<p>Dear Transitionsuccess:</p>
<p>I think disclosure is a very personal decision, and whether or not the roommate ‘leveled’ with your son, should not have made a difference as to how he treated him. </p>
<p>In the AS world you learn very quickly how people can turn on you [or feel sorry for you] if you suddenly have a ‘syndrome’ as you put it. </p>
<p>I honestly don’t think it really is relevant that someone disclose, unless there is a reason. There are plenty of quirky people, both on and off the spectrum and we don’t going around asking everyone to label themselves. If your son thought his roommate was an ‘oddity’ from the get-go, I don’t think naming it would have made a difference. </p>
<p>BTW, MIT and most engineering institutions [as well as college campuses in general/professors] have a huge number of AS individuals. They’ve been doing well at colleges well before AS ever had a name identifying it as a ‘disability’ or syndrome.</p>