Aspergers isn't a disorder.

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If nobody could see, then the world would be set up assuming that nobody could see, does this mean that people who are blind aren't disabled?

If nobody could walk, then the world would be built for everyone to be in wheelchairs, does this mean paraplegics aren't disabled?

Under your argument, does any disability or disorder exist?

(And truthfully, even if the world were primarily aspies, I'd still be disabled.)

Excellent analogies!

Heck, we often can't even function well with each other, let alone society as a whole. That right there is very telling. All one has to do to see evidence of that is spend more time on WP. Expecting society to adjust to us is like a rock in a river expecting the water to stop flowing and reforming it. It ain't gonna happen.

Well I consider it as a disability. I find things harder to deal with than most people, due to the lack of understanding, slow processing with certain information, and having less social skills than the average person. Also my intelligence is just underaverage; I'm not particularly clever in anything, and I find it hard to stay focused on things. That all sounds like a disorder to me.

I hate it when people say AS is a difference. All people with disabilities are different in some ways. I've met people with Down's Syndrome before, and they're different to the general population. I've met people with Mental Retardation before, and they're different to the general population. I have two elderly relatives with Alzheimer's, and they've become different to the general population. All these different conditions have different symptoms and are all completely different things, but they all have some sort of affect on the person's behaviour, making them a little different to normal in some sort of way. Otherwise they wouldn't need to be diagnosed with anything, if nothing different from the norm was found.

It always makes me laugh when someone says 'imagine a society with only Aspies'. As I said, I live in a care home which is part of a group of care homes for people with Asperger syndrome. I, and these people have DEFINITELY got a disorder. If we ran the country there would be constant bickering, fighting and quite a lot of murders! The only reason none of us kill each other is because we have staff restraining us from doing so! One of my friends is an Aspie who used to go out with another Aspie and they both fought all the time and she's obsessed with him, but he isn't interested. These sort of problems would still exist in an exclusively AS world. Someone already mentioned that autism is on a spectrum. It is indeed, an yes, the OP specifically mentions AS but AS is also on a spectrum. A lot of the people who I know are diagnosed AS but are leaning towards high functioning autism.

In an all AS society we would probably have to learn to make do without quite a few professions as well. Or at least there wouldn't be as many people in those fields.

This hit the nail on the head. Anxiety, depression and sensory issues are so common in AS that it becomes easy to see why AS is viewed as a disability. I don't know if you guys believe in evolution but in my mind natural selection is why the majority of humans are NT. All societies are hard on people who are different, that's the nature of human social structure. One could argue that successful actors are disabled because what is the difference between not being able to leave your house because you'll be mobbed and not leaving your house because of anxiety? In the end both people can't go into a store to buy a gallon of milk.

To steal someone's old book title Autism is a World. We areall different, though have some similarities.
In no sense can I call everything about this thing POSITIVE. Yes, it gives me a few advantages, however, the problems counter ALL of them. Having trouble finding a mate, etc. is a painful thing.
And that its the Norms labeling us "Crazy" has its same roots when Schizophrenics say it. Its not that origional I'm afraid.
I'm not sure aa world populated by AS people would work all that well, most would be off studying their area of interest & ignoring the others. BUT IT WOULD BE QUIETER! LOL
And less over-populated.
BTW, Homo sapiens IS a species that has overpopluated the Earth!

Sincerely,
Matthew

Of course it would. In a more accepting society, autistic children would be understood much better, therefore be much better cared for, and thus much more likely to learn the skills needed for survival.



In an all AS society those professions would either not be needed in the first place, or they would actually be much better at it than you can imagine. I assume you're talking about professions needing "social skills", but aspies, amongst each other, are actually quite good socially.



Yes, and? They would also exist in a 100% NT world. Especially if you stick a lot of people together in a care home, who have been bullied and abused since childhood, you're very likely to get disorderly behaviour like that. That tells us absolutely *nothing* on how autistics would behave when they grow up in an autistic world. The 10% NT's in the autistic world would probably be very maladjusted, have lots of other mental disorders, be violent, stuff like that.

To put it succinctly: you can't separate the fact that these people grew up in an NT society, therefore you can't use that as an argument against the 'AS world' theory.

