alex doesn't have Asperger's

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Daniel has been wrong all long due to his theory can't be proving by Alex and others alone. Even I can prove Daniel wrong.

My son and I are both AS and we have extremely interactive conversations. Of course, they are of better quality when they are about something we are interested in, both understand, or both have read/seen.

That is ALWAYS true of EVERYONE!

Sounds like someone somewhere is confusing AS with full Autism, where there is almost no 2-way communication whatsoever. AS is probably the mildest form of Autism, and people with the syndrome can have 2-way interaction, etc., it's just a lot more difficult for them. I talk to people all the time. I may not look them in the eye while I do so, and I may not talk to them in an easy, congenial and 'sociable' manner, but I get my point across. I communicate passably enough to get a job, pay my bills, etc. It causes problems socially (I have no close friends), but the ability to socialize like an NT is something I've learned to live without. Communication is tough, but I do it everyday. How else can anyone define 2-way interaction?

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that this whole thing is a joke.

Experts:

I trust the words of those who defined these disorders, whether Asperger himself, those who translated his work; those who applied it and made a "disorder" from said words. If my experience is the same as those who made the disorder, then I'm able to trust them over someone on the 'net I don't know. This also applies to people I've seen in [non-fictional] filmed media.

Insight:

It's very common for people with AS to not realize the extent in which they are impaired in reciprocal interaction, not to say that everyone isn't (me for example), but it's common (clinical observations by Attwood and many other professionals).

Humor:

My own experience with interacting with people I know for certain have AS; the conversation doesn't start, or it's completely one-sided, and it's so funny for it pans out exactly how the professionals state it would.

Communication:

Don't confuse mechanical interaction with fluid and reciprocal social interaction.

A lot of people are confusing the two. I don't know about alex, but a lot of people here ARE like I am(probably even alex, and YOU sound like you are like I am also!), and many ARE diagnosed, FINALLY! But many like myself, never even CONSIDERED any type of autism. After seeing problems you guys have, I have to be convinced I DO have AS though. Yesterday, I had one major problem, and 2 little problems, and NOBODY else seemed to have them. Most HERE do though! Coincidence?

BTW I have been on my own for DECADES! I now live thousands of miles away from my parents.

Actually, the people who defined these conditions had a number of incorrect observations that have since been rectified, but one of the ways they have not been rectified is when people have trusted the people who defined the conditions, or who are considered experts in the field, to have proper understanding of the conditions they were observing. Quite often, they don't have proper understanding and can be shown not to.

For instance:

The very notion that autistic people have no apparent attachment to parents, as described from Kanner onward (and in the early diagnostic criteria, in slightly changed form in the later ones): Proven wrong. (See Morton Gernsbacher's website.)

The notion that young non-verbal autistic children are not trying any other way to communicate (something written into the current diagnostic criteria): Not only proven wrong, but proven way wrong. Young non-verbal autistic children attempt many ways of communicating, with a great degree of flexibility, before finally giving up and having a meltdown when these attempts at communication are not responded to. (Michelle Dawson cites an Australian study on this matter.)

The notion that autistic children fail false-belief tasks (a later stereotype, but one oft-repeated as having "expert" stamps of approval): In the process of being proven wrong, we fail them at the same rate as non-autistic children with language impairment equivalent to autistic children, and when given language-free versions we pass them at the same or slightly higher rates than "normal" children.

The notion that most autistic people have an accompanying intellectual disability (believed by almost all "experts" over the years): In the process of being proven wrong, when given language-independent IQ tests we tend to do far better (whereas most people are equivalent on both).

Lorna Wing has had many two-way conversations with autistic people and has not attempted to undiagnose them with autism on that basis, so presumably she either didn't mean it the way you're taking it, or she changed her mind later on. Also, I have read a number of things stated by her that are not supported by research, and I am sure she would agree (as any good researcher would) that it is possible that her ideas about autism are inaccurate, and also that some of her previous ideas about autism have been proven inaccurate or less accurate than she expected.

I have both a lot of experience with autistic people, and I've read a lot of the literature (including at least attempting to stay as current on research as I can), and, as I have stated many times already, I don't think there is any single skill that an autistic person cannot have. Maybe an autistic person would never have a whole combination of skills that directly contradict what autism is. But you can't declare a person non-autistic based on the presence or absence of a single skill. (Unless a particular perceptual processing skill turns out to be what differentiates autistic from non-autistic people, but that's not ever what anyone is talking about casually when they say "If you can do Thing X, you're not autistic.")

And a total inability to hold two-way conversations is not mandated in any set of diagnostic criteria I have read. Social skills that are measured for autism (however unfairly at times) are far broader than that.

And I really value critical thinking about what "experts" say, rather than just blind obedience to them. From what I've seen, it doesn't take a lot to be an "expert" in the field of autism. Anyone with a theory and a degree can apply, and get surprisingly far without having to prove themselves (or without having to prove themselves particularly rigorously), which is one reason autism science is so shoddy most of the time.

An autism diagnosis doesn't require "almost no 2-way communication whatsoever," it requires at least one of these:



And generally (despite the DSM allowing for otherwise) either a speech delay and/or a specific pattern of speech acquisition that is out of the ordinary in certain ways (pronoun reversal, echolalia, etc).

And of course the remark in parentheses in the first one there is already being shown not to be accurate, in that when studied properly you can see other modes of communication being attempted in young non-verbal children who are definitely autistic.

