Very interesting article on Caetextia and Asperger's

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That is really great!

I have some issues with this article. It is an only an opinion expressed by the authors who are psychotherapists. (What you see depends on where you stand..) There is no scientific basis for the causal attribution they imply. They adopt a scientific tone, though psychotherapy isn't scientific, and they base their comments on observing a very biased sample - their clients!!

They seem not to know - or ignore - the science that demonstrates (very well) that in women, the left and right brain are more connected - via the central corpus callosum - than in men. In this way, aspie women are not neurodifferent from NT women.

My take: yes, it's interesting, but it isn't valid. It's an opinion and nothing more.

That's fair. I think it definitely is interesting enough to merit more research.

I think that even though I am female, my left and right brains are lacking in the connection department.

Do you drive, Skibum?

Yes I do drive. I have driven since I was 15.

Driving is one of those everyday activities which requires a strong simutaneous interplay between the left and right lobes of the brain, so if you have been reasonably competent over all those years, the two lobes are probably connecting ok?

It is very interesting because I was actually very curious about this since you mentioned it. I think that some of the connections are working for me but not properly all the time. I have been told many times by people who have examined me that my right brain activity is very limited and that even when I do right brain type things, and I do quite a few right brained type things like I am good at languages and stuff like that, I do them in a left brained way with a very overcompensating left brain. So I know that there is some functionality and some type of connection. But one poster posted earlier on this thread the idea of the connection being bottlenecked and I wonder if it is like that sometimes for me. But this is very interesting to me and it would be fun to figure more about how it works. I also know that there are concepts that are very difficult and even seemingly impossible for me to comprehend that are more right brain type concepts. I wish I could give you and example but it's hard for me to even formulate one. But I also have a vivid imagination which I believe is a right brain thing. So maybe you can give me some insight with your thoughts.

Very few people are equidominant - 5 percent at most (probably that's an overestimate). Most people are right handed and left brain dominant - so in terms of numbers, that's "normal" - for both the spectrum and NTs.

So being equidominant is what is atypical. My family tend to this atypicality so I have a longstanding interest in it. In my family - aspies on both sides of the family trees for several generations -
we are all able to do things with our hands that show strong equidominance. I don't think this is a good thing, because our greater use of the right side of the brain predisposes us to severe depression. Ouch!

But from what I have observed generally, aspies do tend to show a greater tendency to equidominance than NTs, generally. So this is more or less the opposite theory to the article.

It's a mystery, and the science isn't there yet to clarify this fully.

I am also ambidextrous and prone to depressions. This is truly fascinating indeed. Thank you for your posts B19. It is really cool to think about this stuff.

Last edited by skibum on 01 Apr 2014, 6:25 am, edited 1 time in total.

Thanks for posting the article and it was interesting.

On an old poll on WP, 13percent report being ambidextrous. Compared to the norm, that's huge - if it is valid.

Good talking to you!

I am not driving and I seem to be very right-brained-dominant, though I am right handed in writing but there is evidence I started out being left-handed and in many tasks I use whatever hand, people say : "why do you do it THIS way?, well, I don't know why.
I wonder if right-brain caetextia is somehow connected to executive dysfunction.
I have very visual and associative thinking, but nothing in my head directing it and severe executive dysfunction (but no ADHD-diagnosis).
I have a special interest for more than 20 years, but I always go back to the basics of it like lining up toys in childhood, and I need it as my mind is somehow incapable to direct thoughts and pictures and the details of a special interest give a guide-line.
I repeat them now for more than 20 years.
Otherwise I am lost in associative chaotic picture-based thinking and stimming in a to my mind chaotic and unpredictable world.
So much input is too much to handle.
I have no sense of time and bad sense of self.

Some people have what is called cross lateralisation, an atypical pattern which means that lobe dominance varies. Hard to explain though if you google this, there are tests and explanations of how it works.