ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests the person with AS lacks the vital equipment to fully understand the social and emotional world which is full of facial expressions, subtle complex nuances, gestures, intonations and figures of speech, hidden meanings and fleeting glances expressing a range of potentially confusing and illogical emotions. The first ingredient is an ideal brain that is fully connected, with thick bands of neural pathways from sensory and emotional areas in the heart of the brain, such as the amygdala, to the frontal lobe areas of the brain. The technical term is a lack of 'interoception', which means the person can be, in effect, blind or deaf to their own bodily sensations or states, including emotions. Often people with AS need to deliberately monitor and scan their body, checking it out with an emotional thermometer, to get a clue as to how they are feeling.
