NTD--Neurotypical Dysfunction

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Tantybi is right, pandd. I was going to go easy on you and skip hitting you on your reply. But I see from the philosophy forum that you are an impressive arguer. So I will press you on your reply which, as Tantybi has pointed out, has not addressed the fallacies my questions originally pointed to.

You did not answer my questions. I asked you to relate the language I was using to the language you were using, and the questions I asked invited "Yes" or "No" answers. Instead, you just repeated your statement using the same language, which is evasive.

When you claimed that "experiencing" "distress" and/or "disability" were requirements for having, and indeed being diagnosable as AS, were you implying that someone who is happy with the condition or its traits individually (not "distressed") and/or able to create workarounds or compensations or life adaptation (not "disabled") does not have, or cannot be diagnosed as AS? What if someone has a 200 I.Q. and can manage, with this I.Q., to perform as an NT due to sheer brilliance in overcompensating for autism traits (he can think through just about anything without any instinct at all, on account of his I.Q), and can get work as a factory manager? And he is otherwise not distressed over his life? Does that person not have AS if he has all the traits and developmental issues, but no distress and disability? If I can create theories of social cognitive function and rewire and practice a new verbal capacity and new level of social function, and in a year or so have the social functioning capacity of an NT on top of my AS traits, because of this "software engineering" I have done in myself, do I then cease to be AS?

It seems to me that you are defining AS with a distress and disability, i.e. impairment, litmus test. That is a narrow, negatively framed view to take of the broad range of neurological, psychological and developmental conditions that comprise AS.

Tantybi is right about the compensations and adaptations. These are adult AS traits, which is why adult AS can differ so much from childhood AS. According to your "distress" and "disability" litmus test does that mean AS should be rediagnosed, perhaps into subcategories as the ASD moves through life?

What about the fact that environmental conditions cause me to become more low-functioning? When I have to spend a few months in the desert near some metal mines, and become low-functioning due to allergies, thereby becoming more "disabled", would I then be AS, but not AS when I'm back here at home? Would I be non-AS during those years I have a good diet and AS during those years I let my diet go to hell and become lower-functioning?

You have conveniently used semantics that define AS with the language of pathology, deviation and impairment.

Edited to add: removed a fragment I had added, b/c I had a reply before I finished adding it.

Last edited by ephemerella on 22 Dec 2008, 6:16 am, edited 2 times in total.

Nothing I have said remotely implies any such thing.


Impairment is of course relevant to diagnosis.
This does not make sense.
Do you honestly think something I have posted implied I do not know these things, or is this some glorified fishing trip?


I do not think this is the time to explain the basics of linguistics. Suffice it to say fluidity and ambiguity are inevitable given what human language is, how it works, and how it is acquired and used by humans. It's certainly not my favourite thing about language.

Sure, although disorder always in a medical sense refers to a deviation from some relevant 'typical state', failing to deviate is a disorder.




I've looked back to your earlier post, I answered your questions, my words seem very clear and non-evasive to me.

Why do you not google the DSM criteria and decide this for yourself in a bored moment? The DMS criteria for diagnosis (probably the loosest easiest to meet widely credited criteria) are not some huge secret...like the truth the criteria is out there, and I did not construct it.

I am not defining AS Ephemerella, I am relaying the description of those who defined it. If you do not like their description, you would be better served addressing your concerns to APA.


That is exactly what some clinicians do, but in doing so they might not necessarily be adhering to the DSM. Compensations and adaptations do not remove the underlying disability, one need not compensate nor adapt for non-extant disability.


You either meet the criteria for diagnosis or you do not Ephemerella. None of which proves that species typical traits occurring in a member of the species is a disorder.

Last edited by pandd on 22 Dec 2008, 6:32 am, edited 1 time in total.

Well, I am only replying to a couple of your responses b/c many that you were responding to is Tantybi's quotes, not mine.

