Does anyone feel that Asperger's is not an actual disorder?

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13quant13
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22 Jul 2017, 5:31 pm

starkid wrote:
13quant13 wrote:
The issue I see with your argument is that it's essentially a tautology. Everyone has "unique brain wiring," even neurotypicals.

If everyone has unique brain wiring, what is the meaning of this word "neurotypical" that you are using?

Either some people have neurology that is somehow unique, or the word "neurotypical" has no meaning. There can't be any typical neurology if everyone has unique neurology...or can there?


I use "neurotypical" in its standard definition, one which describes people of a common neurological/psychological type. Note that "common" doesn't at all imply that people who fit that category are all alike, and therefore, not unique. The phrase "If you've met one Aspie, you've met one Aspie" is just as true as "If you've met one neurotypical, you've met one neurotypical." Just because more people are similar to you doesn't make you not unique.

That's why I say that to abandon labels in favor of telling someone a platitude like "you're uniquely wired" is not at all helpful if the goal is for that person to understand the source of their discomfort and to help them lead fuller, more comfortable lives.



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22 Jul 2017, 6:55 pm

will@rd wrote:
CuriousButDepressed wrote:
What I mean by this is, what if the struggles those who were "suffering" from Asperger's had were merely the result of their own unique personality that presented strengths and weaknesses?


OoOOoOooh, this youthful nonsense makes me so want to smack you in the mouth. :evil:

Look, I grew up in the 1960s, when there was only one "label," it was for kids with obvious Downs Syndrome and it was called RE*ARD. There was no other label.

If you didn't qualify as a RE*ARD, you were classified as normal (even if you weren't), and expected to function just like all the "normal" kids. If you couldn't, then you were either STUPID or just WEIRD. Those weren't official designations, of course, just ugly things people called you when YOUR OWN UNIQUE PERSONALITY WAS WEAK AND FLAWED. :(

In other words, you were just a FREAK because you weren't "trying hard enough" to fit in. And the "therapy" you got for that was called "WHAT THE F**K IS WRONG WITH YOU!?" which was screamed at you early and often by parents, teachers, teammates, coaches and later employers.

No Autism, no Dyslexia, no ADHD, just "WHAT THE F**K IS WRONG WITH YOU!?" And that's what we grew up with - something was wrong with us, but nobody ever told us what it was, or that there was anyone else like us, or that it even had a name - because it's name was YOUR NAME. Whatever was wrong, was YOU. We didn't HAVE a disorder - we WERE the disorder. There was nothing wrong with your BRAIN, there was something wrong with WHO YOU WERE. Try to imagine what that does to a child's self-image, to be told that, day in and day out, year after year. :oops:

By the time you're a teenager, being excluded from, and ignored by, your peers is the norm. At least on the days when they aren't beating you up or making fun of you.


CuriousButDepressed wrote:
So, if for example an Aspie had social difficulties and I was a therapist, I would refuse to diagnose them with Asperger's and instead would use therapies designed to improve their social skills without ever giving them a label.


So you'd do it the old-fashioned way, tell them they need to change WHO THEY ARE ('cause there's no diagnostic label for it), and then you'd set out to rewire the way their own DNA has programmed their brain. That's exactly what my dad used to do, except he did it with a swift kick in the pants and by loudly exclaiming "IDJIT!".

CuriousButDepressed wrote:
Do we label "neurotypicals" for their own unique weaknesses? Absolutely not, so why don't we simply see Asperger's as just another unique brain wiring and focus on helping the people with such personalities via psychological therapy and behavioral modification, rather than telling them they are suffering from a disorder, ruining their self-esteem, opening them up to abuse from ignorant morons who mock that is different and making them feel they'll never be good enough?


Don't you get it? By telling them there is no label and they just need to CHANGE because they're DIFFERENT, you are mocking their differences. Neurotypicals don't have a UNIQUE brain-wiring - that's why it's called TYPICAL. It's the MAJORITY. Autistic people are a small subset that comprises a fraction of the overall population - statistically, that's called an ANOMALY, because it's NOT NORMAL. An abnormal quality that makes functioning difficult is a HANDICAP, also known as a DISABILITY. There's no shame in calling it what it is, because it's not the disabled person's FAULT.

