10. The argument that Newton did not have Asperger’s syndrome
Isaac Newton was small and slightly built as a child, a target for bullying, without the support of parents or siblings. In one of his early notebooks, he wrote of his determination to be the best student in school, the King’s School at Grantham (which remains in operation as of 2018). As with many slight and scholarly boys, he was subject to being ostracized, teased, and bullied, which was the impetus for his being determined to outperform the other boys in schoolwork. No doubt his imperious and dominating nature also contributed to his lack of social acceptance. But there is another possible explanation rather than Aspergers, or some other form of developmental disorder.
Isaac Newton was a stutterer, an affliction with which he struggled for most of his life, which readily explains his lifelong avoidance of social conversation. Even as a Member of Parliament later in life, he avoided public speaking. The affliction could also explain his reluctance to tutor students while holding the Lucasian mathematics chair at Trinity College. His later expressed overreactions to criticism may have been because of an increased embarrassment over his stuttering. Another argument against Asperger’s syndrome was his deft use of his hands; as a student he designed and built working models of windmills and other machinery, demonstrating hand-eye coordination and the proper use of tools, self-taught.