Do Germans have Asperger's Syndrome?

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German has a much lower rate of recorded autism compared to the rest of the world.

My theory is that the same biology is not manifesting symptoms as often or is manifesting only at higher biological threshholds due to differences in culture.

If you never have problems in social relationships then you never have any need for even a self-diagnosis.

In Germany the language as spoken is naturally a great deal more informative than English. You would not say you had a coffee, you would say you had a kaffee drunk whereas it would seem awkward and out of the ordinary to say "I had drank a coffee" rather than I had a coffee in English.

Germans are also known for being more direct.

Since German is more informative than the English language some people who would have problems here don't have any problems there or at least not as significant ones.

The German lifestyle being generally quiet and comfortable probably helps a great deal as well.

Whereas the Japanese have the highest rate. In Japan there are words specifically for the real truth and the social 'truth'. So you do worse because people never tell you directly about your mistakes. There's also high pressure on social performance. And Japanese society, it's norms, it's culture are in great tension and have been in great tension with the new democracy and especially the new technological changes.

The question "do germans have aspergers?" is asinine.

A whole nation cant have Asperger's.

German culture might be more 'aspergian' than Italian, or than American culture.

And Germans might have a larger tiny proportion of the population with aspergers than the tiny proportion of americans who have it. There maybe more genetic, or epigentic, tendency toward inheriting aspergers in some regions of the world than others. But a whole nation of 80 million people being 100 percent literally diagnosible as being aspie is impossible.

And on the subject of genetics- more than a third of White Americans are of German descent- if the OP meant that "germans are all genetically aspies" than the USA would also be a hotbed of aspergers as well.

Last edited by naturalplastic on 03 May 2013, 10:26 am, edited 1 time in total.

Not true. Some German Jewish people wanted to completely assimilate and not be seen as Jewish at all.

You mean the entire country of 80+ million has autism?
From what I can find, the rate of autism in Germany is a bit under 2%. My husband is German, possibly an aspie, and though the culture there *is* more introvert-friendly than the US in my opinion, no, they aren't all autistic. How exactly would Asperger have identified these kids as "different" if they were normal? This is the funniest post I've seen in a long time.



Inherited form of PTSD? If there was such a thing, everyone in the world would have it, because everyone's ancestors have been traumatized at some point. The only ones who could possibly have been affected would have to either have been alive or in the womb during the war or the immediate postwar period (when it was still quite bad), which is only a small portion of the population now. I hear kids who were born in the months after 9/11 in NY have higher anxiety, but no, kids born years after don't.



He was both. Would you say Jerry Seinfeld is Jewish, not American?

I do believe that those with German or German/Jewish background are more likely to test autistic on such tests as the A.D.O.S. German culture tends to be direct and has much less idle small talk than say, generic American culture. I think this has some effect on test such as the A.D.O.S. where the examiner presses for smalltalk and idle chitchat.

I really have a hard time believing an entire nationality of people could have ASD.If they did, it seems hard to believe they would be able to funtion as a society.

The premise of this thread rests on ridiculous stereotyping of Germans. Mechanically inclined? I don't think so. More educated and culturally homogeneous, definitely.

Uh no, I don't think they ALL have it any more than other people do in the rest of the world. In fact that's the craziest thing I ever heard. What about Japan with all its wacky gadgets and advanced technology? I'm so very tired of all these stereotypes - Germans are all Nazis, Canadians all love hockey, French people are all haughty, and on and on.

I have zero German ancestory, but I still have autism.

I don't think so. My daughter's first autism class in Boston was filled with children from around the world.

There are stereotypes of German character such as once when I was on a train to Vienna I was in a compartment with a guy from Austria and two guys from China. The conductor came into the compartment to check our tickets. He was mad about something and hit the door and swore on his way out. One of the Chinese guys said, "He must be German". I thought the Austrian guy would fall out of his seat laughing.

