Limitations of Aspergers can be overcome!

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I think you're going through a lot of convolutions to erase the notions of easy or difficult, but it's not working. What you're saying is probably true, it's also pretty much the definition of easy and difficult. It doesn't make those terms non-existent, it just explains them. Of course I'm doing something differently than most people. Not being capable of doing something the "easy" way is the definition of difficult. Doing something in a way that makes it easy is the definition of easy. That doesn't mean they're illusions or that they don't exist, it just means you're explaining how they happen.

As for it being impossible to make going from thought to action actually difficult, take some Haldol or go talk to someone with Parkinson's (both of whom will have problems using dopamine, albeit for slightly different reasons) and get back to me on that one.

What about the initial studies of Hans Aspergers and Kanner? Sounding like a 'little professor' is not a normal way of socialising among NTs. If there was a culture that did, would that mean there wasn't a problem, even if you weren't brought up in that culture?
Cultural differences are no excuse, if you aren't brought up in a culture that socialises like that. Sure, it wouldn't be a big difference if you lived in Japan. But when you're brought up in an extroverted society? Yes, eye contact is a cultural inheretence. So why do most autistics, regardless of the culture they are brought up in, have a problem with eye contact?
NT children learn social skills/communication by watching and imitation. While we do too, it is at least a much slower learning rate, and learned skills in that area aren't processed by the same area of the brain.

The assertion is not that you have a problem. The assertion is that because you don't have a problem, doesn't mean that OTHERS don't, either. Since you have had that insight, you should surely be able to understand what I'm saying. Because HE doesn't see color, doesn't mean color doesn't exist.

They often have the same problem, yes, when interacting in different cultures. But culture is something that is learned, it is not something that is genetic. It is two very different things, that just happen to look the same. One is that you have a problem learning social skills within your own culture. The other is when your social skills are no longer appropriate for your environment. Similar but mucho different. You can't just take something, that because it looks the same, and say it IS the same, when the cause is entirely different.
People wear glasses because they are shortsighted or longsighted. But you can't just take them and say shortsighted people have the same problem as longsighted people, because they wear glasses.

Why can they not know if they have problems? Do you not know if you have problems with arithmetic? What makes you think communication problems are not the same? I'm not sure what you think is meant by 'communication problems'. For myself, its really quite easy to tell. Its very hard to explain, but I have a good example I can use:
Did you see the post on the Sally-Anne test? About the dolls, where Anne takes the marble out of Sally's basket and puts it in her own basket? If you had a problem with the second question, then you know what its like to have a problem with 'communication'. Of course you're thinking, and you have thoughts, but much of the time trying to put them into words results in that feeling.

The problem, for me at least, is pretty much restricted to verbalizing the thoughts. Its much easier to get around by typing your thoughts than trying to put into verbal sound. Still problems sometimes, but less often. You've no doubt heard of people who find it near impossible speak but are able to type much more fluently and communicate. Its probably like that, but much more of a problem for them. I have no basis for comparison, though.

I remember both Kanner and Asperger saying communication was 'atypical', not in deficeit. Kanner's study was much more value-laden than Asperger's(which is why I hold Asperger to be the more accurate of the two) and he backed the refridgerator mother theory until he abandoned it because it was unpopular among parents(of course it would be) not because of any evidence he was shown proving it to be a quack idea. There is to date no study proving a deficeit in social skills and communication in Autistics that doesn't have huge holes shot in it.

I can't answer anything you've said about cultural differences as it doesn't reflect in anyway on anything I said on it. The point I made about my colourblind teacher has also been missed.

If you have problems with social skills and communication, how come you have enough social awarness to know you have a lack of it? You would not, you would only have other people to point it out to you and I have seen in my own case and in the cases of others who I have personally seen and read in research papers that this is universally the case.

Anbuend,

I have issues with simplistic 'pro/con' ideas in Autism because they are misleading, so yes of course I have much disdain for the easy/difficult axis. I did not say you are doing something differently(it's true in vague terms, but inaccurate), I said you are doing something else.

