Would you trust Oprah to do a show on Asperger's?

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I am watching the episode of Oprah where she deals with identical twins where one of the twins has had a sex change operation. I think she's dealing with it very well. Apparently the environment in the womb is different for each twin due to various factors, and this would account for identical twins who have same dna having different gender identities. Although it's a completely different topic, I think Oprah could do a great show on Aspies. In fact, I might write to the producers and ask if such a show would be possible.

There is page on her website where people can write to suggest a show:

https://www.oprah.com/plugger/templates ... d=B2100004

Yes, yes I love Oprah.

I can recall early memories of watching her show. One was about the color of pee and by the color to see if it was healthy or not.

One time while watching the show a fire started down the hill from the house. I was watching Oprah and it came up the hill nearly starting the house on fire.


I don't watch much T.V anymore, hardly ever. Oprah is cool!

two sides

She has a lot of influence in the US
If she sees aspies as violent or mentally ill or somthing like that i think she shouldn't
NO

(more likely)
If she sees aspies as needing to give or side of story
YES

She does have a lot of power, though, and i usually don't trust people like that.

I do think she wants whats best.

I'm not really a big fan of Opera...she means well but I just don't trust her with anything psychology related topics. I know she recently denounced Dr. Phil (who I can't stand), but that doesn't mean that she'd have something accurate about AS.

Seems like some trust issues exist here.

I have trust issues with her but i have trust issues with almost everyone (not everyone), including some members my family. I am just saying i don't like it when people have that much power over large groups of people.

Hi all

Oprah set up Dr Phil, and his production company is hers ie HARPO (Oprah backwards), so it is hard to believe she'd denounce him. He used to be a very regular guest on her show.

Both of them focus on something attention grabbing, and then give it a very small amount of attention. Unless you're Tom Cruise, and then you get far too much (and she laughs about him later).

The trouble with Aspergers is that it is very difficult to explain in a short period of time. It would be much easier if she noticed which child or adult guests she'd had on before and got them to come back, or had a famous person admit to having it, so you'd get an idea from what the famous person does - what Aspergers is like.

I wouldn't like it if she did what Dr Phil did - which was very Jerry Springer and focus on the mood disorder Temper tantrums and call that "Aspergers".

Yes, I know she owns Dr. Phil.

She seems very respectful of the guests on her Oprah show. I think the Dr. Phil show is very different than the Oprah show. I think that Harpo probably produced Dr. Phil to attract a different type of viewer than the Oprah show.

Surely guests have some control over how the show presents their issues. I figure anyone who can deal with sex change operations in a sensitive and aware manner would also be able to present Asperger's in an appropriate way.

I wonder if there is a famous guest who could appear on the show with other non-celebrity aspies? Are there any famous people out there who have come out of the closet as aspies?

I'm struggling not to pull out an Oprah joke here, but I'll refrain considering I think she would reach the widest audiance(correction:I know she will) and could do it better than anyone else. This is not to say that it would be good, but that I wouldn't mind it specifically and could trust her more than others.

Are there any famous aspies out of the closet

Depends on how you define famous.

I'm not sure whether Bill Gates has said he's aspie or people are just speculating.

There is a british Guitarist
http://garynuman.co.uk/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Numan#Personal_life

and an Australian Poet Les Murray
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stori ... 634867.htm
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/stor ... 73,00.html

And then there are all the ones who have written books. Though there is some confusion about whether they are really autistics who can look after themselves (HFA) or Aspies.

And there is this list, though I don't know how you'd go if you asked any of them (the real life contemporary famous people).
http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/ ... ousac.html

No.

My thought here is, if Oprah presents AS properly then GREAT!! !! ! Millions of people watch her and hang onto her everyword. If she presents AS poorly................then what?????

HELL no I don't want her talking about it.

It'll just be more fuel for all of the bored hypochondriac soccer moms who want to feel that their spawn are special and unique by claiming they're afflicted with various disorders. It already started to happen thanks to *$@#*! Dr. Phil; Oprah would totally push them over the edge. Then when Asperger's goes totally mainstream because half of all elementary schoolers suddenly "have" it, people will think it's a fabricated load of BS like they do with ADHD for the same reason.

Most ADHD forums are pretty much totally clogged with idiot women who talk about how many disorders their kids supposedly have, then try to look like Super Mom by saying that they cured it all with stupid crap like all-natural herbal snake oil remedies and removing red food coloring from their diets.

The same thing will happen here.. We'll be unable to exchange any real information or even communicate over all the inane babble about imaginary cures for imaginary cases of AS.

Thanks, but no thanks.

If the show was focused on 'Adults with Asperger's' or 'Autistic People Speaking for Themselves' then there would be less chance that the show would be co-opted by those Asperger's- by- proxy moms.

It would be nice to show that adults with these conditions actually exist.

Even better if they could actually get people thinking 'Wow. Some of these people have it pretty bad. This is really depressing!'

Mind you I'm not sure many of these people can't be moved like that, at least no one that actually causes much of a problem anyways.

"Okay so wait. You mean that Autism ISN'T a disease, but it just gets treated like one? Interesting! I'll remember that from now on!"
Might take like 30 seconds to five minutes to deal with those people.

I'd rather they showed a successful asperger than a low functioning one, but ideally they would show both and discuss what kind of support the Low functioning aspie would need to progress towards independence - and discussion about whether that might be possible at all.

I guess it is a bit like having two humans as guests, one who is working successfully in a highly paid job, and one who isn't - and discuss how you'd get the one that isn't, closer towards the wealthy one. I suspect the differences would be similar. Who has the best access to health care and (financial) education, with the better adjusted parents and community/family/social support.