By AmberLynn Anderson
Seeing, hearing, and feeling things may be part of a normal day for most. But for 18-year-old Darius Smith, there are restricted or repetitive patterns of behavior. Smith has Asperger's syndrome.
He said he entered the Roanoke Times Minority Workshop with high hopes to improve his writing and possibly have a second option to his aspirations to become a civil engineer. He likes to write poems, some of which he has titled “Villanelles” and “Quatrains.” Smith said that he wishes to write an autobiography some day.
Asperger's is very particular disorder with linguistic and cognitive development, according to the medical Website webmd.com. This disorder belongs to a group of childhood disorders known as pervasive development disorders, the Website says. Most Asperger's patients view the world very differently. The exact cause of the disorder is still being researched, the Website said.
Smith was nine years old when he was diagnosed with the disorder. He said he sometimes feels his condition can hold him back, but that has not deterred him from being productive. He has people who support him, and family members to whom he looks up to, he said.
“My mother and I support each other in most choices that are made,” he said.
Smith said he feels that a lot of family members look up to him. For example, he said his three older sisters look up to him because of his success.
Smith said that he learned about the Minority Journalism Workshop after his mother saw an advertisement for it when she was using the newspaper to make papier-mâché. She told him she thought it was a good idea for him to go, he said.
He also said he expresses himself by relating to other people.
"I want to help others to reach their goals," he said. “I respect people who are trying to do some good for themselves."
Smith attended Memorial Middle and Benjamin Franklin Middle schools, he said. He described what it was like in school and how he was bullied or picked on for being so different.
But has remained optimistic. "I can do normal things," he said.
And he offers advice to other young people who have been diagnosed with the disorder:
"Just don't let it bother you -- use it to your full advantage. Be happy."
For more resources on Asperger's syndrome go to www.aspergersyndrome.org.