I am not arguing the words but how you are using them. I.e. the meaning you are reading into the connotations of the diagnostic criteria semantics. The connotations of the words in the diagnostic criteria are informed in context of the clinician, not used as standalone litmus tests. If the most that you can do in criticizing the OP's thread topic is to cut and paste terminology from diagnostic criteria without discussing the connotations and informed meanings that can be read into the language of the diagnostic criteria, then you can just say so. But that kind of argument is indefensible, because you thereby raise a technical point that you cannot defend or discuss. You cannot discuss the language of technical points you use to open arguments against an OP's thread topics.



This thread Tantybi started was an interesting exercise in reframing the "symptoms" of normalcy and the "symptoms" of AS, which is valuable intellectually and therapeutically no matter what side of the pro/anti-cure debate you are on. Yet you use the most empty arguments possible against many of her points, in light of the thread topic: autistic is not typical of the species. You are using arguments that ignore as cleanly as possible the intent and theme of this thread, without actually going off-topic, and you are in fact taking it off-topic by distracting it with this autism-is-not-typical-of-the-species argument.

How is that really relevant to whether or not NT-ism can be defined using the language of pathology and deviation and clinical analysis as can AS, as a cluster of symptoms and traits?

Let me address your "autism is not typical of the species" argument. AS is a social syndrome, yet it is less common in human communities under current conditions. What makes you think that NT-ism isn't simply a mutation of hyper-social-functioning that has moved selectively into the forefront as a useful adaptation after the last Ice Age receded and human populations exploded, leading to established villages, horticultural and, eventually, agrarian societies? In the hunter-gatherer, small mobile village age, wouldn't groups benefit from having a population of self-programming, self-teaching specialists and ad hoc analysts? Lots of self-appointed "little professors" who can start a field of study all by themselves without dependence on an extant body of knowledge? How do we know that before the last Ice Age there weren't many AS in each group? How do we know that AS wasn't the dominant phenotype 90,000 years ago and there were relatively fewer NTs than there are now? That the needle on the AS spectrum for normality wasn't closer to the autism side than it is today? How would NTs, such codependent, programmed-by-others-knowledge beings, perform in tiny groups without real fighting claws and teeth? IMO NTs aren't as well-adapted to a very sparsely populated, prehistoric world, which might imply that there were greater numbers of AS before.

Also, with regard to your "autism is not typical of the species" argument, you neglect that the incidence of autism is on the rise. If you read my arguments in the "pro-cure" thread, you know that I believe that NTs interact with the external world via their Egos and maintain low-bandwidth sensorimotor connections, to accommodate the addition of their social mind's operational capacity. Can you not see the obvious implications of that? When the world rapidly changes, the NTs can't keep up because of the complexity of their interfaces. In part the global problems we are experiencing here and abroad are due not to the changes in the world technological, resource and economic world order, but our leaders' and societies' inability to keep up and manage competently with the rapid evolutions. Within a few short years, the Republicans in power lost touch with the issues, the memes society spread via the internet very rapidly, and every hold on power they had has fallen away, along with all the mistakes they made with their inability to keep up with events. IMO, the intellectual diversity and social communication anarchy of the Information Age has created a rapidly evolving, anarchic environment that NT minds can't really manage well, and that AS function well in.

Maybe that is why there are more AS being born now? Perhaps when there are more AS being born, nature is tossing the dice on the last few tens of thousands of years of human evolution and coming up with a new social mind formula for drastically new conditions than those that worked well in Egypt for 5 thousand years?

You have some really impressive argumentation in the Philosophy forum. But these arguments you have used against this thread are not as robust. It's taking the OP's thread off topic to so argue about normality and typicality and how to frame autism in the human evolutionary status game, when she was just asking to frame NT traits with the language of clinical analysis.

If thread "[ Poll ] It is not Asperger's that makes me who I am" has been allowed to roll on unassailed, why not Tantybi's?

The OP set the frame of reference, they asserted the purpose of the thread was to create a diagnostic disorder.
Now that you get the idea of us creating a disorder for NT's, I was just wondering if anyone wants to help me come up with some diagnostic criteria. I'm serious, I will submit a final version to the APA.

What meaning do you infer that I am intending and are now informing me of my intent therein? Also why did I not know of this intent before you (my being the first to notice usually being the case with my own intent)?


