Heather Kuzmich does NOT have Asperger's (misdiangosed)

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When that Tyson model dude smiled at her she smiled back. Heather does smile, wave hi, and giggles and shows exasperation. Even if you don't agree with these examples, do you agree with author that AS would never show ease in understanding and use of nonverbals?

I smile at people all the time.... Stop it. We are not invalids.

That's an option in a list. True, it is one of only 4 options, and a diagnosis requires at least 2 of the 4 options, so it is a strong contender. But it is not an essential item.

It's not like she was copying any one. Ever one always tells me to smile becasue they think I look sad. Here's the truth I am happy I just don't understand the whole point of smiling all the time. Also when ever any one takes a picture. Well again ever one else smiles so thought of copy I might as well go for it even if that's not really what I want to be doing.

But because I don't want people to see me as different I will put on the mask. When really I want to take the mask down and just be myself.

[qoute="one-A-N"]That's an option in a list. True, it is one of only 4 options, and a diagnosis requires at least 2 of the 4 options, so it is a strong contender. But it is not an essential item.[/qoute]

This will also have to be brought up that the tests that are used for aspergers, autism, ADD, ADHD, etc are for people 18 and under. Heather is 24. That means they found out about it in 1999. She would have been 13 at the time. So she had all of 8 years to work on it. But let's just go with it and say she found out when she was 20. Sense the tests are aimed at ever one below the age of 18 and you only need a diagnosis of at least 2 of the 4 options and know of us here are docotrs yeah what were you asking again tangerine12? I would like to get it but I just don't.

Last edited by Cryforthemoon on 30 May 2010, 10:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

the others
(B) failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental level
(C) a lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interest or achievements with other people, (e.g.. by a lack of showing, bringing, or pointing out objects of interest to other people)
(D) lack of social or emotional reciprocity

(II) Restricted repetitive & stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests and activities, as manifested by at least one of the following:

(A) encompassing preoccupation with one or more stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest that is abnormal either in intensity or focus
(B) apparently inflexible adherence to specific, nonfunctional routines or rituals
(C) stereotyped and repetitive motor mannerisms (e.g. hand or finger flapping or twisting, or complex whole-body movements)
(D) persistent preoccupation with parts of objects



are implied by

You didn't need to repeat the entire first post; I just gave you my response to it.

Alls I can say is that I am pretty sure that this season of America's next top model aired..(I am pretty sure)...before I was finally "assessed" as having Asperger's..and she seems a lot more "functional" with interacting at her young age than I do in my 30's...and after seeing her, my thoughts were that if she has it, then I must certainly have it....She is "different" than the other girls on the show...It would be a complete nightmare for me to be around girls like that....and I don't doubt that it was difficult for her. It is my understanding that she was diagnosed when she was fairly young...and so maybe after her diagnosis, she might have had some form of CBT to help with some of her traits...

I understand figurative language and the concept of it...maybe because I am very "language" oriented....but I take other kinds of "joking" quite literally to the point where I can let it go completely to my head...and certain usage of phrases will drive me nuts...like when my business partner asks me if I "have" something that I obviously do not "have" in my hands...when what he means is "do you know where this thing is?"
I have a "peer group"..but it is a very small group of people who also have neuro-issues...

I would think it would be wrong to nitpick her every social interaction with the intent to "undiagnose" her...Granted...there have been times when I have made accidental eye contact and that has caused the cloud of "doubt" to fly up because I am "assessed" and not formally "diagnosed"...I am also only just "assessed" as having ADD...but that is enough for me to be treated for it.

I did not watch the video..and I am fairly neutral on the question...but since I do not know her personally and I am not a psychiatrist...far be it for me to say...

Much of that could be learned acting. I remember at some piont being told, "so-and-so is smiling at you. You're supposed to smile back." as part of that general education that included, "so-and-so just gave you a present. You're supposed to smile and say thank you."

I spent a lot of time in front of the mirror in my pre-teen and teen years, practicing facial expressions. I couldn't tell if I was smiling well unless I saw what I was doing, so I would practice faces. And I would take my Seventeen magazine that mom subscribed me to (to try to make me fit in better) and practice the faces girls were making in the advertisements and articles. And if someone said I didn't look happy/sad/apologetic/whatever enough, I'd look for pictures of what they said I wasn't doing right and practice that one in front of the mirror.

Much of the smile, wave, giggle, etc. can be learned and it's especially common for females with asperger's to "study normal" like I described, although many males do it, too. Many of the asperger's experts, such as Tony Atwood, for example, talk about people with asperger's mimicking voices and actions and some people with asperger's grow up to be professional actors because they become so proficient at observing and mimicking.

Don't forget that the DSM criteria were written for children. It is expected that adults will have developed some level of "higher functioning" either through rote learning, blind mimicry, or having been explicitly taught by caring others.

It's useless to debate anything. This troll did not come here to debate; he came here to push a belief. That belief is that we have no chance to be successful at anything, and if we are successful then we cannot be autistic.

It is one of the oldest fallacies around: You are either a complete invalid or you are a faker.

I've been harassed enough in my life already. If you want to play mind games with the bully, then fine, go ahead, but please don't take him seriously.