Don't you see? If there's no label for it and every little autistic snowflake is malfunctioning at life simply because of their personal "uniqueness," then it's ultimately THEIR FAULT, and if they can't change through a sheer effort of will, to become what YOU think they ought to be, then that is THEIR FAILURE.

On the other hand, when you acknowledge that while they are a small portion of the population, there ARE others like them, and their oddities are the result of PHYSICAL brain structure, over which they have little to no conscious control, then you acknowledge that they have a DISABILITY, and their strangeness is NOT THEIR FAULT. That's far more honest, and far less damaging to an individual's self-image.

You wouldn't tell a Little Person that their small stature was simply the result of their "not trying hard enough" to get taller.

You've got to stop thinking of Autism as a "Label." My condition is not a label - it's a scientific EXPLANATION.

I have a DISABILITY - and no amount of forced "behavioral therapy" is going to change the way my brain is wired, so stop trying to pretend I can control my DNA. This ain't Hogwarts.


Exactly



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22 Jul 2017, 7:24 pm

will@rd wrote:
CuriousButDepressed wrote:
What I mean by this is, what if the struggles those who were "suffering" from Asperger's had were merely the result of their own unique personality that presented strengths and weaknesses?


OoOOoOooh, this youthful nonsense makes me so want to smack you in the mouth. :evil:

Look, I grew up in the 1960s, when there was only one "label," it was for kids with obvious Downs Syndrome and it was called RE*ARD. There was no other label.

If you didn't qualify as a RE*ARD, you were classified as normal (even if you weren't), and expected to function just like all the "normal" kids. If you couldn't, then you were either STUPID or just WEIRD. Those weren't official designations, of course, just ugly things people called you when YOUR OWN UNIQUE PERSONALITY WAS WEAK AND FLAWED. :(

In other words, you were just a FREAK because you weren't "trying hard enough" to fit in. And the "therapy" you got for that was called "WHAT THE F**K IS WRONG WITH YOU!?" which was screamed at you early and often by parents, teachers, teammates, coaches and later employers.

No Autism, no Dyslexia, no ADHD, just "WHAT THE F**K IS WRONG WITH YOU!?" And that's what we grew up with - something was wrong with us, but nobody ever told us what it was, or that there was anyone else like us, or that it even had a name - because it's name was YOUR NAME. Whatever was wrong, was YOU. We didn't HAVE a disorder - we WERE the disorder. There was nothing wrong with your BRAIN, there was something wrong with WHO YOU WERE. Try to imagine what that does to a child's self-image, to be told that, day in and day out, year after year. :oops:

By the time you're a teenager, being excluded from, and ignored by, your peers is the norm. At least on the days when they aren't beating you up or making fun of you.


CuriousButDepressed wrote:
So, if for example an Aspie had social difficulties and I was a therapist, I would refuse to diagnose them with Asperger's and instead would use therapies designed to improve their social skills without ever giving them a label.


So you'd do it the old-fashioned way, tell them they need to change WHO THEY ARE ('cause there's no diagnostic label for it), and then you'd set out to rewire the way their own DNA has programmed their brain. That's exactly what my dad used to do, except he did it with a swift kick in the pants and by loudly exclaiming "IDJIT!".

CuriousButDepressed wrote:
Do we label "neurotypicals" for their own unique weaknesses? Absolutely not, so why don't we simply see Asperger's as just another unique brain wiring and focus on helping the people with such personalities via psychological therapy and behavioral modification, rather than telling them they are suffering from a disorder, ruining their self-esteem, opening them up to abuse from ignorant morons who mock that is different and making them feel they'll never be good enough?