What connotations? The words have a plausible scope of meaning within the context of the DSM itself, further refinements of context that arise clinically are further refinements, not arbitrary adoption of some other meaning. Unless you can precisely point to the 'connotation' or whatever else it is you object to in my summarization of the DSM criteria and its implications, then I have to assume this is all just so much hot air on your part.

Whatever has the 'pro-anti-cure debate' got to do with this thread?

You are making less and less sense. Nothing about the existence, light, content or any other aspect of this thread in any way shape or form alters the fact that being non-autistic is typical for humans.

Because the APA will not be much interested unless the condition is defined and framed according not only to the language of pathology, but to its paradigms too.

An understanding of the (very) basics of evolutionary science, coupled with some very basic (common) knowledge of global human demographics circa 40,000BP until now. What makes you think it is relevant whether or not this is the case?

How is relevant? Disorder in the medical sense does not reference whether or not a trait that is deviant from current species traits and dysfunctional/mal-adaptive in an organism's actual environment was or was not species typical for the organism's distant ancestors, nor whether or not it was of greater utility to them.


Quite fine if one judges by the evidence.
No I do not. Neither disorder nor typical are words that refer to 'all time, since time began and until time ends'.

I do not read every thread, only those that I feel inclined to read. I do not know of any comprehensive model or explanation of ego that I find to be a cogent concept.


Actually human beings (the majority of whom are non-autistic) are excessively and impressively adept at swift adaptation and change. It is one of the most singular and remarkable traits of the human creature.

To be honest, the rest of your post seems to me to be off-topic and irrelevant.

^Now you are treating my critiques of your prior non-answers by claiming not to know what those prior non-answer references are.

The rest of your post is evasive as you are cherry picking supporting comments and not addressing main points that they supported.

You're nit-picking critiques of your prior arguments, as you did in a response to the OP above.

If you wish to shut down this thread, it is not my responsibility to interfere.

To get back on topic, I think;

That's an idea I do not agree with fully.

Yes, some autistic people on the Internet and in face-to-face situations seem to be able to socialise well. Communicate in a way that is functional and satisfying. Even use non-verbal cues to communicate successfully which is pretty awesome.

Some other autistic people can not. They do not know how to communicate with other autistic people any more than they know how to communicate with non-autistic people.

Some here on WP are able to have chit-chat, tell jokes, are in tune with others. Some other people on here though are unable to participate in such an interaction.

Some here write a lot of personal messages, use IM and share personal things with others. Some on here cannot do the same.

I am NT sort of. I have ADHD and my child and husband are on the spectrum. Still trying to figure out AS or HFA. Anyways, this is SO VERY TRUE!! You couldn't be more correct. Sorry to write on this forum, I am learning about my husband and child and just had to write on this.

Thanks for your contribution natesmom. You are as entitled to post here as anyone, and also just as welcome.

Thanks. I am usually at the parents forum but I am learning a lot here as well.

Menstrual cycles are now considered a disorder, in fact, there are a bunch of disorders and illnesses associated to menstrual cycles. In addition, many doctors think that the cold is part of our survival process, and to find a cure for the common cold would make for worse illnesses as the cold is supposedly a sign that the body needs to be taken care of and relax.




Then what is meant by disorder? I would like to see your reference for the term. The word itself means the opposite of order right? Causing disorder. Guess what, my uncle Noah agrees with me! "1 : to disturb the order of
2 : to disturb the regular or normal functions of "

Do I need to repeat how science likes to add definitions to existing words? Even if they have, show me where they contradict Noah.




"Either you suffer clinically significant distress that is caused by AS symptoms, or you do not have AS." Thanks for that psychoanalysis. This wasn't applied by any medical community unless you consider yourself as part of that community, which it sounds like you do (since the APA diagnostic criteria is your Bible). Do you have a PhD? Are you a med student? Or are you a self claimed medical professional?




AS people have a syndrome...not a disorder, otherwise we'd be AD people. Refers to deviation but not any deviation... so what specific deviation does it refer to? I'm saying that some species traits are bad or just as bad, but I'm also saying that some deviate from normal/species typical traits in a different direction than AS does.



