Public Perception of Aspergers

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Autism, OCD & ADHD, are conditions that are familiar to the general public, and that are established and recognised within the psyche of the population. Aspergers Syndrome however is still a relatively unknown condition in the public eye., despite increasing efforts to increase awareness within the general public. However, I do feel that the public perception in the media is currently extremely unfair. For example these are the current stories coming up on google news, when googling "Aspergers Syndrome".

Adam Lanza - Responsible for massacring 20 school children
Gary McKinnon - British Hacker who has spent years fighting extradition to the states for hacking FBI computers
Christopher Krumm - Murdered his father with Bow & Arrow, claimed it was due to being unhappy inheriting Aspergers from him.
15 Year Old from Minnesota - Locked up by parents, and subjected to fitness regime to "cure" him of his Aspergers
Manitou Springs Missing Person - 12 year old aspie hid from parents and emergency crews on a hike

What perception will the public construe from these stories? That Aspies are trouble makers?

Is it not amazing that the media forgets to mention that illustrious individuals such as Bill Gates, Charles Darwin, Jane Austin, Einstein, Alfred Hitchcock, Newton, Thomas Jefferson, Mozart, Thomas Edison & Henry Ford were all Aspies.

Not always.

You are being pedantic and missing the point of the post. There is a level of familiarity amongst the general population such that the traits displayed by Austistics and those with OCD & ADHD that these conditions are not seen to be the causal effect of a negative publicised incident.

Whereas as Aspergers is not as well known, nor understood, and the media with blind ignorance discuss Aspergers in each news report, almost as if to indirectly suggest that Aspergers is a contributory factor in the event occurring.

They can't base their presentation on something which one can not be sure about. Many of those has been termed in a range of terms the last 200 years, and so it is impossible to call the aspie any more than insane.

That said, the press seems to do a bad journalistic research and don't understand much of neither autistic disorder or Asperger syndrome, and they should really read up on the subject.

You know, I have read somewhere that some believe Hitler had it too. Of course, I wholeheartedly disagree with that because the man was too charismatic from the things I have read.

I agree in regards to being able to label individuals as Aspies before the modern conception. I just mentioned them as classically they are presented examples.



This is what I was hoping to discuss. It seems automatic for the media to derogate any illness/condition associated with someone who performs a crime by means of associating through insinuation that the said illness/condition directly caused it. Reading as a casual observer I would assume that Aspergers was some form of megalomania (feeling of omnipotence) crossed with pschosis (loss of contact with reality). The bare bones of this is that there is a subtle level of vilification in the media in regards to Aspergers, and this does class as hate speech & discrimination. It is unfortunate that sensationalism wins out over ipso facto journalism

I do find it disappointing that somehow, those with ASDs in general are viewed in a negative light. More people know about Autism than what it really is, I mean, when I was first diagnosed, I didn't even know that PDD-NOS/Asperger's Syndrome was actually in the spectrum, or even that Autism was a spectrum disorder. But there really is a need for education about the fact that Autism isn't actually a mental illness/personality disorder, which due to the tragedy in Connecticut people are assuming, but it is a neurological/developmental disorder that means that we think in a different manner. Of course, few people think about it and even fewer will put up with Autistic individuals. Unfortunately, there is a high suicide rate for Autistic individuals because they're misunderstood and there are many cases of homicide as well. Time will probably help, but further mental health education and awareness will accelerate the process.

I had no idea how little people understood about ASD's until we had a lecture on ASD's very recently! People were so shocked when our lecturer explained that autism was a spectrum, and that not all autistics were like Raymond Babbitt from Rainman & Simon Lynch in Mercury rising, but many can function normally in society. He explained how people with ASD's perceive the world differently, be it sensations, social interactions, how we would decipher a visual scene etc. The best part of a lecture was when he explained how people with ASD's call the rest of the population 'neurotypical', and when my best mate next to me asked me why I replied "well you guys are just as strange to us".

I think it is the whole portrayal of ASD's as a mental illness, as opposed to simply developing differently. If it was explained to the population that popular fictional characters such as Spock, Teal'c, Sheldon Cooper, Forrest Gump, Commander Data, Mr Bean, Basil Fawlty and Lisa Simpson all displayed ASD traits, they could accept that ASD's are just a variation of normal.

Please sign this petition opposing discrimination against a student with Aspergers

https://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/ ... rica#share