Don't you get it? By telling them there is no label and they just need to CHANGE because they're DIFFERENT, you are mocking their differences. Neurotypicals don't have a UNIQUE brain-wiring - that's why it's called TYPICAL. It's the MAJORITY. Autistic people are a small subset that comprises a fraction of the overall population - statistically, that's called an ANOMALY, because it's NOT NORMAL. An abnormal quality that makes functioning difficult is a HANDICAP, also known as a DISABILITY. There's no shame in calling it what it is, because it's not the disabled person's FAULT.

Don't you see? If there's no label for it and every little autistic snowflake is malfunctioning at life simply because of their personal "uniqueness," then it's ultimately THEIR FAULT, and if they can't change through a sheer effort of will, to become what YOU think they ought to be, then that is THEIR FAILURE.

On the other hand, when you acknowledge that while they are a small portion of the population, there ARE others like them, and their oddities are the result of PHYSICAL brain structure, over which they have little to no conscious control, then you acknowledge that they have a DISABILITY, and their strangeness is NOT THEIR FAULT. That's far more honest, and far less damaging to an individual's self-image.

You wouldn't tell a Little Person that their small stature was simply the result of their "not trying hard enough" to get taller.

You've got to stop thinking of Autism as a "Label." My condition is not a label - it's a scientific EXPLANATION.

I have a DISABILITY - and no amount of forced "behavioral therapy" is going to change the way my brain is wired, so stop trying to pretend I can control my DNA. This ain't Hogwarts.


Agreed, minus the slapping.
I wholeheartedly disagree with the OP. This difference in me is not going away with the right therapy. I am fully aware of my differences. I know what I need to do to be neurotypical. I can try really hard to appear more neurotypical but it's a weak cover and it's exhausting. Please stop thinking you can fix me.



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22 Jul 2017, 7:25 pm

13quant13 wrote:
I use "neurotypical" in its standard definition, one which describes people of a common neurological/psychological type.

But what if the OP is using "unique" in the exact opposite sense—meaning "not of a common neurological/psychological type"? Would the proposition still be tautologous?



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22 Jul 2017, 7:30 pm

Quote:
"So, if for example an Aspie had social difficulties and I was a therapist, I would refuse to diagnose them with Asperger's and instead would use therapies designed to improve their social skills without ever giving them a label."
Ummm... you do realize, don't you, that Asperger's is not just a lack of social skills, but also there has to be a whole set of other traits, symptoms and impairments in order to be diagnosed as even being at the Asperger's end of the spectrum?

If a person just has poor social skills that's not an Asperger diagnosis. The reason why Asperger's is indeed a disorder or condition on the autism spectrum is because it contains symptoms that are similar to the rest of the spectrum but without speech delay or intellectual impairment that may be present along the rest of the spectrum.

So no I can't agree with you as you don't even appear to know that Asperger's is so much more than just being awkward socially or having a "unique personality. . . :roll: I'm sorry but there aren't even words to say how many kinds of ignorant that is. . .



CuriousButDepressed
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22 Jul 2017, 7:32 pm

BirdInFlight wrote:
Quote:
"So, if for example an Aspie had social difficulties and I was a therapist, I would refuse to diagnose them with Asperger's and instead would use therapies designed to improve their social skills without ever giving them a label."
Ummm... you do realize, don't you, that Asperger's is not just a lack of social skills, but also there has to be a whole set of other traits, symptoms and impairments in order to be diagnosed as even being at the Asperger's end of the spectrum?

If a person just has poor social skills that's not an Asperger diagnosis. The reason why Asperger's is indeed a disorder or condition on the autism spectrum is because it contains symptoms that are similar to the rest of the spectrum but without speech delay or intellectual impairment that may be present along the rest of the spectrum.

So no I can't agree with you as you don't even appear to know that Asperger's is so much more than just being awkward socially or having a "unique personality. . . :roll: I'm sorry but there aren't even words to say how many kinds of ignorant that is. . .


The problem is that I also feel like the degree of motor skills a person has is also merely a different set of skills/weaknesses and is not a disorder. How come these things can't be treated without making the person feel much worse about themselves?



