Still undecided after diagnosis + 'social savantism?'

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roseblood
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20 Oct 2012, 6:33 pm

The specialists believe I'm on the autistic spectrum, albeit mildly, and that I don't need much intervention because of all the research and observation I undertook in my teens to learn social skills.

What didn't come up - they didn't ask, perhaps because it was covered by the questionnaires I'd filled out - was a major anomaly for me: I'm EXTREMELY good at reading facial expressions and tone of voice! At least, in laboratory situations. For some reason I don't pick things up as well in fluid social situations, but that's the case to some extent for most people. I've taken several tests and always do better than average, and in the famous Mind In The Eyes test, I got just one wrong, after originally picking the right answer but changing my mind. I'm not sure, but I believe that puts me almost off the charts, that very few people do that well. A kind of social, as opposed to intellectual savantism is my best explanation: just as some people can be severely intellectually disabled apart from one specific skill, like playing an instrument or huge, instantaneous calculations, perhaps this one group of circuits in my social brain is just far superior to the rest. This has undoubtedly helped me to learn social skills much better than I could otherwise, so if my ability to read body language is much better than average, presumably I'm actually underestimating how much slower the rest of me must be socially, because I've had this enormous advantage in one respect and still have struggled significantly to fit in.

I also don't seem to have significant problems with others anymore, most people seem to like me, and sometimes I think I don't have AS afterall, but then my family, who like to rib me good-naturedly about my "funny ways" will inadvertently knock my confidence when they point out something I've said or written that's not normal, that people don't know how to respond to, and that they find hilarious. I also sense occasionally that the more I get to know people, the weirder they start to find me, although not bad enough to cause serious problems. It just makes me shier and more nervous when I think I've started to be seen as eccentric in ways that might make people unsure of being around me for long periods at times. I don't mind being seen as eccentric in general, it really depends on whether people are comfortable and not irritated or bored in my company.

Does anyone else relate to anything I've said? Do you constantly go from thinking you have it, to thinking you can't, and do other people's jokes about you make you more confused? What do you think about this social savantism, to coin a phrase? Do you experience anything like that? Maybe the people on the spectrum who are very good at and interested in psychology, and good at understanding people from a theoretical point of view, are also experiencing a form of it.



UnLoser
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20 Oct 2012, 7:23 pm

I also scored really well on the Mind in The Eyes test, 2 wrong I think. But that's because I carefully analyzed each one and used the process of elimination to select the best option. I didn't do it intuitively, I did it logically.

Anyway, considering you were diagnosed by experts, you probably do have AS but have taught yourself to read social cues very well. On the other hand, by definition, AS must cause significant issues for someone to actually have it. I don't necessarily agree with that definition, but...



roseblood
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20 Oct 2012, 7:37 pm

It's 100% intuition for me. I never set about teaching myself the facial expressions, just things to say in different situations, how to respond to different kinds of jokes, try to appear confident, things like that. The body language reading has always been there, I truly feel a taste of the emotion myself when I look at the eyes.

Right now, I agree that I probably have AS (we'll see how long that lasts), I suppose I just couldn't even manage to be a 'normal' Aspie, don't know what I'm surprised about really. :lol:



noobler
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20 Oct 2012, 7:58 pm

I used game theory, and I know I tended to watch facial expressions in cartoons as a child

note that when playing return to zork as a child I found that I kept mixing up confused and afraid, I think

I can read facial expressions "intuitively" now too, but I suspect that's my making the logical process more and more efficient for a few years, to the detriment at all my other skills, I worked in sales, customer service for about 3 years



rixxar12
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20 Oct 2012, 8:14 pm

UnLoser wrote:
I also scored really well on the Mind in The Eyes test, 2 wrong I think. But that's because I carefully analyzed each one and used the process of elimination to select the best option. I didn't do it intuitively, I did it logically.

Anyway, considering you were diagnosed by experts, you probably do have AS but have taught yourself to read social cues very well. On the other hand, by definition, AS must cause significant issues for someone to actually have it. I don't necessarily agree with that definition, but...


I also did it logically like you, by elimination, but still have a really bad problem reading faces, so i didnt do it really well even this way, i got a little bit more than half of the whole questions good, almost half bad, its seems that i really struggle with faces.

But i have to add something, my alexithymia is putting in my way too, cuz i dont know the difference between anger, irritated, upset, etc, so i just put the firts one.

