ASD

[delta_mike]

This interview with Ari Ne'eman was good reading on the subject of providing support for people with Autism-spectrum conditions. For a chap of 22 years, he's surprisingly articulate, and rather good at explaining things in ways that my brain can synthesize rapidly.

In particular, I read the line, There are a lot of social rules that we don’t understand, and tremendous consequences inflicted on us for violating them, and nodded knowingly.

The reference to Temple Grandin was also great -- I'd stumbled across her book, Animals in Translation, a few years ago, and devoured it. It was fascinating, and helped me understand myself.

This is because I have traits in common with some people on the Autism spectrum: I think visually; I'm sensitive to bright lights, and sound, and -- as anyone who's ever tickled me -- probably touch, too. I have a highly systemizing mind. I was generally poor at handling social interaction -- I understood computers better than people. Bullying in school was a problem.

Somehow, somewhere along the way -- perhaps through brute force trial and error -- I've developed a better model of people, meaning that I'm now typically as good as most neurotypical people at understanding and inferring other people's mental state. I have social skills!

But they took a long time to develop -- towards the end of undergraduate degree and beyond -- meaning that I now feel that I missed out on a huge range of social opportunities I didn't understand.

I've never been diagnosed with an Autism-spectrum disorder, and thinking about the concept now, I'd be worried about acquiring that particular label. I wouldn't even call it a disorder; merely a specialization.

But it's only just occurred to me after all the discussions here that I can reasonably describe myself as 'not neurotypical', too.

Comments

[rjw76]

Um. Yes. I could basically have written that post myself.

The interesting thing to me is that every time I see an "Autistic people do weird things" post/news article/whatever, the things *aren't weird* to me. Almost like I can... ummm.. translate?

Am I making any sense?

[spiker-uk.livejournal.com]

*nods* I recognize myself as being somewhere on that spectrum -- towards the "highly socially functioning", but still, distinctly on it.

In fact, I think a lot of geeks of our generation do -- mainly because understanding of the "highly-functioning" end of that spectrum is very new (as in, last ten years and, in general, too late for us).

[kozue.livejournal.com]

I didn't know you were undiagnosed :S

It's without doubt horribly insensitive of me to say such things, but someone once had a huge rant at me for being mad about something you did once on the grounds that you were diagnosed whereas I was just an aimless freak (my embittered and utterly biased interpretation of their meaning, not an accurate reproduction of the actual words they used). I wish I'd known then; being more than a little odd by popular standards myself, I found it a tad squicky to be expected to treat someone differently in the first place on the basis of a piece of paper signed by a doctor, but at the time I had no counter to the sudden assault rehearsed. My approach has always been to treat everyone in the same harsh way unless they tell me in advance that they don't like that. I'm trying to be more like that as I get older.

It seems that there is a scale of social dexterity, mostly split halfway as introversion and extraversion (Those aren't actually the correct words at all in anything more than a superficial sense, but I don't know what the correct words would be. Neurotypical/not doesn't feel solid enough, especially if the idea of what is typical may change as studies delve deeper.). It is definitely desirable to be on the 'extraverted' side of the line in our everyday western society. Exhibiting traits which mark you as an 'introvert' will often lead to a person being branded as mentally ill - or at best unpleasant to be around - very quickly.

For the purpose of my mental image, higher-functioning autism and AS are likely on the extreme end of the 'introversion' scale along with those of us with other social ailments, though I'm not sure what an extreme 'extravert' would be. Other than profoundly annoying, in my case; much as I suspect that a person like me is to socially buoyant human beings.

I rambled, whoops. Maybe it was an excuse to air my outdated moan about being yelled at, or maybe it was just because I find the subject you brought up interesting. Sorry!

[kurenai-tenka.livejournal.com]

Somehow, somewhere along the way -- perhaps through brute force trial and error -- I've developed a better model of people, meaning that I'm now typically as good as most neurotypical people at understanding and inferring other people's mental state. I have social skills!

Though with ASD, it will always be only an intellectual understanding, not the same ingrained, instinctual one.


I've never been diagnosed with an Autism-spectrum disorder, and thinking about the concept now, I'd be worried about acquiring that particular label. I wouldn't even call it a disorder; merely a specialization.

It's both costy and... distressing to be diagnosed as an adult. If you have the skills to function normally now, then does it even matter? Odds are, it really is just something you have in common with people on the spectrum, rather than that you actually have it.


Aaand late reply is late. I had this bookmarked to reply to, I was just being slow. :P