I am a diagnosed Aspie. I disagree with the premises, though, having never seen Heather Kuzmich, I don't know whether or not the conclusion is correct.

Difficult, yes. That would require her to be mentally present for the entire exchange (possible), detect that the insult was an insult (I don't know what the insult was, but some insults are pretty obvious), recognize that insults are bad (requiring either memorization of a rule, which is easy, or theory of mind, which is present in some individuals) and show the appropriate emotion (many Aspies do show emotion naturally, though some do not; if Heather doesn't, it would also be possible to fake it).

That does not mean she doesn't have Asperger's.



Because there ISN'T ANY. Eyes are little round balls of fluid. NTs pick up on emotional expression in the area around the eyes (the eyebrows, the eyelids, the presence or absence of tears, the orbicularis oculi muscle) and unconsciously think of it as coming from the eyes themselves.



No one I know has ever just, say, memorized enough idioms to understand normal speech.

/sarcasm

They're actually fairly easy to understand if you read them in a story, and if you read enough fiction you'll get a working dictionary to carry over. Best way to learn social skills, because the book will never walk away. Read enough conversations, you start to understand how conversation works. Read enough descriptions of emotion and you pick up on how certain emotions are expressed. ("He furrowed his brow in concentration." "He ground his teeth, seething." "She glared at the impudent wretch." Visual media work better, because although you don't get the verbal descriptions, you get to actually see the expression, and you can watch to see how the person acts. This works better if you've memorized Emotion 101 and know things like "tears mean sadness" and "kissing means love," because in that case you get to see the subtleties and the mixed feelings.)



No argument here, except that there are ways to cope.



So when I sit at a table, stick a fork in my food and bring it to my mouth, I'm doing it very differently from the way you do? Good to know.

Seriously. There will be short scenes of near-normal at the least, because we're all human. Yes, I have Asperger's 24/7, but that isn't the end-all be-all of my identity. Yesterday, I hugged my mother. I looked pretty normal doing it, I bet. (Then I sniffed her hair, and any illusion of normalcy went out the window.) Right now, I'm sitting at a computer typing. I stim occasionally, but since it takes hands to stim and it takes hands to type, I'm forced to choose between them. There are big periods of time (like, a minute or more) in which I don't stim at all, just sit here, look at the screen and type. Any time I stop typing, I start stimming very surreptitiously with the keyboard, but that amounts to a fraction of an inch of movement of my index fingers. Even when I do stim, it often looks like I need to scratch an itch. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I make a typo, too. Then I hit backspace. I'm kind of slouching right now.

Admittedly, I'm sitting cross-legged in a chair, but if you claim that that makes this scene abnormal, you probably won't find very many scenes of "normal" even if you film NTs.

Yeah, there are stims, but to someone who doesn't know what to look for, I probably look itchy or antsy or OCD, when I bother to do them. Otherwise, I'm pretty much typing like anyone else.



There's not one single sentence in the DSM-IV-TR that says "must be utterly unable under any circumstances to..."



You mean shows emotion naturally? Yeah, that's really rare, just like eyerolling. When I first read that I spoke angrily to my computer, explaining that "you're an idiot!" Then in a much calmer tone of voice, I informed the other people in the room that "you're not an idiot."

I had a flat affect most of yesterday. The last time my affect was naturally flat for more than a few minutes at a time was last October.



1. The cues are learnable.
2. Watch what you call effortless. It's easy for you. Maybe she's straining without your knowledge.



1. Not in the diagnostic criteria.
2. Do you know how much effort she's expending to do that?
3. The other day I was watching a friend dance. I didn't know the routine ahead of time. When she broke off from the other dancers and kept on with what she was doing, I didn't realize she'd made a mistake. I didn't know what she meant to do and you don't know how Kurzmich means to sound.



So do I. You can get a dx with overly formal speech, too. As an adult she might well have learned to mask her issues.



Emotion? What is this "emotion" of which you speak? It is a foreign concept to me, beep boop beep.



There are people with CP who can walk, too. (What is it with us and analogies to CP?)



Ummm... yeah. Thanks for finally getting it. That's what we've been trying to say. You know what I have to say to that? Scroll down. Way down.

Asperger's is not a disease!

(Sorry, he wouldn't get it if I didn't show him.)

It might be instructive to continue reading for the next page or so, to see the other posters shooting some of the same massive holes in Nanasez' alleged "logic". If the mod hadn't come along to put a quick stop to the argument, I probably would have chimed in as well (my name there is Irish Wolf, in case anyone cares...).

Thanks, dying.

...That sentence is so weird out of context.

Dx'ing her should be left to a doctor who has read her medical file and has interviewed her. There are a lot of things that she may have had major problems with as a child that she has learned to adapt to as an adult.

It was my understanding that she was formally diagnosed when she was in her pre-teens or so,....

I'm feeling more socially clueless than usual because I believe you when you say that he is a troll, but I never would have figured that out on my own and I can't see how you figured it out. This is probably related to what someone was telling me yesterday about how people come into my life and push my buttons and get me all worked up and I never see that they're just playing me like a musical instrument. I hate feeling so socially vulnerable and easily victimized. :-(