Why do Neurotypicals consider Aspies Disabled?

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I know many NTs who have never shunned, pitied, or tried to cure me. Also, what does that have to do with being disabled? Do you believe that to be disabled is to be broken, and that all people who fit into that category must be shunned, pitied, or cured?

Anyway, the diagnostic criteria say you have to be clinically impaired to have AS, isn't that the same as being disabled? If an aspie is not disabled by the symptoms, then maybe it's not autism but more of a subclinical "shadow syndrome". I get the feeling that the whole argument is flawed. If one must be disabled to be correctly diagnosed as having Asperger's or autism, then by default all aspies must be disabled.

I tend to harp on about this, but I think it's important.

People with AS who find work and start families are far less likely to be diagnosed. The idea that a majority of people with AS can't work is inaccurate.

No, obviously I can't prove it. If I could, it wouldn't be true. Nevertheless, it seems both logical and obvious to me, so I'm inclined to believe it.

While 88% seems too high I do know that my AS wife & AS stepson have both had problems in the past w/work. Often in comes back to "I know how to do it better than the boss" or they have had a hard time "getting along" with others. Yes, know the world is full of nincompoop jerks but everyone, even NT's have to deal with them at some time. It's the fine art of office diplomacy that needs to be mastered in order to stay employed.

http://www.paulcooijmans.com/psychology/asperger.html

I can't recall the exact stats, but while 1 in 300 8-year olds are diagnosed with AS, less than 1 in 13,000 adults are diagnosed with AS.

I also believe that the 12% employment stat was for BOTH HFA and AS. The employment rate was higher for just AS.

The question still remains. When is a disorder a disorder, a personality type or completely irrelevant? If you can start a family, work and do everything an NT can do, you are pretty much an NT. You might as well call yourself one. Why single yourself out? It just makes life harder because you aren't going with the flow and blending in. Blenders seem to do better.
It's for the doctors to figure out.
If you can effortlessly do everything an NT can and approach the world in an intellectual way maybe you do have a personality type and not a disorder? It means you aren't disabled.

Well, probably because it takes you more effort to do those things that NTs do easily. It took more effort to learn them, too.

I didn't say "can't work"; I said "can't get a job". I would say that almost all with Asperger's can work, given accommodations, suitable work, and employers willing to hire them. Similarly, almost all blind people can work, but most don't. Most people who use wheelchairs can work, but most don't. Disabled people are at a disadvantage when it comes to getting work. My point was that people with AS suffer this same disadvantage, and to a much greater degree than non-disabled minorities like gay people, minority-race people, or people with other "undesirable" traits like having a GED instead of a high-school diploma, being overweight, or being over fifty.

Another point that needs to be made is that disability always requires one or more of extra effort, extra time, extra technology, or outside assistance that typical people do not require. For that, Asperger's qualifies. So do, incidentally, things like dyslexia, ADHD, and (technically, if glasses are considered nontypical technology) nearsightedness.

People have this stereotype that disability is always severe and obvious; but it isn't. With autism, it can be neither severe nor obvious in many cases.

But, it seems like the ones who aren't severe or obvious can get hired and pass for NT. Then, there's the ones who are nice, knowledgeable but have something about them that isn't exactly like NTs, like their speech, their eyes, or expression. Maybe their clothing isn't as fashionable. They still know what they are talking about and are nice but just slightly different. This is the type that is going to have a harder time finding work.

The ones that aren't "severe or obvious" are often under-employed rather than unemployed... The difficulty with networking often blocks them from higher level jobs.

For me, it depends on what I do for work.I am going to college to be a paralegal where I will be working in a quiet office environement.I am currently employed as a courtesy clerk at a store, where I do odd jobs and work on my own without anyone breathing down my neck, being in my face, or being in a crowded room.If I need a break, I just go to a quiet part of the store...usually that is the housewares section....