But i can say for sure, that i just answered like 3-5 by intuition, the other ones was just by guessing and elimination.



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20 Oct 2012, 8:22 pm

I donno I don't think I'm anything approaching NT, but I seem to be able to do extremely well in short bursts. I think I just get bored to quick, and my attention slips.



oceandrop
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20 Oct 2012, 10:57 pm

Being quirky, eccentric, etc. is not quite the same as having a "Qualitative impairment in social interaction".

Social savants, if they exist, probably include current/former presidents, the Kennedy family, Dale Carnegie, CEO's, famous comedians, etc. Not so much people with high scores on facial recognition tests.



Last edited by oceandrop on 21 Oct 2012, 12:18 am, edited 1 time in total.

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20 Oct 2012, 11:11 pm

roseblood wrote:
It's 100% intuition for me. I never set about teaching myself the facial expressions, just things to say in different situations, how to respond to different kinds of jokes, try to appear confident, things like that. The body language reading has always been there, I truly feel a taste of the emotion myself when I look at the eyes.

Right now, I agree that I probably have AS (we'll see how long that lasts), I suppose I just couldn't even manage to be a 'normal' Aspie, don't know what I'm surprised about really. :lol:



Well there is another female here that does it "intuitively."

This is only part of the non-verbal or having"Theory of Mind," but is this within the full range of communicating? Say, holding a conversation and not taking it literally; but understanding the subtleties of it? For instance: Someone in a roundabout way is saying something to you; but his or her manners is to be indirect in a " nice" way.

Do you get that?

What parts of communication do you feel weak in?



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20 Oct 2012, 11:30 pm

I think I have a heightened skill in understanding social theory, also when its laws happen in practice. It's not body language or communication, but patterns, system and human tendencies. And more. But I definitely have Asperger's, I have severe problems. If I was passive and didn't do anything, I would maybe be just like you, but on the exact point where I try to do anything else, I fail miserably.



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20 Oct 2012, 11:43 pm

roseblood wrote:
It's 100% intuition for me. I never set about teaching myself the facial expressions, just things to say in different situations, how to respond to different kinds of jokes, try to appear confident, things like that. The body language reading has always been there, I truly feel a taste of the emotion myself when I look at the eyes.

Right now, I agree that I probably have AS (we'll see how long that lasts), I suppose I just couldn't even manage to be a 'normal' Aspie, don't know what I'm surprised about really. :lol:

Your original post sounds a bit like me, though I didn't score quite as well as you did in the Mind in the Eyes test. It's why, even though I'm not great in most social circumstances, I don't feel comfortable saying for sure that I have AS. (Things like timing in conversation, talking at people, and carrying on with one topic are some of my major weak spots; facial expressions--when I look--and tone of voice aren't major problems for me.)

How well do you do in this test?
http://www.neurodiversity.com/nvc/index.html

I tried it for 25 faces (it's open ended), and scored around 65-70%, which is a bit lower than I've scored in some other facial expression quizzes. This one has more options to choose from; I was able to identify "positive" vs. "negative" facial expressions without much difficulty, but I didn't do as well with identifying the precise expressions.



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21 Oct 2012, 12:06 am

I never had any problem reading facial expressions, tone of voice, body language, metaphors, sarcasm, etc. I won a very expensive and social-emphasis scholarship to study abroad when I was 17. I was the most popular girl all through primary school, being my friend was an honor. I did the same as an NT in the Mind in the Eyes test, the diagnoser said. I started teaching myself Psychology as a teenager, had about 20 years of therapy all in all, plus I'm an obsessive analyser of social interaction and have been for several decades.

That said, I'm more severely impaired in the social aspect than ever, and have no contact with family or anyone for this reason.


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roseblood
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21 Oct 2012, 7:21 am

oceandrop wrote:
Being quirky, eccentric, etc. is not quite the same as having a "Qualitative impairment in social interaction".

Social savants, if they exist, probably include current/former presidents, the Kennedy family, Dale Carnegie, CEO's, famous comedians, etc. Not so much people with high scores on facial recognition tests.


I do have qualitative impairments in social interaction. They aren't causing me major problems right now, but have done in the past, before I picked up enough social skills. If you've ever read articles about the reasons girls with AS tend to get by better than boys until adolescence - getting a motherly best friend, being keen to learn the rules, being passive and letting people walk all over them etc. - they describe my childhood very well.