I imagine that if I had no hands and had to open a door from a certain point of view it would be said that this task would be more difficult, that's true but vague and inaccurate. I would actually be doing a completely different thing to achieve the same result, the fact that the means used by a handed person are not available to me is a perimeter matter; they would experience the same difficulty if they did exactly what I did and their hands wouldn't change a thing.

There is no single symptom agreed upon which is common throughout autism, despite many opinions.

It mans that I wanted to talk about the first issue in your post (about regression after diagnosis) and escape speculation over whether or not <insert famous person here> is or is not a member of <insert minority here>. I think that the questions of why we regress and what we can do about it are far more important than gossip. Although I understand the desire to find inspiration from successful people, I prefer to create my sense of self-worth from my own accomplishments.

The only interpretation I can find that makes sense is if "social skills" is a substitute term for "manners". My parents worked very hard to teach me proper rules of behavior and tried to instill consideration for others, and I think I'm quite effective at transferring knowledge and asking questions. Most of that is of little use if I'm in a social situation where I'm expected to make idle conversation with strangers. If there's confusion about your statement, it's probably because many people use the term "social skills" as an umbrella term that includes social interaction, manners and communication.

Isn't it an essential impairment for a diagnosis of autism?
By the way, I find it only slightly easier to interact with other autistic people (not that I know very many), mainly because we both know we can rely on the spoken word to carry our ideas and can therefore dispense with the art of projecting or interpreting non-verbal elements. I particularly love using the telephone or email even when the other person is within walking distance. I have done a lot of travelling to foreign cultures and wouldn't say they rely any less on non-verbal communication. I think the difference when travelling is that the people trying to communicate with me are more likely to assume a barrier exists and are therefore more careful to ensure the message is understood.

It's a matter of perspective. If I can do something and you cannot, it's reasonable for me to say that you have a problem and I don't. But from your point of view, it could be said that I have a savant skill and you do not, in which case your inability is not a deficiency because my ability is an exception.

Consider someone who is fully or situationally mute. They are not deaf, and are therefore aware that other people talk to each other verbally. Wanting to speak and being unable to do so, the mute person can't help but be aware they are different, and that when the population is divided between those who can speak and those who can't, the person who can't is obviously in the minority. What I'm trying to say is that it's possible to use one sense to become aware of a deficiency in another sense. With social skills the deficiency will not be as obvious or immediately evident as a verbal disability, however many of them will reveal themselves through introspection and accumulated experience. Once you are aware of your specific weaknesses it becomes much easier to recognize the situations where they are likely to cause trouble.

Well said, Jetson. About your point on perspective, though. When most everyone has, comparitavely, savant social skills, then they become the norm. I am then, still, abnormal for not having that same skill level.
I would like to know, Jetson, what your take on Lucas's colorblind Bus-driver example was. What way can it be taken other than the way I took it? From my perspective, Lucas, it is your example that is deficient in being specific enough that one is able to read a different meaning from it.

Lucas, you're failing to realize that your example has everything to do with culture, but because you take it out of context does not make it valid in applying it to autism. I'm trying to point out to you why it has EVERYTHING to do with culture, and so it can't be applied to autism.
A person brought up in Japan, who goes to America, will have the wrong social skills for socialising well in America. But if you're born in America and raised in American culture, you should be developing American social skills. You don't, because you're deficient in understanding and interpreting others social interactions, and so you develop deficient social skills. If your version of social skills don't work, then they're deficient.
Sure, your social skills are atypical, if you want to take that perspective, but they're deficient compared to the norm, and for operating in the society you grow up in. There's a world of difference, and its all to do with the REASON why they're similar, not because they ARE similar.

Jetson,

Social skills and social interaction are not the same, I'm not using the term in a broad definition because I want to keep accuracy. I have a vast array of social skills learned by rote which I can recall quickly and any contact with a person utilising the same skills is straightforward. Social skills represent everything I know about effective contact with others, social interaction is the mutual exchange. My point was that even after learning every western custom and naunce under the sun the problems I had were the same, as is the case with every Autistic I see and read about in everything from books to research. The evidence is there but it's ignored, it means that the problems in social interaction are not solely because of a lack of anything in the Autistic person.

