I think that maybe you can explain the dynamic without saying that you have AS. It's great that your research and classes are successful. It's possible that at or near the beginning of a term you can lay it out to your classes that you are a person who absolutely has to concentrate deeply in order to accomplish your work, and that as a result of this, you do not appreciate interruptions. You will be happy to talk with students during your office hours or by appointment, at which time you'll be mentally prepared to give them your full and undivided attention.
Say that if students try to approach you at other times, they must be prepared for you being abrupt, because your mind is on something else and you'll have no desire to switch gears.
The strategy here is to enlist their cooperation by owning the problem but explaining it in a way that they might be sympathetic.
Welcome to AFF, by the way.
Keep reminding students that they need to make an appointment to see you and when your office hours are at all lectures.
How do the students make an appointment? Do they call you or leave a note asking for an appointment or do they have to see you after a lecture? Perhaps that is not working. It could be the case that a student is fine after the lecture but something comes up after and they need to talk to you about it. If they need an extension because of some personal problems, there should be some official departmental policy to follow -- and maybe a form for them to fill out. Does it really make sense to you to have a student have to find a phone to call you and make an appointment when they are passing by your office? So are they supposed to come by your office during the specified hours and make an appointment for a later date when they need help at the moment?
It is your job to teach in lectures but the teaching extends to other times of the day. Be clear on this and available. Helping students in your office is part of your job so you will have to find ways of coping with it.
It is your job to teach in lectures but the teaching extends to other times of the day. Be clear on this and available. Helping students in your office is part of your job so you will have to find ways of coping with it.
College professors aren't parents. They're not obligated to be available on demand for students who want something. Carity regarding how to make an appointment would be good. I was assuming that the OP has a system in place and that his or her problem is that students are disregarding the system.
Some students have an entitlement mentality going (maybe their parents indulged them) and treat instructors as servants. Not good. Maybe "Just like this" can find more graceful ways of declining interruptions and make more use of email for addressing questions with simple answers, such as: Can I please have an extension?"
What struck me as really interesting in the original post was the disconnect between the expectations built up around the classroom persona and the reality of how one-on-one interactions go. This may be the heart of the problem.
I asked my friend if locking the office door would be an okay option. He said it depends on the culture of your department. Some departments have all doors closed even though people are in the offices and some leave all doors open even when nobody is there.
It does depend on what the department and your boss thinks you should be doing -- not so much what the students want. - but you did say that how the students rate an instructor does affect job security. The boss should be able to give some clear guidelines to what is acceptable and not. If students are coming just to socialize or ask for help with personal problems, they can be referred to the appropriate agency within the college.
Welcome back, Hrick's Mom.
A potential danger of disclosing an Asperger diagnosis is that one's genuine views might be delegitimized--in other words, say the original poster gets into a substantive disgreement or conflict with his or her fellow faculty people over policy--they might write off the person's opinions along the lines of "Oh well, that's the Asperger's speaking...(i.e. so we don't have to take it all that seriously."
And in the scenario that the original poster described, I still maintain that he or she has perfectly legit reasons to not want to be interrupted. Dealing with grants and research is a taxing activity. I can relate to the contents of that post, being also a person who's been known to say "OUT!" when for some reason I can't deal with being interrupted. Sometimes it's okay and sometimes it's really not.
On the other hand, "Mom" is probably accurately portraying the down side...namely, the danger of being perceived as a jerk and of turning off students who might otherwise bring joy to the teaching experience.
The way I tend to handle analogous situations is to try and get an immediate sense for the nature of the interruption. For example, if it's a quick, definitive, easy one-word answer to a question, like: "Do you have a copy of Alberts' Cell Biology text I can borrow for an hour?" then no big deal. But if it looks like it's going to be complicated and wreck my concentration on something I need to get done, or really want to get done, I'll say, "Can't deal with this now, sorry, can we please meet <suggest options>?" And that generally works. BUT I've paid the price of being called "abrupt". On the other hand, when the person does have my attention, they really have it. I don't interrupt their time with distractions like phone calls, etc. So over time, people have learned that if they want me to help them with something, I'm happy to do it, but it needs to be scheduled.
