Where do you draw the line?

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There is a potential for error when this is interpreted rigidly. A PDD is permanent but our ability to compensate using learned skills increases over time. When I was a teen I was spectacularly unhappy and my goals of sustainable employment, independent living and a loving relationship seemed impossible. Had I been diagnosed at that time there would be little question as to the result. I wasn't diagnosed, however, and so I spent the next 20 years teaching myself how to fit into society. Now that I'm approaching 40 I'm generally happy, financially secure, have been employed for 13 years and in a relationship for 7. This is precisely why it's so difficult to diagnose AS in an adult -- to a casual observer it would seem I've "outgrown" Aspergers. The truth is far different, of course, and therefore the diagnostician has to consider history and acquired skills to determine the underlying mental state.

magic said:

I tend to think out loud sometimes myself. I'll go on for a minute or two and people around me are completely dumbfounded by my logic. It's quite entertaining if no one makes fun of you.


synchro said:

I'm like that a lot of times too. Especially at school when people don't know something that the teacher has gone over a lot. It amazes me how little people listen sometimes.

Oh, and no one's explained what passing and failing the Sally Ann test is, I'd like to know please.

I know how you feel, Jetson. It's funny because when I went to see my school counselor about AS, many of the things she noted that I do that people with AS often do not do are things that I have learned in the span of time since I was in high school. I did not know I was supposed to make eye contact, or even that I should reply to someone if I didn't have a specific response. I showed little facial expression or interest in things. I had pretty poor hygiene until probably the beginning or middle of high school. All of these things, I have worked on since then, because people made comments telling me what I was doing wrong.



As for the Sally-Anne test, let me review it so I am certain I am being clear.

Sally and Anne are together in a room. Sally has a red ball, which she places inside a basket. Sally then leaves the room. Anne takes the ball out of the basket, and hides it inside of a box. When Sally returns to the room, where will she look for her ball?

The "correct" answer is that Sally will look for her ball inside of the basket, where she left it.

There are many small variations on this test, but the idea is the same in each.

For reference, typical children fail the test at about 3 years old and succeed at about 4 years old.

The point of the exercise is to determine whether the person taking the test is able to see the world from a perspective that is not their own. In order to pass the test, you have to see the world from Sally's perspective. YOU know that the ball has moved but Sally would not.

I like the variation with the Smarties tube and the pencil better because it doesn't require the "suspension of disbelief" neccessary to attribute human thinking to a set of dolls.

This issue of perspective taking can be humerous at times. One Christmas I bought my bf a sweater and decided to put it in a box so it would be easier to wrap, so I went to the basement and grabbed the first box I found that was the right size. On Christmas morning he unwrapped the gift and then looked at me with a strange expression and asked why I had bought him a second toaster.... His confusion was unintentional but quite amusing anyway.

An interesting observation. One can argue that playing the scene with dolls is nothing else than pretend play. A good autistic response would be then to refuse the answer, following the fact that dolls cannot think.

I don't have any problem with pretend play or symbolic representation, so I accept the notion of dolls representing Sally and Anne, imaginary humans. However, I have problem with attributing thinking to Sally. In this way the whole test seems beyond my intuition, and requires the use of logic. At the risk of overanalyzing my own thought processes, here is how my reasoning goes: Sally was not present when marble was moved => she lacks the knowledge of that fact => it is likely that she incorrectly assumes that the marble is at the original location => she would look for it there. More interesting is version of this test that checks nested beliefs: "what does Anne think that Sally thinks where the marble is"? My intuition does not provide any answer. The easiest logical solution that I can think of is based on the fact that I am not restricted in my observation of Anne, and therefore I have the same knowledge as she does. This reduces the problem to the question "what do I think that Sally thinks", which is the original Sally-Anne problem.

What's the smarties/tube story? I haven't heard of that.

and yes - that SallyAnn test is not a test for adults, (I forgot to state that earlier) most AS teens/adults would logically deduce the answer, like a 'brain-teaser' - but it does illustrate the concept of mindblindness.

The psychologist holds out a smarties tube (a cardboard tube about 10 inches long and an inch diameter with a smarties label on the outside) and asks the child what's in the tube. The child invariably says "smarties". The doctor takes the cap off the tube and shows that there's a pencil inside the tube but no smarties. The doctor then puts the cap back on the tube and says "If I showed this tube to your mother, what would she say is inside it?" A child with autism will say "a pencil" while an NT child will say "smarties".

Sarcastic_Name, my problem isn’t quite like you describe. The schoolroom example you provide is a situation where there is an expectation of knowledge after communication of that knowledge has taken place. What I often experience is an expectation of knowledge, when there has been no communication of that knowledge.

This causes problems when I act under the belief that people I am close with understand me, when the truth is I have never communicated to them how I feel. My problem seems three-fold, combining an erroneous belief that others know my thoughts, with a lack of intentional communication of my feelings, and predicting other’s reactions based on my personal values instead of their own.

I was trying to say the same thing, but I'm really bad sometimes at creating hypothetical situations. I evantually learned over time that people think differently, I tend to be very observational.