I suspect that Aspergers will be identified as a group of neuro sensing and processing differences that have a strong heritability factor. Since people that live in close proximity also share heritability factors, it would not be unexpected to find a region that has a higher than average manifestation of these heritable factors.

It is also possible that some of what is called Aspergers might be expressed in people of a specific region at a lower levels such that it is not seen as a disability but as a characteristic.

Heritability factors become greatly modified by invading armies. Those born in Germany since 1945 may have a much more diverse genetic pool on which to draw such that previously more specifically unique heritable characteristics are much more muted today.

well, maybe it serves me right to have this thread occasion me to report back - darn, it has been a long time indeed - so hi all - i'm back (or am i)

i clicked at the thread with visions of crosses on mountains, i am sure i heard someone shouting "What have the Romans ever done for us?!" (a geo-political rhetorical question that was quite autistically, maybe rather aspiciously, taken literally... and answered with repercussions still reverberating into the little silent pond by the mere cast of one stone)
i heard a norwegian blue crow three times and someone sighed i told you not to mention the war.....

yes this is the funniest thread i have read in a long time, although i have seen many funnier, and more meaningful to boot...
it is also extremely disturbing.... i'd need my thesaurus to find the words that do not come to mind - flabberghasted (typoid intended) is not one of those...
rarely have i come across such muddled thinking - there is so much wrong with this thread that i simply cannot begin

and was that Godwin's Law mentioned somewhere?
[apologies, i have found myself increasingly in trouble with mere typing, so quotes right now are far beyond my grasp][[i can only refer by memory and sadly that is the one thing i would consider "wrong" with me in terms of autism - it does not copy visually...]
well, i noticed someone asking if the thread had not been locked, which must mean it was re-opened

i remember being glad Merle posted - i don't know if she still moderates, but she did, and she was good and fair - so i was glad it had at least been noticed (which sort of -not- excused me for not checking with a mod myself)
i am glad it was re-opened, though - while wondering in increasing bewilderment whether it were wise, ok... nobler in the mind... to have this somehow ended... but i could find no proper justification...

if there is freedom of expression, one has the right to express oneself, however poorly or muddled that may be - and only sane, and logical debate can create more clarity...

it is not up to me to provide that, and with my technical limitations i may never find myself able -
but really, folks
race, religion, nationality (regionality-locality), cultural identity (and their origins) and yes the origins of species why not, politics, eth/n/ics, philosophy, simple human history -
there is no level at which this discussion has not been muddled - yes all these things are related, but these are all different things, mostly even different categories

this is not even close to comparing apples with pears - this is comparing fourleaves-clovers with mountain ranges...

and me, i'm just a waterboy, the real game in not overhere, a froggie p'haps

but i'm glad it made me say hi ;]] "readit" maybe i'm back

PS: there is a huge difference between the noun autism (which in itself is not all that simply defined depending context) and the adjective autistic

and finally: i am, aspiciously

Having lived in Berlin for two years, no there are not more Aspies in Germany HOWEVER, as a race, I found them to be more intelligent and particular more intelligent on the whole than my nation which is Britian.

So I think that what has happened, is that Aspie traits being more useful in many ways to society, as far as efficiency, technology maths and music is concerned, and the Germans being already more intelligent, have adopted Aspie traits and they start training these traits when the kids are young. For example, they teach them to be correct, not teaching to be polite as being very important which is more general in the UK. They are taught to be studious and concerned with details making sure that everything is correct. A German can get suicidal if you point out that they have made a mistake. Just joking but it is there.

Inside of every German there is a policeman. True. They watch what you throw in the rubbish bins.

When I lived there, but not yet knowing I was an Aspie, I found that it was much easier for me in many ways, like they do not change their supermarket products around like they do here and everything is orderly and WORKS. I loved this. I loved it there.

it was discovered there, that means its a yes by default.

Well I imagine some do, and as far as I know not expressing emotions is not exactly a German trait, not exactly an Aspergers trait either....sometimes its harder for people with aspergers to express emotions(though I think most of us do actually feel them) or express it in a way people understand.