Something not vaguely implied? Accusations? What accusations? What implications?

You didn't read my posts well or you wouldn't have accused me of saying things I no where said (i.e. that AS is not disordered).

Like I said, show me where "disorder" excludes species typical traits. If it does, I'll change the word disorder to dysfunction or something better. No biggie. Like I said, NTD is technically already taken.




Thank you for that note again. My point was that you put words in my mouth. It had nothing to do with disorder/impairments except that you put words about that in my mouth, and I was pointing out that I didn't say those things you accused me of saying. When you repeat the argument you made against that, it sounds like you are still putting those words in my mouth.

All you gotta do is say, "I'm sorry, how clumsy of me. I assumed you said those things or thought those things because that was the consensus on previous threads regarding similar topics. My bad."




I wouldn't be surprised if it weren't famous as much as infamous. But, I was once one of those normal people, strange but normal, to find out I am AS. That's life. Deal with it. Right?

If i meet limited success to get people to be less normal, or breed less, or whatever you imagine could somehow fix things? Oh, again, you are putting words in my mouth. I wasn't trying to decide treatment options. Again, no where have I even speculated any kind of treatment or solution ideas, or even thought that far on it. In fact, nobody has much to offer for treatment for us AS. I really just want to state the problem and let someone else figure out the solution.

You are the one contorting disorder, that is until you can prove it. Prove it. I dare you. I double dog dare you. No, I triple dog dare you to prove it.

Even normal people will say it's not normal to be too normal.



It's not black and white. Most cases are like this, it's a scale/spectrum. This argument reminds me of cuss words. Who said the f-word is a bad word? It's just a freaking word. I'm not a disorder. I'm a person. To say somethign about me is atypical of the species, who is the professed authority on the subject? Science? The people who once thought the earth was flat? The people who will tell you your sick but will not offer any cure? A book? The APA must of wrote itself or maybe it was inspired by God and that's why it is infallible.

You don't have to apologize for writing on the forum. It's your right to write.

I have been meaning to check out the parents forum. My nephew is AS, and my sister is going crazy as a mom. So, since she doesn't seem to have any interest in checking it out, I figure I would for her and copy and paste things and email it to her I think will make her want to check it out and write on there. I just then have to be careful what I say about her, lol.

I need to start thinking some more on that NT group theory. I've used up all my energy with other discussions, and I still need to bake more christmas cookies and make some hard tack candy. I also want to try salt water taffy as well. They should write a Christmas Carol titled, "I won't get to sleep til Christmas."

I will say you are right on that. At least to the level I thought we interacted. I still find myself wishing to say otherwise, but I don't know if it's wishful thinking or if something is still in my head that I can't figure out. I wonder if Aspie could communicate with severe autistic patients better than NT, and not one but like a psychological experiment. Maybe I was looking at it like IQ theory. THey say you have to be within 20 points of IQ range to communicate easily. Maybe closer we are to each other on the spectrum the easier it is to communicate, but then how would that change as we hit extreme cases. In which case, we may be overlapping a scale on a scale or somehow incorporating it into a different type of model (which I will admit I don't fully understand spectrum in a mathematical perspective, and I'm not sure how different it is from a scale because when I hear spectrum, I immediately think of the electromagnetic spectrum which I do not know much about either). I'm just whaling here (my way of saying I'm blowing spit out the top of my head). I can't argue your point because you are right on the matter.

Ephemerella,

Thank you.

To be honest, and I don't want to sound like I'm talking about Pandd behind her back because she can read it here, I think the original intent was "This is stupid" so that's why the argumentive nature of the threads. I also think debate is one of her interests. But, whether she changed her mind or unintentionally did so, she inspired some interesting points on our parts. If she is right about the definition of disorder, it's good we know that right? So I want to work more on your original theory about groups. I haven't put much thought in it yet because I'm waiting till after Christmas craziness to do it because I want to research the studies associated to it (and have a clearer head). I may be waiting for another week so I can resubscribe to the library I like to use for this type of research. I don't know how much I'll yet to spend on Christmas, so if I do good with money, I'll be able to research better sooner. Maybe you already know a good direction to go on that type of research?

