Is autism brain damage?

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Well I am not brain damaged and my mind got rewired thanks to my hearing loss so it works different. I probably still would have been the same but maybe a little different and my voice would probbaly sound different too, not an accent. Aspie traits run in my family so no doubt were mine weren't caused by my hearing loss.

I don't know if autism is brain damage, but I'm not doubting it. One part of our brains could be damaged, and the others are strengthened from compensating. Kinda like how blind people have sharper hearing.

Aspie traits run in my family as well..but before I ever learned about the spectrum, I thought I was brain damaged...I have had head injuries as a child...I have in the past blamed those injuries for some extremely frustrating difficulties I had...before I had ever heard of the spectrum...
I do not have any proof that I have brain damage. I did not go to the hospital for any of my injuries...but one eye doctor asked me if I had been injured a long time ago because she saw some sort of old scar tissue way at the back of my eye...But that might have just been related to my eye and the time I was beamed in the face with a wooden plank...

I come from a family of extremely intelligent eccentric people...People with degrees...architects..engineers (Good) musicians..inventors.....
I grew up with above-average intelligence.....but learning problems...I did extremely poorly in school...did not spent a lot of time in school because it was too frustrating...

So I maybe could be an aspie with mild brain damage...but the brain damage is separate...It might even make me a little more NT-ish...than I would be otherwise ..cause I can't systemize..

Last edited by poopylungstuffing on 27 Oct 2009, 6:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Autistic brains aren't complete to start with.. so how can it be damaged?

The title of the thread is unfortunate. "Brain damage," implies to me a neuro-physiological deficit arising from an external cause (whether pathogenic, traumatic, organic or systemic). If you occlude the carotid artery and deprive the brain of oxygen as a result, neurons will die and the person will be "brain damaged" as a result of that trauma. If a person develops a cerebral malignancy like a blastoma, the cancerous cells may starve the healthy tissue of nutrients. A person who has an infection that leads to meningitis may, as a result of intracranial pressure, suffer "brain damage."

For my part, though, to the best of my knowledge, my brain is built and wired as my genes have designed it. I have suffered neither trauma nor illness that has altered the physiological status of my brain. But nonetheless, my brain functions in a way that is identifiably distinct from the expected, typical function.

From a purely technical, deterministic perspective, I would likely agree that my brain suffers from genopathic damage. But I would not agree that I am "brain-damaged" in any colloquial or clinical sense of that term.

Hear! Hear! My sentiments exactly.


And I feel its worth noting that NTs is not really a reference to A SPECIFIC GROUP OF PEOPLE. There is no trait or set of traits that are exclusive to NTs, other than THEY ARE NOT neurologically handicapped. They may have their own myriad quirks and eccentricities, each one wildly different from the other.

How discriminatory is it to refer to 'Us in this room' as differentiated from 'THE REST OF THE FRIGGIN' UNIVERSE'?

When I see a danger of Aspies holding rallies to inter or exterminate all non-Aspies, I'll believe NT is a term of Hate Speech or discrimination. Until then, its just an 'Us and Them' mentality that is a natural fallout of a lifetime of being bullied and treated as defective. I don't see the point in the endless ideological debate over it.

And yet here I am engaging in it. Augh! My brain hurts!

Well, we needed a word for it. What are you going to do, spell out "people who aren't autistic and haven't got any other neurological difference" all the time? Neurotypical is a term that means you've got a brain in the average range; and unless you're some kind of bigoted aspie elitist, there's nothing offensive about saying that.

I agree completely! Let me also point out that before Asperger's became commonly known, most kids and adults with it were considered to have nothing wrong with them at all in a lot of cases. Their problems were their own little secret, and there was nothing wrong with being eccentric. (THERE STILL ISN'T.)

Brain damage? No more than my inability to run 100 yards in 10 seconds means my legs are damaged. Just under-developed. By learning to ride a bicycle, I can go faster than any runner. By applying the abilities of other portions of my brain, I can exceed the performance of most people in most situations.

Hadn't heard of that before.
Interesting.
Can see it.

"NT"s aren't the ones with the problem, it's the people with AS who can't accept that people without problems aren't willing to revolve their universes around catering to their special needs. Some people with AS seem to have this weird sense of entitlement, that because they have this deficiency people should change who they are to make 'us' more comfortable. If people with AS didn't impose this demand on the people around them, there wouldn't be this problem.

Well none aspies are the same way too so it's like a war between them and normal people.

Except the war is only being fought by certain people with AS. "NT" people don't even know it's going on, they're just trying to do their thing and have a good time! They don't meet someone with AS and go "Oh they have AS I must reject this person", they see someone who is hard to tolerate and get along with, someone with special requirements, and they're not interested. And that's their right. The whole "us VS them" scenario is only in the minds of some people with AS. Usually those who have been bullied and frequently rejected by "NT"s, so now they harbour a grudge and they want to 'win'. But there really is no fight, so nothing to win.

I think that "atypical neuro-networking" would be a more accurate way to describe it than brain damage.

You're right. Aspies should look at themselves and wonder if they did anything wrong and go ask them what did they do wrong when someone stops speaking to them or replying or answering their calls or email, etc. But the problem is lot of people are too much of a coward to even tell them so how can aspies possibly change if no one tells them what they did wrong?

Heck even the same thing happens to none aspies too. I have seen people saying they don't know what that other person's problem is and some people are too unreasonable or uncooperative to resolve the issue by talking about it.

I think that autistic behavior could be caused by 3 different things:

- Desease (like x-fragile or fetal rubella)
- Brain damage (like a bullet in the brain)
- Genetic expression (like many of us)

finding a good way to divide the former 3 kinds of autism will have a great and good impact in both society and autistic people.