"Navigating Love and Autism"

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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/26/us/na ... odayspaper

I haven't read the whole thing yet but it looks like a good article. The guy they are talking about is also someone many of us here may recognize, Jack Robison is the son of John Robison, author of the book "Look Me In The Eye", as well as Alex's co-presenter in his Atism Talk TV videos.

My husband went for a quick Starbucks run this morning and came back with the NY paper which he has never done before (we live in CA). We eagerly read the whole article (our 6yr old boy is Aspie) and it made us cry and laugh. We too wonder if our son will someday find another Kirsten, he already is painfully aware of how challenging it is to keep friends in Kindergarten. It is easy for him to start the communication process but not to keep it going succesfully so he has mostly had one time playdates. We are so grateful to Jack and Kirsten for being willing to share their "love" journey. We wanted to keep reading, perhaps they can write a book someday?

I just read that article today! It was very good and well worth the read. I knew slightly about Jack and Kirsten from reading articles on WP. I never knew it would ever make a New York Times article. I liked how the article was written, and all the research that went into writing the article (there were so many details about being an Aspie!). I liked that the article was more about an aspie's perspective than the parents', which seems to be getting more common nowadays when there are articles like this. Thanks New York Times! The article is currently on the top news on Google News (as of 2:06pm PST)!

I'm actually impressed that a real chemistry professor would accept anyone who treat chemicals that way. He should have been dragged into a burn ward in a hospital or be forced to talk to people who have lost their homes and belongings to arson. He showed that he had a barely fragmented and totally worthless knowledge of chemistry.

And I believe that most 18-year old boys with Asperger's don't even think about girls. They are too immature.

beautiful article...I hope some day I find my own aspie soulmate. Of course it has to be an asexual relationship.

thank you NYT for that breath of fresh air in journalism about aspies.

best wishes to Jack and Kirsten!! !

Jojo

Great article!

Liked the article. What I didn't like was this "survival of the fittest" idiot under the comments section.


"So predictable
Rural New York

How touching. Kristen and Jack might want to meet with a genetics counselor before considering having children.
Bruno Bettelheim was right after all.

The fridge mom doesn't cause Aspergers in a child but genetics makes it more likely that a child with Aspergers has a parent with Aspergers . And, two parents with Aspergers make an Aspie offspring much more likely.

Unfortunately having two Apie parents does not guarantee all offspring will be Aspies. A house filled with Aspies would be hard on a neurologically intact child. Bettelheim's description of the fridge mom is a pretty insightful description of many women with Aspergers.Jack was very lucky to have a father with the impairment because they understand each other.

Mismatches can be problematic.And to Venkat, if Aspergers becomes the norml, the species will die off. It is not a disorder that promotes survival of the species of humans because it puts a premium on individualism to the determent of social groups and community. Consider the repercussions to society of this disorder became too prevalent.

I actually love how the NY times corrected the My Little Pony reference. I don't know why I found that humorous, of all the things they could have corrected they chose that. Obviously they read the posts from here, because I remember someone yesterday was upset about that.

Also, whats up with Jacks stain on his pants in the picture the NY times chose to run with? I found that funny, ( in a good fun way).

Yeah, that stuck out for me as well (along with more about the article, which I have spoken about elsewhere)

I'm guessing he was "recruited" by the university because of a combination of nepotism and his dad's status as a celebrity of sorts. As much as I defend higher education, this sort of thing is quite common.

He appears to be a chip off the old block as well - dear old dad wrote about similar exploits in his books.

University is no place for an Aspie. I can't understand why someone who struggles socially wants to have a job and a career that includes spending half the day in meetings and the rest of the days on the phone.

Lab facilities, meeting like-minded people who share the same interests.

Yes, but you still have to do meetings, long phonecalls and explaining the same damn things over and over again to people. And if you choose an academic career in research, you still have to lecture and teach and advise students. No thanks.

Back to the original topic - I thought the articles was very well done and interesting and was also impressed with the length of it and that it is part of an ongoing series on autism and relationships which interested people can even share there stories as part of care of a link from the article. The journalist must have gone to a lot of work to put all that together. I think the publicity is good for awareness of autistic adults in general. I appreciate that Kirsten and Jack were willing to be so open about stuff for the benefit of better informing the world .

The article just showed up in the local free newspaper this morning.

awww that was nice to read