Hi natesmom, this forum is for NTs too. I just tend to forget that a lot because I'm kind of slow with social conventions.

Thank you for liking my proposed outline for how human social behavior changes depending on group size. It fascinates me, because not only does the behavior change but the social psychological profiles shift. E.g. people become capable of doing things in large groups that their small-group minds wouldn't have let them do, like riot against an oppressive police force. I mean, they don't sit around and think, "if there are ten thousand of us the chances of getting shot by the riot police drop by...." I mean, the whole psychology of a person's social behavior changes in a "mob". I was interested in profiling that "social behavior shifting" property, because it's a good social skills training thing to help people understand group social behavior shifts, which often seems irrational.

But that kind of social behavior analysis is really not in the scope of the kind of social discussions here. The discussions here are much more basic, like, "Why does everyone agree with the boss even when he's wrong?" So my special interest in social behavior is a little out of scope here...

And when I say things like "NTs are better as individuals than they are in groups", that is my own autistic value system talking, where to me "better" = "easier to figure out" and "more predictable and consistent", because those things make life manageable for me.

Of course you can post here. Thanks for your comment!

OK. Maybe a new thread in a more specialized forum...? because such a discussion would involve profiling NT social behavior and what social skills they imply. That's a better for a desultory thread where one posts every once in a while to a topic.

This is a subtopic in an area of my special interest, so I could sustain a conversation over a period of time, whereas it's usually uncomfortable and hard for me to cross-talk with others a lot.

pandd has the right to inform others of some DSM-IV semantics and terminology, but not force on others a definition of what comprises a diagnosable AS using connotations of the diagnostic criteria words to insist that AS have to feel "distressed" with their condition or be "disabled" to be considered AS. What if you are just happier staying home and not having a lot of friends, and don't consider yourself "distressed" and "disabled" but just living an alternative lifestyle that many people choose? What if you don't want to use that kind of language of pathology to talk about your AS? Besides, it would be a surprise to many in the professional field to learn the DSM-IV criterial are superlative clinical references, much less requirements imposed on diagnosticians. The only reason I came back to point that out to pandd, is that I could see in another forum that she had the debating skills to understand if I pointed out to s/he that she was being a topic-distracting gadfly. You should see some of her debating, it's very good, and she is so eloquent so that it's a pleasure to read her words. I wasn't trying to argue with her on a personal level, but just hack at her debating a bit, which I don't think she would take personally.

Re: talking behind someone's back. It would be hard to talk behind someone's back in this forum. You'd have to IM or something.

Isn't that what also happens with peer pressure? I never understood the concept of peer pressure, and your explanation seems to define what people seem to portray that occurrs during peer pressure. Like, someone like me decided I wanted to smoke cigarettes on my own, and it wasn't ever pressured by other people. But I know people who seem to base their decisions like smoking cigarettes, smoking weed, trying illegal narcotics, and snorting psychotropic medications on what others around them are doing. Even then, who in their right mind would sniff a paint can? That's just something people do at a young age (which I never did because it sounded so stupid) because other people are. I still can't figure out who starts this group thing and how they start it. I would love to be able to lead people like that, but for something more positive than negative.

If you also think about it. Cocaine is a big money maker. People kill over it. I learned (from other people's experiences, not my own) that what happens is the street dealers offer free samples, and through peer pressure, they get people to try it out. They often give some more free samples until the person seems hooked, and then they start charging for it. Kinda like how the pharmaceutical industry works. On the other side of this concept, I actually know of a dealer who wants out (mob life is a spectator sport). They are getting old. With their age, they realize all the bad they did, and so to try to make up for it, they are trying to promote that people get off the drugs. From what I can tell, it's easier to get someone hooked than unhooked. One person they was selling to for years is an unemployed engineer, and the moment they found that out, they told him he needed to find a job in engineering and take care of his family and then cut him off (in addition to threatening his life if he didn't turn his life around). I think they are even paying for someone's college education out of their illegal profits. So the question is, are people more apt to do things in groups that are negative or does the group concept work on positive things as well?