All modern studies make assumptions about Autism without referencing any original sources. I can ask a researcher why their latest study assumes an Autistic has difficulty with this or that and I'll be told how it's 'well documented'. I can then ask for them to give me an example I they will reference the DSM, I then have to point out that this is not an original source; where did they get their sources from? And then it carries on with them telling me about this study or that study, I point out where the unreferenced assumption is in each one. It is not ethical to begin with the conclusion and then work your way towards it, it's not even good science.

All these assumptions can be traced back to the 1940s where there were some very unscientific value-laden views even among the experts about any disability. Through the field of Autism where the researchers have always been relatively unchallenged, the attitudes of the 40s have survived in this area. The original source for these is actually none other than Bruno Bettlhiem, the charlatan. When he was discredited, his work was only selectively discredited; only that which hurt the parents like the refriderator mother theory in fact, placing Autistic adults in a position where they had no right to speak for themselves or Autistics as a whole, only parents.

There is an assumption that Autistics have difficulty with mutual social reciprocity, this is disproven by the many 'trained' Autistics that are supposed to be 'indistinguishable from their peers' who still have the same difficulties. The sad fact is that no one has ever looked at the way others interact with us as a problem, just how we respond. This is why it is often easier for an Autistic in a foreign country where any oddness is assumed to just be foreign eccentricity and the locals make a much greater effort to mutual communication. I was so relaxed in Italy that I nearly fell out of the bottom of my trousers.

On your muteness example,

Being mute or even Deaf is not a barrier to social skills and any problem with communication should be considered a mutual one, not the sole error of the person who is mute or Deaf. We're very big on the social disability model in the UK. I myself discovered that such people can convey non-verbal messages to me very well when I'm not forced to also listen to speech, it has been noted in a recent study that many Autistic people can do this as long as speech is not co-occurring.

What I said about social skills is a take on Romeo and Juliet: "How can thou be out of breath if thou hast breath to tell me that thou art out of breath!?"

And with social skills, the only indication that you would have is what others tell you. You can't know if your social skills are poor if you don't posses the means to recognise it in the first place. You are right that you can find out about a problem with one sense through another; we are constantly told about how terrible our social skills are but we don't see it. This is because of two possibilities:

1. We are correctly identifying that our social awarness isn't lacking and are confused by the insistence of others that it is.

2. We can't see that our social skills are lacking because we don't have the capacity for them. But this means we are relying on the word of those who say they do, just as my colourblind teacher just relied on those who say that there was a such thing as colour.

What if I told you that the percieved deficeit in social skills and communication in Autistics was actually a symptom of a sensory issue, not an actual problem in the area of interaction?(click)

Danlo,

I would have thought that if an example was more specific then there would be less chance of an unwanted interpretation, I thought that only occured when the example was general. Maybe it's my deficeit in communication(ho hum).



Then I suggest you stop reading now because if that is how you are seeing then there is absolutely nothing I have said that you have understood. I wasn't speaking about culture, I don't want to involve culture as a central element to this discussion and if possible I'd like to avoid it as if it were a vagrant foaming at the mouth and brandishing a used syringe.

When we start talking about culture we start talking about what people believe, which takes us round in circles. I'm sticking firmly in the realms of science, where it's about what we know.

You have said I said a lot of things which I didn't say, or spoken as if you are having a completely different conversation with a different person as you've brought up more red herrings than the mersey canal. And where is that comprehensive study proving that there is an inherent deficeit in communication and social skills in Autistics?

Should be noted that Kanner was the original source of the refrigerator mother theory. I think he even came up with the phrase "refrigerator mother". Bettelheim merely expanded on it and popularized it.



People have died of suffocation right after others have either told them or acted on the idea, "If you can tell me you're out of breath, you can breathe just fine!"

