Why do Neurotypicals consider Aspies Disabled?

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I think the reason is simple...

They don't understand the way we think, behave and act. Therefore anyone who dosen't follow social conventions is weird.

Also, we don't follow their obsessions.

Anyway, for those who are NTs what do you think of aspies?

We are different. That's why.

This. To NT's, anyone who doesn't act like an NT, is broken, and therefore must be shunned, pitty-ed, or cured.

I think it has to do with how a lot of the systems in modern society are set up in a way that's convenient to the majority, but we have trouble with a lot of them, so we come off looking incompetent.

Some think "socially unadapted" means "ret*d". My high school bullies used to compare me to trisomic people...

But most just do not understand that difference does not mean weakness. Here is a common NT's reaction I got on msn : (advising me a "wonderful" doctor, after I declined) "Don't you want to be healthy? If you have autism then that means that something is malfunctioning. And that's not something you should want for yourself. "
That joins what gramirez wrote :

I am very eager of hearing a mature and tolerant NT's point of view on this...

Your mileage may vary, but I'm quite disabled by AS. Far more than any other ailment I've had or had; OCD is a simple nuisance compared to such, and I had/have OCD quite marked.

Well, some of us aspies are, in fact, disabled. Nothing wrong with that.

I don't think I'd want to be different, but truth be told, my AS is quite disabling. I don't know what my partner feels unless he really spells it out to me, I suffer from terrible anxiety when I go into new social situation and I often feel very isolated and alienated. I'd rather be happy, although at the same time I wouldn't want to be someone else.

I have to be told to do something all the time or I would never get it I don't get other peoples feelings and I have little to know friends. It is hard having asperger's syndrome but I keep trying to Improve my skills to get better.

Same applies here...

The truth is that socialization, NT socialization is based on arbitrary social conventions which are irrational..

For example, the brutal truth is I spend time socializing with their pathetic conversations about girls/guys, sports and sex then I would have accomplished as much as I did..

That's because AS is a disability and it disables people to varied extents, from being just slightly held back to not being able to do anything yourself.
To call it "just a difference" is a bit un-realistic, because of AS my emotional development has been really slow and I'm probably going to wait years to even be emotionally "15" and tantrums and crying fits are still a regular part of (home) life. I have crappy organisational skills and I struggle to keep up with work because of it and I've only just started using public buses on my own without a friend who knows where they're going. And I'm considered "mild" too. So if for you personally AS doesn't affect you more than just being a "difference" you haven't got it enough for it to be diagnosed, you can have the personality traits of an aspie without the disorder side of it.

When most people think of Aspergers autism, they associate it with people like me on a bad day.

I'm an NT & my female partner is AS and also has a mid 20's AS son.

First off, "Disabled" is not a dirty word. It just "is" what it is. There is no more shame in being AS as there is in being deaf.

Why do we see people w/AS as disabled? Because of the high stress levels and the sometimes poor coping mechanisims they use to deal with them they often have a hard time doing the most simple of tasks (riding the bus for example). It is a fact that people with AS often have struggles with careers and relationships. This does make them "bad" or "stupid". But it does make life very difficult at times.

My AS wife says that she worries more about her her grown AS son than she does my 9 year old. He can tell explain to you in (great) detail some complicated chemistry theory but often completely lacks day to day common sense.

If I had to put it into a nutshell that would be it. The lack of common sense in the work place and social situations really puts people w/AS behind the 8 ball. That and the stress caused by sensory issues.

'Socially unadapted' as often as not, means "unemployed."

The herd rejects the mutant.

That's why it's a disability.

One could say it's the intolerant NTs who MAKE it so disabling, but at the end of the day, it doesn't matter.

Well first, I think in the beginning what often happens is most of our first experiences with Asperger's, along with all the popular misconceptions, gives us a fairly strange, limited grasp on what it truly involves. Not to mention, there is the unfortunate but very real discomfort that we inherently feel when we encounter things out of the 'ordinary.'

However, I also think that a strong case could be made for Asperger's to be considered a 'disability' in that, quite simply, it seems individuals with Asperger's have an inherent disadvantage 'fitting in' and doing certain things the majority of society finds easy, or doesn't even think twice about.

Quite irrational, maybe. 'Arbitrary' seems like poor word choice here. It would seem to me that many of the more underlying social concepts have evolved quite naturally in the face of how the NT brain functions.



I just want to take the opportunity to remind that the NT/Aspie thing is essentially a two-way street. One of the defining characteristics of Asperger's is that inability to empathize, understand how other people are thinking and feeling, etc... which more or less means that to NTs like myself, the behavior of those with Asperger's is extremely difficult to 'understand' in a meaningful manner. We cannot really live in your shoes any more than you can in ours, and that's really what makes for all the frustration, anger, anxiety, etc in the first place.



As somebody who has suffered from depression in the past and had a plethora of friends with ADHD, I think this issue becomes very, very interesting, and the major problem is that it's easy to fall into black/white thinking. Whether or not we call these things 'disorders to be fixed' or 'differences' is not necessarily mutually exclusive, and the search for 'treatments' doesn't necessarily conflict with either definition. I know ADHD people who just want to live with it, as well as those that go to great lengths to find treatment. I mean, imagine a hypothetical 'miracle drug' for asperger's. An aspie takes it, and for 8 hours, is more or less NT. I'm sure plenty of aspies would herald it as miracle treatment and take it religiously. I'm sure some might use it occasionally, some might try it and hate it, and some might refuse it entirely.

Now where does that put the net effect on the Asperger's community? I'm not really sure, but the point is that trying to draw these lines hard-and-fast just doesn't get us very far. Our definition of something being 'wrong' or 'malfunctioning' is fairly fluid and probably very different from person to person, including amongst those that have Asperger's. So, I dunno. I really don't. And I have to leave now, so I have to end this post. But I'll be checking it back to see where the discussion goes.