Even if a person meets the impairment in initiating or sustaining thing, it doesn't mean that 2-way conversation has to be completely absent, and of course the person (as discussed in more depth in prior diagnostic criteria using that particular phrasing otherwise) might do the monologue thing which has been said not to be 2-way but this is not necessarily true.

I'm diagnosed as autistic rather than AS and I don't have "almost no 2-way communication", although I do have great difficulty with many aspects of the mechanics of conversation (especially, especially initiating).

What if they got it wrong about the people they wrote about? If they diagnose people and almost all of them are not the way the words say, then the words are right and the people are something else?

If someone is like most of the description, so that they are diagnosed, and part of the description is wrong for them, then why is the description unassailable because it is right for you? Maybe it was an overgeneralization by the writers about the group they were seeking to describe.



In which case very many NTs (even those who consider themselves and are thought to be socially successful) are actually suffering from disturbed social interaction in one way or the other. Not NT then? It's still meaningful two-way interaction if it communicates.

Editing: anbuend said it better first.

Last edited by cas on 05 Apr 2008, 10:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I saw it from your videos. This thread is ridiculous.

abuend,

Parents:

The current diagnostic criteria states that those with autistic disorder can "cling mechanically" to a certain parent, but remain aloof to others: this is true in my case. Many sites state that it's more common for individuals with Asperger's to show affection to the whole family, and in my observations of a little girl with AS, this holds true (she is completely aloof to people outside of the family). I'm certain the girl will improve as she develops, but she'll always have severe trouble with interacting with people.

Communication:

I agree.

Theory of mind:

I failed it at the young age of 25; my verbal ability was pretty good then.

IQ:

With standardized tests, yeah, most people with autism are mentally ret*d as children. However, it has been known that early IQ scores of children with autism are often incorrect. One can tailor a test to suit anyone.

Two-way conversations:

Again, answering people mechanically, or speaking of a topic one knows a great deal about can appear to be two-way reciprocal interaction, but it's not.

I'm not saying anyone has autism or not, just that social interaction in Asperger's is greatly impaired; one can look at any clinical site and find the same, "severe impairment in reciprocal social interaction" as being one of the two hallmarks.

Others have made really good points about the problems with "the original research." I'd add the fact that both Kanner and Asperger used a very limited sample size. Neither discussed adults, or even older adolescents, in their work. Asperger's subjects were exclusively male. Many different subgroups were not represented in the study. (Like Austrian Jews, to name a very obvious example.) Since psychiatry was only available to the very wealthy in those times, almost all of the subjects were from relatively well-off families and had fathers who were college graduates. That was not at all typical of those times, and I'm sure that their samples wouldn't be considered truly scientific by today's standards. At the very least, studies of this kind would have to include all sorts of disclaimers about the studies' limitations. Most of today's social scientists recognize the need for caution and the problems with drawing conclusions which may not be warranted by the research design and data. Many autism "scientists" lack this recognition, as anbeund points out.

Plus, the definition of "expert" is pretty complex in and of itself. I know professionals who disagree with these rigid and absolute kinds of views about AS/autism. Does their opinion not count because they choose to see their clients rather than write books? And it's not as though the "experts" really do have simple and absolute views on the subject. Tony Attwood is the biggest name with regards to Asperger's, and he diagnosed Liane Holliday-Wiley, who likely would not "count" as autistic under these rigid definitions.

Science is a process, not a conclusion. To Daniel's most recent post I would say that a "severe impairment" is not necessarily equivalent to complete disability. One may be severely impaired in walking without being completely unable to do so. One can be severely impaired in hearing while not being 100% deaf. Not everyone who is legally blind literally sees nothing at all. Similarly, you can be impaired in reciprocal interaction while still having some capacity to do so.

Last edited by srriv345 on 05 Apr 2008, 10:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It seems like Daniel is now the witch even though this is a thread started by someone who misinterpreted what Daniel said. The way I read it is that aspies do not naturally have an ability to instinctively interact in a social setting and have to learn how to do it. That really isn't unreasonable. Some AS tendencies do tend to weaken with age so by definition alex probably is less AS than he used to be. But the way this thread was titled drew an emotional response from people who didn't read it carefully. This thread is ridiculous.

Now let's hunt down and burn these witches.

I was doing spontaneous two-way conversations when I was in 5th grade, so 9-10 years old. The DSM criteria are based on work with very young children. We have developmental delays in some areas of social interaction. That's what autism is all about in the first place. We learn some things at a later time or learn a coping skill as needed.

As for mechanical responses, those are pretty easy to spot. Making a response based on a set of keywords is an old artificial intelligence trick. Again, I haven't done that since late in grade school and I have a diagnosis from a psychologist who specializes in AS in adults.

Go back over the DSM and you'll find that adults with AS have compensated for several of the symptoms listed. In my case I have reduced or overcome the following symptoms:

- Marked impairment in the use of multiple nonverbal behaviors such as eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body postures, and gestures to regulate social interaction
- Failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental level
- A lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interests, or achievements with other people
- Lack of social or emotional reciprocity
- Apparently inflexible adherence to specific, nonfunctional routines or rituals
- pedantic and monotonic speech
- naive, inappropriate, one-sided social interaction, little ability to form friendships

I did not cure or recover from AS, I just learned how to get around some of the symptoms that were causing me the most trouble.

Nobody is disputing THAT, but that doesn't necessarily mean TALKING. In fact, it says *******SOCIAL********, and there are other things that make it clear that AS people DO communicate both ways. It is just that SOCIAL communication breaks down.