So....how to convey this to the students to optimize productive interactions? That's the challenge. That's why I suggested trying to enlist their cooperation by owning the problem and being clear about its underlying motivations.
But, I'm afraid to admit that I have Asperger's to anyone, even if it is just one person who happens to be my boss. I finally realised, I am... ashamed. I don't want to be ashamed. I want to be proud of who I am and what I have accomplished, and focus on all of the good things being an aspie has meant in my life and job. My research is at the top of its field because I see things as obvious that others don't even think about. My teaching is regarded as excellent because I teach in a way that other's don't. But I can't deal with people properly, and that hurts a very real component of my job, and the people I want to help (students), and I have to face that - soon.
I do not think that you should feel any shame whatever for responding the way you do - after all, the pastoral care of your students isn't your primary concern, and who cares if professors are 'aloof' with their students?! It is the standard of your teaching that is important, you shouldn't have to behave all 'chummy' with the students. 
I also noted one poster here raised tuition costs as a factor. That is a total irrelevence. No-one holds a gun to a parent's head and forces them to choose an expensive tertiary education for their offspring, and in any case the fee scale has nothing to do with the individual tutor, and doesn't buy the student a right to ignore requests for appointments. I pay my GP fees - I cannot just barge into his office whenever I feel like it and expect the same affability I get at appointments!
Go with your gut feelings - if you feel that your situation would be made worse by public disclosure, then don't do it. But you could, as a compromise, invite a speaker to give a talk on ASDs to the faculty, ostensibly as an aid to them recognising the difficulties the students might be facing - and leave them to draw their own comparisons and conclusions!
The "My parents paid beaucoup bucks to send me here so I deserve more than a C."
Hahahahahahahaahahahaahahahahaahhaahahhahhahahaha!!!!!!!!!
I taught logic.
This falls under the fallacy of irrelevant reason.
I have a good friend who teaches as a fairly prestigeous small liberal arts college and he regales me with stories of student expectations. It's kind of sad, actually. Apparently (according to him), students want to know EXACTLY what the standards and expectations are. He befuddles them when he tells them that in order to get an A, he (the teacher) has to LEARN something from the student! And the idea that actions have consequences is foreign to many. BUT, many of the students are depressed. And, he says, many come back after graduation and complain that the college didn't prepare them for real life.
(Me, I got off the teaching and onto the research track, which was a better fit. It meant not being a faculty member, and that was okay.)
I do think the standards and expectations should be explicitly spelt out so that students know exactly where they stand. I would have appreciated the same myself when I was studying.
I do know if I went to see a professor for some help and they snapped at me, I would never ask them for any more assistance.
Not sure really. I was just thinking that if I had paid high fees to go to college, I would want to know I could get help with queries fairly promptly (but of course, I would make an appointment if that is what was required)
Wonder what happened to the OP
Yeah, me too.
Louise's previous posts have nothing to do with her post in this thread.
True - my post was about her returning to the forums, rather than about her comments on this thread. No thread is an island, after all...
And a timely warning that her aggressive attitude isn't simply addressed to the OP and can therefore be ignored as peripheral or irrelevent to the core advice on this thread.
I'm left wondering if this is a good nickname or not, I was thinking maybe I should change it at some point, but then older posts that quoted me would be confusing.
It's because of the pop-culture conglomerate attached to it... it's almost like my posts can't be taken seriously for that reason. I should have come up with something more original when I first joined the site.
It's a great nickname!
I do get puzzled by the '55' though. 
I don't think it's your age, or the year you were born...
Yeah, me too (glad that it's not as threatening as you might have thought). Please enjoy the positive feedback you do get, and the relationships with the students that you do manage to get closer to.