Before that, I tried working as a cook at an A and W in Red Deer...I didnt last a month.....couldnt keep up.Was in a loud overcrowded room with no way to get out for some quiet time for a bit.The bosses were also constantly breathing down my neck and it was too busy and hectic.I couldnt keep up.My executive funcitoning in that environment went down the tubes and I found it hard to do all the mulittasking that the NTs there were able to do.

Maybe it is us (the average Joe Bloggs) who are abnormal.

Personally I am so proud of my 20 year old son who is an Aspie. I wouldnt swap him for all the tea in china. He is loved not just by me but his siblings and their friends, my friends, his friends and our family all love him too and they love his uniqueness. I have seen strangers be totally annihilated by his friends/brother/sister etc because they have been rude to him!! Good job. There is no excuse for someone to be rude to anyone else just because they are different!!

Don't judge others, enjoy their uniqueness instead!!

I hate ignorant, shallow minded people who think they are better than anyone else.

I found out that my cousin has Aspergers and so do her husband and their son. What really made me mad was finding out that her mum and sister wont have anything to do with her because she is different and yet she has always been the sweetest person out!! They are the weirdos!! !!

Bigotry against “the disabled” (denial serves to disassociate those engaging in this behavior from a group they personally are prejudiced against and consider inferior).



Bigotry against “the disabled” who many employers etc are prejudice against and deem inferior.

A high school bully knew what "trisomic" meant? I never even heard that phrase in my life til now.

I'll tell ya....I was thinking earlier about when I used to go to school: during recess, I would literally just wander all over the playground, acting out everything I was thinking.

I'm sure you realize by now how popular this made me...aside from everything else, obviously.

Well, to this day a million things still do go thru my head constantly; the big difference though is I now know how to use it to my advantage.

It's helped me come up with great mental breakthrus in philosophy and economics...as well as some great ideas for my business.

It was honestly one of those things where I just needed time to "grow into my skin"; but everyone else just said "he's weird, and needs to be normal"

Granted...they're the same "everyone else" that's also hammered on alcohol all the time, and working jobs they hate and whatnot, but I digress...

This supports what I'm saying. Unless you subscribe to the theories blaming diets and medicines for AS (I don't), it's looks like there must be hundreds of thousands of undiagnosed adults, most of them never seeking or attracting diagnosis because they're coping. Then, some who needed diagnosis before the condition was recognised will have been diagnosed with something else, some will have been diagnosed for secondary conditions, and so on... Still, there's got to be a substantial residue of people (just like me) functioning and undiagnosed - not even suspecting, in fact, that there's anything about them outside the "normal" range of personality variation.

The distinction between "able to work" and "able to get a job" is valid, and I used them interchangeably, which was unspecific. I have trouble getting jobs because I'm poor at interviews: it's only this year that I've realised that the silly reasons for rejection, which have always mystified me, were only covering the real one, which was that there was something off about me. Once I get a job, I excel, but have trouble getting promoted: I think it's because no level of performance will make me likeable. When I've achieved promotion, it's been by building a situation where my bosses couldn't easily get out of promoting me.

I sympathise with those who feel that they can't get jobs because of AS, and also with those who haven't been able to hold onto jobs because of the condition. I'm only saying that the information we'd need in order to know whether failure in this area is typical (let alone universal, as it's sometimes claimed) simply isn't available. Those who assert that people with AS generally don't have jobs are asserting from ignorance.

Putting it as simply as possible, some experts say that people with AS can't get jobs. If you've got a job, then, you can't have AS (even if you have) - so the criterion proves itself.

There are plenty of people who think they are simply lazy and can't do the work right... people who think they have got some other mental illness (or actually have got one after years of stress)... people who have redirected into alcohol or drug use to try to cope... People who don't know that they have AS, and blame something else. You can't assume that the undiagnosed AS adults must obviously be coping because they are not diagnosed. I know, for example, one autistic man who spent years thinking he had schizophrenia, when he never had any hallucinations or delusions to begin with, and was diagnosed simply on the basis of odd behavior.