspergers and that I can't help it, but decided not to for fear that they were going to disagree with me - bluntly. I know one of my sisters knows about my Aspergers but I don't know about the other one. Anyway, just wondering if we aspies are capable of controlling our symptoms or if anyone out there can.

I don't know to what extent one can control psychological symptoms, but unless you're physically deformed or permanently injured you can surely control your posture. Not slouching is just a matter of making a conscious effort not to be a slob. Keep your body in good physical shape and that won't even be an issue. When the body is toned and fit, good posture comes naturally. Your sisters would have been right to disagree with you on that - AS may cause many difficulties that can't be helped, but slouching is not one of them.

I agree with Willard, Aspergers has nothing to do with slouching. AS is neurological and not physical (with the exception of stimming).

Slouching is not good for your back.

Yes. I have learned to be flexible and I can control my stims if I try hard enough. Things I can't control are how I learn or process information or taking things literal and missing out on social cues and body language.

Due to the type of life I've lead, I have had the experience and practice to change the way I do things, the way I act, and even some of my perceptions. Before I knew about AS, I knew that I would always take things literally and I had to to learn the difference between literal and figurative speech. It took me years of analyzing social behaviors and consciously changing the way I think about things to be able to have "normal" social interactions. You can change the way you interact socially, even if you're not really changing the way you think.
I still think about many things the way I did before, but I take the time in my mind to mentally compare statements made or situations with what I know I've learned, after making a decision on what I think is the correct way to act in a situation I then act on it.

No one would know unless I mention it. It's very taxing though and on weekends I rarely go anywhere so that I can avoid social interaction.

You can control them if you practice, I would use a mirror to try smiling or to see if I was making a face, stimming is hard to control for me, I am a pacer so I try to avoid certain situations, phone calls are the worst because I can wear a hole in the carpet with my pacing.

I have to disagree. I have had terrible posture most of my life and have managed with great effort to improve it so it didn't mess with my back. I had some other problems a while back which needed physical therapy, and while I was going I asked the therapist to help me work on my posture. It did help.

~Kate

But it's not a symtom of AS. The OP was saying that it was an AS symtom to slouch. If she's slouching because of a back issue it's a seperate issue to her AS symtoms, it's then a symtom of her back issues.

Yes, it is possible. Slouching is not 'part of your aspergers'; it may be partly due to poor motor control or something like that, but you can change iti if you want to. Don't fall into the trap of believing all or most of your faults or idiosyncracies are due to AS.

Maybe I should clarify. The neurological issues associated with AS *can* be but are not always (not even a majority of the time) associated with muscle tone abnormalities. If that's the case, then it may be related to, but not caused by, the AS.

~Kate

My gut reaction is to control or re-educate the people who think it's any of their damned business how people sit (as long as you're not sprawling so much that everybody's tripping over you).

It might not be a bad idea to ask them why it bothers them. Possibly they're just looking for a way to annoy you, so if you fixed the slouching then maybe they'd just pick on something else that was different about you.....and you'll never be able to cover all the bases.

Don't blame Asperger's for everything. Sometimes it's just not relevant.

Really? Well I guess that clears up the whole "odd gait" thing....

It is interesting to learn that physical function is completely independent of neurological function. I hope you swifty forward this information to pertinent scientific journals, as this discovery is quite contrary to the current notions that hold sway amongst biological scientists, in particular neurologists.[/sarcasm]

Of course neurology can effect such things and as it happens a number of neurologically based anomalies that are correlated with AS (are more common among people effected by AS than people not efffected by AS) can effect posture.

As to whether or not AS traits can be controlled, yes, just as breathing can be. Of course the capacity to control breathing has limitations; not breathing ever is very difficult for alive people for instance. Persistent and comprehensive control of AS traits is not plausible nor necessarily safe.

Agreed. Well said. That's what I was getting at, but didn't manage to communicate well.

~Kate

I worked hard on my posture between 18-24. I had help from my dad, who'd pester me about it(in a good way). At that point we knew nothing about AS, although I don't see posture and AS as directly linked.
Now, I have good posture, but I still focus on it occasionally because it could be better.

Posture is important to improve. If for no other reason that people judge harshly based on a person's posture.

Hummmm. I had no idea poor posture was another AS hallmark. I guess that's another box I can tick off. I fixed my posture during my etiquette phase in junior high/high school. The recommendation in one of my books was to pretend there is a string by which your C1 vertebra is suspended. Then, imagine there is a rubber band stretched between your shoulder blades pulling them toward each other. It took about a year of being very conscious of whether my spine was straight and my shoulders were back, but I did manage to improve my posture. I still slouch and slump when I'm relaxing in my own home, because you can't be "on" all the time, but I think my posture's pretty OK in public.