Actually I am right because I have been bullied by people with AS. Not all of the people in the care home have come from bad circumstances. I don't think most of you even know what Aspergers ACTUALLY is because you haven't lived with it.

I was cared for well.

I still can't cook. I can't always do laundry. I can't always so much as shower. I can't clean my apartment on my own.

My parents did work on teaching me. I'm a lot better than if I wasn't taught. That doesn't mean that I am able to completely deal with self-care. Maybe I'll be able to be taught more now than I'm an adult, but it won't overcome even self-care.

And these are only things that don't require interacting with other people. Changing society wouldn't change that it takes me an hour and a half to take a 5 minute shower.

Asperger's is more than just "social awkwardness".

In a more accepting and accessible world, we would be able to more easily access services that help us do the things we struggle with. A lot of people either can't or don't do laundry, cook, etc. And many of them aren't considered disabled, because the social context in which they exist does not dictate that they be able to do those things. (i.e. They're rich and can hire others to take care of those things, they're a man who has a wife who does that, etc.) That is what the social model of disability is really about. It doesn't say that everyone can do everything, but rather that who is valued and who is classified as disabled is context-dependent.

"People who think the social model *ever* said “everyone can do everything” almost always seem to misunderstand the model. It doesn’t say that, it never did, and it doesn’t need to be changed to not say it – it already doesn’t say it.

It recognizes that not everyone will be an Olympic athlete, no matter how hard a person wants to be one, some won’t be one. It doesn’t deny this.

What it does do is ask people what the difference between wanting (and not being able to be) an Olympic athlete and not being able to XXXX. Nobody says “I’m disabled, because I can’t be an Olympic athlete!! !” Why not – isn’t that an area of “impairment”, compared to the athlete?

The reality is that society has assigned negative values to some differences in skill, ability, body, and mind compositions, but has not to others. Yet if society was based around the Olympics, and society expected everyone to be Olympic athletes, than most non-disabled people today would suddenly find themselves disabled. That’s the point the social model makes.

It also does not make the point that being disabled is minor, unreal, or not a really serious problem for people. Life can really suck, you can have very real problems, and you can need help – and still believe in the social model. Unfortunately some opponents have tried to make it out like the social model is a way of minimizing people’s suffering. It’s not. It also doesn’t preclude people wanting to change things about themselves – just as someone who’s not an Olympic athlete may want to become one. In some cases, those desires are *VERY* deep, very strong, and very frustrating when unmet – that doesn’t invalidate the concept of the social model, either."

--Joel Smith in this comment

Yes, probably. In a world full of specialists, a non-autistic person would be a generalist without extreme strengths or weaknesses. He might also be considered socially pushy, especially if extroverted, and unusually insensitive or sensitive to sensory stimuli. He would be expected to notice and focus on tiny details, but would be unable to do so. His social skills might be considered a splinter skill, and would not be as globally useful as they are in the real world. An NT in an autistic world would probably need some relatively minor accommodations, as well as schooling and employment tailored for a generalist who sees the big picture.

People are sometimes tempted to judge a person's disability as though they existed in a vacuum, as though there were no environment to consider. But we are creatures of our environment; nothing we do makes sense without that environment. It's incorrect to say "Asperger's isn't a disability unless you are in the wrong environment for it", because unless you consider both the person and his environment, you can't make a judgment about disability at all.

This is one of the best responses to this discussion I've seen .

I disagree.

We should expect society to adapt to our needs as much as it reasonably can.

Society has adapted to deaf people by putting signing and subtitles on TV
Society has adapted to the blind by putting creating a language in concrete that only blind people ever really notice when they walk along the pavement. Or by providing government documents in braille print.
Society has adapted to wheelchair users with ramps and disabled toilets that are wide enough to use, building laws dictating the height of light switches.

When it wants to be society can actually be quite flexible to accommodating to the disabled and given the shockingly high levels of unemployment for autistic people (far higher than for deaf/blind/wheelchair bound people) it is high time society adjusted so that more of us can be productive members of society.

Oh well, we won't exist in another hundred years anyway. Prenatal testing is just around the corner accompanied by the typical NT urge to kill.

I am sorry but that comment is kind of asking for some other user to bash you later. Saying something in such a strong way is hard to not get strong reactions that end up being directed at individuals