I also think age and maturity play a role as youths are more vulnerable to trying something new and bad, and young adults are more vulnerable into trying to get people to try something bad, and the seniors are often so set in their ways that there is no pressuring them into anything they don't already want to do as well as they are also less apt into trying to talk someone into doing something bad. Even in the mob scenario, you don't see too many AARP members out their with their pitchforks. You do still see them, but not like to the amount of young adults.

Where do we draw the line on social norms vs abnormal? Like, most high school/middle school kids expect to go to college because it's what people do after high school graduation. So is there a level of people thinking it's expected of them to follow what everyone else is doing?

Like the boss, you are expected to listen to your boss and not argue with him. Of course, I the AS person, will argue with my boss if he's wrong, but throughout the years, I've learned to only argue the important things like stuff that will directly affect organization success or people's jobs, and it usually gets me fired. Now if my kids depend on my income, I would be more apt to do whatever my boss tells me to do even if it's wrong, stupid, illegal (i do accounting usually, and many people want me to do incorrect things, which often usually means illegal when filing taxes or especially if it's a publicly traded company, out of their sheer ignorance like depreciate an expense, and my refusal to do so based on legality and ethics gets me fired a lot too) or reaches beyond my ethics (as long as I don't lose sleep over it, and even then, it would depend on my situation). So, we probably need to consider survival as a factor.

In addition to that, I noticed in the NT world, there seems to be a rule in writing and then the unwritten social rule which sometimes contradicts the written one. Like the military, the UCMJ says you don't have to follow orders if it's unethical. But, if you were an E3 given an unethical order from your superior (like a CO), every E3 around you will hate you if you don't do it because it starts problems. If you don't follow it, you are guilty until proven otherwise. That's another one. Everyone says you are innocent until proven guilty, but the unwritten social rule offsets that with you have to prove your innocence when it is alleged that you could be guilty.

Another thing to consider in the workplace is what do people look for in a resume and interview, because I often see the better man for the job not get the job and the better socializer gets the job, even when the job doesn't require great communication skills such as accounting. Like, in one example of my life, I worked for a nonprofit in accounting. They hired one guy to handle one grant only, and he didn't have any accounting experience, but he was so awesome in the job interview. He was also really fake. Anyway, he got offered the job at 30 g's a year, and I was getting paid 20 g's a year. I did a lot more work than him to begin with, but anyway, he royaly screwed up our accounting with that fund. It took me months to fix it all, and then because I complained on occasion (with good reason), they gave me all his job duties in addition to the ones I was already doing. I did a very good job on it that the funding source even sent an email to the Executive Director saying how awesome my work was. Mind you, I was still getting paid 20, and he was still getting paid 30, but he wasn't doing anything but filing and whatever else anyone could think of because I took on his entire job function. They all liked him too much to fire him. Then to boot, the guy the Executive Director liked a lot (we often suspected an affair as often as they hung out and flirted), got a 600 dollar bonus and a pat on the back to the board of directors for the job I did fixing those accounts before the audit. Then they conspired to fire me after the cleanest audit in their history for accounting purposes (zero accounting findings, but they had a few in management above me), and finally was successful a few months later. But it was all a group effort. Individually, they were all great people and seemed really nice. The executive director even took in stray dogs. An evil person doesn't do that. They all seemed to be more evil, backstabbing trolls when they got together into a group like an A team. It was so bad that once we all ended up at the same place for lunch with a board member with us, and they wouldn't get a table big enough to include me and the Comptroller, so we got a booth. The board member came to sit with us because of there not being enough room for her either, and the Executive Director came over and requested the board member to join them while giving the Comptroller and I this ugly smile (intentionally ugly, like I'm better than you type thing). But that same day, the Comptroller and I would be smoking outside, and the Executive Director would join us without anyone else to smoke with, and then she was incredibly friendly and acted like she was part of our group.

Anyway, I'm writing too much because I took some Hoodia and am a little hyper. I better clean something before it wears off.