Asperger Syndrome and neighbourhood living

It's recognised that people with Asperger's are a lot less likely to live independently than the general population, once they have reached adulthood. I would like to write though, much of it from personal experience as an independent adult Aspie, about the situations that can be faced by Aspies who do make it to independent living.

Chances are if you live alone (most independent Aspies are just that, independent and won't be with a partner) you'll be living in a flat, and in turn it'll probably be in a communal stair, with anything from 6 to 12, or more, flats. The independent Aspie can be seriously stretched in such an arrangement. Many people living independently have problems with the antisocial behaviour of other residents, such as noise, groups of people loitering, vandalism etc. This can expose the independent Aspie to distressing situations from neighbourhood living. Sensitivity from stimuli such as noise do not help. Neither does it help when neighbours or locals notice your social and communication challenges and so pick up what they feel is a "differentness" in you.

I think that living in a stair or block of flats in close proximity with a number of neighbours takes a lot of social skill to cope. This particularly challenges Aspies. It's all very well if you keep yourself to yourself, but you wouldn't have space all to yourself but instead are sharing communal space with other people. Affordability becomes an issue especially with the problems many Aspies have with unemployment and underemployment. This can have a knock-on effect on where you can obtain housing. In turn that would increase one's chances of antisocial behaviour, as would the number of properties within any one stair.

I am an advocate of housing that is more specific to the independent adult Aspie where one way or another they may be protected from antisocial or nuisance neighbours, and will push for this to happen. One way to achieve this, perhaps, is for housing associations to allocate blocks for people with AS or autism, with support as appropriate, once need for the amount of housing is identified. It wouldn't necessarily have to be sheltered, but certainly out of the mainstream private or council housing, where you never know who is next door. But this way the independent adult Aspie could have a better go at a settled life.

By: An Edinburgh Aspie