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22 Jul 2017, 7:45 pm

CuriousButDepressed wrote:
BirdInFlight wrote:
Quote:
"So, if for example an Aspie had social difficulties and I was a therapist, I would refuse to diagnose them with Asperger's and instead would use therapies designed to improve their social skills without ever giving them a label."
Ummm... you do realize, don't you, that Asperger's is not just a lack of social skills, but also there has to be a whole set of other traits, symptoms and impairments in order to be diagnosed as even being at the Asperger's end of the spectrum?

If a person just has poor social skills that's not an Asperger diagnosis. The reason why Asperger's is indeed a disorder or condition on the autism spectrum is because it contains symptoms that are similar to the rest of the spectrum but without speech delay or intellectual impairment that may be present along the rest of the spectrum.

So no I can't agree with you as you don't even appear to know that Asperger's is so much more than just being awkward socially or having a "unique personality. . . :roll: I'm sorry but there aren't even words to say how many kinds of ignorant that is. . .


The problem is that I also feel like the degree of motor skills a person has is also merely a different set of skills/weaknesses and is not a disorder. How come these things can't be treated without making the person feel much worse about themselves?


I would feel much worse if I thought that what I have are weaknesses. We are expected to overcome weakness. I will never overcome the very essence of my self.



CuriousButDepressed
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22 Jul 2017, 7:54 pm

beady wrote:
CuriousButDepressed wrote:
BirdInFlight wrote:
Quote:
"So, if for example an Aspie had social difficulties and I was a therapist, I would refuse to diagnose them with Asperger's and instead would use therapies designed to improve their social skills without ever giving them a label."
Ummm... you do realize, don't you, that Asperger's is not just a lack of social skills, but also there has to be a whole set of other traits, symptoms and impairments in order to be diagnosed as even being at the Asperger's end of the spectrum?

If a person just has poor social skills that's not an Asperger diagnosis. The reason why Asperger's is indeed a disorder or condition on the autism spectrum is because it contains symptoms that are similar to the rest of the spectrum but without speech delay or intellectual impairment that may be present along the rest of the spectrum.

So no I can't agree with you as you don't even appear to know that Asperger's is so much more than just being awkward socially or having a "unique personality. . . :roll: I'm sorry but there aren't even words to say how many kinds of ignorant that is. . .


The problem is that I also feel like the degree of motor skills a person has is also merely a different set of skills/weaknesses and is not a disorder. How come these things can't be treated without making the person feel much worse about themselves?


I would feel much worse if I thought that what I have are weaknesses. We are expected to overcome weakness. I will never overcome the very essence of my self.


Thing is, people have things they're good at and things they're not so good at. Those things you're not so good at are weaknesses. And weaknesses are a part of yourself. Improving social skills means you're improving an aspect of yourself.



13quant13
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22 Jul 2017, 8:48 pm

starkid wrote:
13quant13 wrote:
I use "neurotypical" in its standard definition, one which describes people of a common neurological/psychological type.

But what if the OP is using "unique" in the exact opposite sense—meaning "not of a common neurological/psychological type"? Would the proposition still be tautologous?


I'm certain he means to say "uniquely wired" in the sense of being very different from the (neuro)typical personality. If that's the case, then no, I suppose it would no longer be tautological by definition. However, I think it's still equally vague and unscientific. For example, I'm very much in support of research which is done for the specific purpose of helping people on the spectrum, of all functional levels. But how are you going to conduct a scientific study if you can't even define the group you should be studying ("We surveyed 846 unique individuals...")?

By the way, hi. I'm Stephen.



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22 Jul 2017, 9:59 pm

I think it depends on the individual. Also if one took away societies expectations i dont think it would be. However in the present state of the world one could definitely say it is a deficit. However despite peoples misguided perceptions of the spectrum, evolution seems to think otherwise and in part we are a much needed addition to humanity and always have been. In its literal sense , no I dont think Aspergers is a disorder but in the present day social state of being a minority, yes. But not as a disorder only as a minority that is looked down on and treated accordingly.