How can aspergers be a real disease if........

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What is socially acceptable changes from decade to decade and from place to place.

One could argue that American Neurotypicals have aspergers in say Japan

Unless aspergergians are socially slow to ALL cultural norms in every place in the United states.

Surley there are places where asperger behavior is socially acceptable in certian places?

You should notice that the users here are nationally diverse which shows that in our respective countries we are odd balls. It goes beyond merely being inexpressive and in each culture social cues do differ but respective aspies still don't pick up on them adequately. What you said is thought provoking, why not research cultural differences to see if it holds any ground?

good idea.

uh. . .Asperger's Syndrome is not a 'disease'.

it is a pervasive developmental disorder, characterized by impairments in social interactions and repetitive behavior patterns.

Personally, I don't consider AS either a "disease" or a "disorder". It is a way of describing a different way of thought, a different array of talents. There is no proof these differences are a disorder, in any sense other than that the neurotypical majority chooses to label it as such.

That depends on the person with it and how they have lived. To me, AS is a disease and a scam, a con created by doctors so that they could line their pockets.



So say the a**hole Neurotypicals.

Aspies violate supposed human universals-- cues that are the same in every culture-- and are about equally bad at picking up every possible NT culture.

so, you want it BOTH ways, eh? If what makes them 'neurotypicals' is, by your reckoning, only a scam, so how can they be neurotypical if what makes them that (Asperger's Syndrome) is invalid?



Sometimes this diagnosis is a disease and sometimes it isn't? How would that even matter, as according to you Asperger's Syndrome doesn't even exist except as a way for scam artists and swindlers to make money. But then, somehow it is all tangled up with karma of how someone lived their lives, except it doesn't exist anyway?

You can see why someone would get confused by your post, Craig28. Are you sure you thought this out?

If my AS was a disease, I would have passed away, as a very small child.

There are measurable differences in cognitive function between an Aspie and an NT. Those differences would be independent of culture. The may be less maladaptive in some cultures, but no amount of social verifiability would alter the underlying differences. Also, even if the rules change from culture to culture, an NT learns the rules easier and applies them more fluidly.

Is it p*ssing you off that you were stuck with a label against your will? It's hard to figure out where you're coming from. FWIW, it's not as if NT scientists/researchers/doctors "own" the label. There's stuff by autistic researchers & activists criticizing what they see as bad assumptions, bad conclusions, bad science. I.e. is it just crappy social skills, or is it something deeper like sensory processing (and/or other things) that makes social stuff actually a secondary effect? See Michelle Dawson's work. Or that oxytocin makes autistic kids show more favoritism, which is assumed to be an improvement -- maybe there's something screwy with looking at it that way.

I tend to agree, yet there must be *some* kind of reason I truly *cannot* understand the way/s other people think ... and the fact of that has cost me a lot in life.

It's not a disease. It's simply a set of traits. A set of traits that's related to not being able to get along in society very well.

Although, the initial question can be asked with the word "disorder".

To the extent that it really is a disorder, the issue is, as far as culture and getting a long in society, that people with Asperger's have a hard time learning cultural rules. They are outcasts in their own society. And not by choice, but because their brains work differently. Of course, they're may be an element of choice that enhances the differences.

Call it a difference rather than a disorder, and the same applies. But, definitely either difference or disorder, but not a disease.

+1

Alter-ordered, or co-order or something without the connotation of it being an negative, just a difference.

1. There's more to it than the social side.

2. Even in strange cultures, neurotypicals would be far better than us at picking up on what was socially acceptable, because we are impaired in our ability to read situations/people to figure out what is the socially correct thing to do. If spcialising were just a matter of learning rules by rote, we'd be less impaired, as many of us do learn to interact that way, but we are impaired in our social perception and intuition.

... and that to be diagnosable, it has to cause significant problems.