Ah, I stand corrected on refridgerators. I only remember it being mentioned alongside Bettelhiem's name. But I never liked Kanner anyway; he looks like a mole and as far as I am aware he only recanted on the idea because it was unpopular among parents not because it was disproven at the time. Kanner also associated it with Schizophrenia(on what evidence I wonder?). I think Asperger will be the only originator remembered fondly(and Lorna Wing as one of the first real experts on the subject).

The scene from Romeo and Juliet is when Juliet's maid comes back from a meeting with Romeo to arrange for them to be married and Juliet is desperate to hear everything and urges her to tell. That is Juliet's reply when the maid asks to be allowed a moment to catch her breath. I'm sure Juliet would not have chosen those words had she known what went on in the lunatic asylums at the time which carries on today in institutions.

You still don't see, Lucas. Its NOT a central element to anything, I know that, I'm not saying that you're making it a central element. Yet your example of a 'foreign' person has everything to do with culture. So why the hell are you using it as an example? You see your example as having nothing to do with culture, yet because it IS a cultural difference, the example has absolutely nothing to do with your argument about autism. That not only goes for the foreigner example, it goes for the deaf example or any example that is an extraneous impediment that is not a difference in the brain.
Because you're learning it by rote, you're learning it in a different part of the brain. It doesn't become integrated in the same way as an NT's social skills. They don't learn it by rote. They don't have to experience a situation to be able to successfully socialise in it. Rote social skills simply aren't as adaptable as NTs. To me, I think that constitutes a deficit between the two systems of social skills.

You're listening but you're not hearing me.

All you are doing is taking what I've said an adding your own inferences. If I was talking about culture then I would have used the foreign example exclusively, but I didn't, I added others which you have decided to tackle in isolation to the rest meaning you missed the whole point.

You've now decided to resort to the false notion that just because I learned something by rote, I apply it in the same manner.

You can't effectively argue against anything I've said when you don't actually know what I'm talking about.

Bloody hell, do you not READ a word I write? How many times do I have to say that I know you are not talking about culture? NOWHERE do I say you are talking about CULTURE. What I am SAYING is that your examples proving your points are taken out of context, because when they are in context, they are utterly different to whatever the hell your point is.
I am putting them BACK into context, and saying WHY they are totally different to autism. I'm not inferring anything. Perhaps now I have spelt it out enough for your apparently perfect communication and social skills to grasp. For someone who has learnt 'every nuance under the sun', you have an extraordinary inability to comprehend essentially the same post 3 times.

And you are missing that I am pointing out a common cause. You think that just by pointing out what makes each example different and therefore irrelevent dimisses the common cause, but it doesn't.

When you say

you miss that you have just said 'whatever the hell your point is', so you have not understood what my point is and instead just opt to attack what I am saying on red herring issues.

When someone says democracy doesn't work when it resembles four wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for supper, it doesn't address their point to bring up the red herring of "Yes, but people don't vote to eat people".

I gave examples other than the foreign one for the sake of accuracy to avoid the very pendantic you are now stuck on, you decided to ignore the common cause and tackle each one in isolation from the others, so you missed any point I had to deliver.

Please, do point out the common cause, I seem to have missed the neurological difference that causes both foreigners to be born and deaf people to lose their hearing. Noone's disagreeing that deaf people have deficient social skills too. Its why they immediately do a hearing test when getting children diagnosed.
When I say 'whatever the hell your point is', does not mean I don't know what it is. I am letting you know that I don't give a damn anymore what your point is, because you're refusing to see mine.

Now, what are you trying to prove by your examples of deaf people and foreigners? I'll tell you what I understand of your point:
You are saying that we do not have any problems with social skills. That just because we have our own version of social skills, doesn't mean they are deficient.
Is that fairly accurate?

Now what I am saying is:
Because our own version of social skills are less effective, they are deficient.

Deficiency is always in comparison with the majority, that's a given.

How can I when you have already decided that the common cause I'm refering to is neurological? Should I just explain it and hope you don't screw it up too?

And that is not science, that's a value-laden assertion.