By 'social savant', I don't mean someone who's much better at social interaction in general. I mean in the same way that an intellectual savant is someone with one or two intellectual skills that are grossly out of keeping with their general intellectual ability, presumably some people could have one or two social skills greatly out of keeping with their general social skills. In my case, my ability to read non-verbal cues, especially free of the complexity of real life interactions, seems to be very superior to the rest of my social intelligence.



roseblood
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21 Oct 2012, 7:35 am

Mdyar wrote:
This is only part of the non-verbal or having"Theory of Mind," but is this within the full range of communicating? Say, holding a conversation and not taking it literally; but understanding the subtleties of it? For instance: Someone in a roundabout way is saying something to you; but his or her manners is to be indirect in a " nice" way.

Do you get that?


Sorry, I don't understand what you mean. Could you re-word that please? :)

Quote:
What parts of communication do you feel weak in?

My big problems are that I talk too much about things that I'm interested in, and I don't know how to respond to what people say without 'educating them'. Whatever anyone says, I analyse the topic and feed them information about it, as I love in-depth discussions, and if I try not to do that as much, it's really hard for me to think of what to say instead. I am better at small talk now, because I've made conscious notes of the kinds of things people say in that situation (which NTs apparently don't have to do, it seeps in unconsciously), but at some point I slip into 'giving a lecture', as my sister words it, or alternatively ask the other person one question after another (which I've seen other people do a lot, so I guess it's the amount or way I do it that's wrong).

I know that I do this more than normal only because my sister tells me so. She says that while many people do find me very interesting and like talking to me in small doses, because I have all this general knowledge and analytical attitude to share, that after a while it becomes too much and that anyone who had to spend too much time with me would get sick of it. My best friend has made a similar complaint, that I tend to give the same stock philosophical responses and advice whatever problem she tells me, and she is much more interested in the kinds of things I talk about than most people are anyway, except that she likes more normal conversations as well. Still, my sister has overheard our conversations and said that it sounds like I dominate even them, although it happens not to matter because this friend genuinely enjoys letting me speak, so she says. When she points out specific examples of my slipping into this habit, I often think, well what on Earth IS a normal response to that, then? I honestly cannot imagine what else I would be expected to say, and that's after taking note of how other people interact for years.



Last edited by roseblood on 21 Oct 2012, 8:04 am, edited 2 times in total.

roseblood
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21 Oct 2012, 7:53 am

FishStickNick wrote:
Your original post sounds a bit like me, though I didn't score quite as well as you did in the Mind in the Eyes test. It's why, even though I'm not great in most social circumstances, I don't feel comfortable saying for sure that I have AS. (Things like timing in conversation, talking at people, and carrying on with one topic are some of my major weak spots; facial expressions--when I look--and tone of voice aren't major problems for me.)

How well do you do in this test?
http://www.neurodiversity.com/nvc/index.html


Your problems are the same as mine, although I'm not sure what you mean by 'timing'. Again, my sister says I interrupt too much if that's what you mean, but true that is, how often and whether she is just hyper-critical, I have no idea because if other people thought it, they wouldn't say anything as we're not on such familiar terms. I also speak very quickly and as a result not very clearly, almost all the time. It's extremely difficult for me to slow down the pace of my speech.



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21 Oct 2012, 8:20 am

I don't actually have AS (self-nondiagnosis), but I have autistic traits, including in the social realm. But I don' t have difficulty with facial expression. In fact, I make a lot of use of non-verbals to make up for my weaknesses. So, I totally get that being good at facial expression doesn't mean you don't have AS.


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21 Oct 2012, 9:02 am

So you do really well in social situations. What then are your biggest problems? Is there any thing in life you can't figure out at all?

This is exactly the thread I have been looking for. I too am amazing in social situations, but I couldn't mail a letter or go to the bank and back if my life depended on it.

Though, I do sort of have formulas for social interaction. So it's not like my social skills are really all that natural. Everything that everyone says seems to make no sense at all, but I can't bring myself to stop wanting to meet people.

On a side note: you know that vampire movie "blade"? You're like that. A half man/half aspie with all the strengths of both but none of the weaknesses. Just don't become an asperger hunter. We could call you "blautistic" or "bladspergers". Ok well I'll keep working on the name, but my original question is still priority. I'm going to go watch blade.