Why I don't believe in The Aspergers Theory

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Note that this post is not meant to insult or personally offend anyone. Yes, I can see this being a totally unpopular thread, and by unpopular I mean the type of unpopularity that condemned Jesus to the cross.

I firmly believe that Aspergers Syndrome is a theory, which like anything in science (e.g. human activity causing global warming) is subject to refutation. Not only is it a theory, but it is a highly flawed one at that. The reason why is because it fails to take into consideration many factors that explain why a person acts a certain way.

First of all, location plays a HUGE role in a person's personality development. If you grow up in a big and diverse city, where there are plenty of social events and resources galore, you're more likely to develop better social skills than people who grow up in a small suburban town where the average age is 55 and the most popular hang-out spot is the local Wal-Mart Supercenter. You have to wonder, why is it that the majority of people that are diagnosed with aspergers come from the UK? Maybe it's just a coincidence? I know that other than London, the UK doesn't have many urbanized areas and most of the towns/villages are close-knit social cliques that English society makes you feel obligated to be a part of. The weather also plays a major role. Living in Florida, I hated playing outdoor sports like soccer as a kid and I'm not too fond of them even today for one major reason - I don't like being out in the heat. If I lived just a tad bit further north, I probably wouldn't mind going outside and playing sports. The cold can also have this effect on people.

Most critical is that there is one common trend among people with aspergers: they have overbearing, overprotective, obsessive mothers and either a father that is never around or is abusive. Studies have shown that the root cause of all behavioral problems in children resides with how they are parented. If you have a mother who can't leave you alone even when you have to take a piss, how do you expect to develop into a full-grown, mature and independent adult? How can you expect to take risks, bend the rules a little bit, and just have fun in your youth when you have a father who will have the paddle/belt ready for you for even the slightest form of disobedience (e.g. breaking curfew).

Contrary to popular belief, social skills are just that - skills. People are not born with social and communication skills, let alone great ones. With that said, the reason why you are not as sociable as you would like to be could simply be because you just never learned how to be. If your mother was your best friend growing up, chances are you're not going to carry high social status. I know for me, the reason why I turned out to be as anti-social as I was throughout middle school and high school was because my mom intervened in my life too much. Even at school, she followed me around by taking a teaching/counseling position at almost every school I went to from 1st grade all the way up until my senior year of high school. If I got in the slightest bit of trouble in school, even if it was a detention for being late to class or making a D in a subject area on a PROGRESS REPORT, it was like walking the Green Mile. I was never told to "stand up for myself and fight" if I was being picked on; it was set in stone that if I ever got in any sort of trouble in school, especially fighting, suspension would not be the worst thing I would face. Therefore, I allowed myself to get picked on, bullied, and beat up. I took s**t just to please my parents. I was at the bottom of the totem pole as far as popularity went in school because I did not have the confidence to rise up and I developed a lot of lingering insecurities. I was even forced to take medication like clonidine because I was too loud and boisterous in my childhood and it was seen as a disruption. When I started getting depressed with all the s**t I had to put up with, I was forced to see therapists who prescribed me medication like prozac and zoloft. As you can see, this is all developmental. The Aspergers Theory however suggests that your personality and your social skills are predetermined at birth, even though there is no physical evidence of aspergers even existing - not even an MRI/Cat scan shows abnormalities for people who are diagnosed.

Technology also plays a major role in a decline in social skills. Why go out and socialize with others when you can play games on a computer? Computers are WAY more addictive than crack cocaine, and this became especially true with the advent of the Internet. Those who live by computers will die by computers. I personally grew up on computers and video games, and I had much rather wanted to play on them than go out and play soccer, do my homework, go to any dance social, etc. What was I thinking about in school constantly? I'm at this part of some game and I am having trouble beating the ice dragon, but I know if I do this, this and this, I will beat him when I get home! I can't even listen to people because I have all this s**t running through my head. The reason why I liked using computers was not because I had some sort of deep neurological connection with them; it was because I thought they were fun and games on the computer were fun, and you can enjoy them without dealing with adverse weather conditions assuming the A/C works.

While it may be more difficult to diagnose someone with aspergers nowadays, kids were being diagnosed left and right back in the early 90s. All psychologists did was run down a laundry list of the most common symptoms. If a child possessed at least half of these symptoms, he would be diagnosed. There would be no further study about conditions at home, no questioning of the parents in how they raised their child and any personal issues they have been dealing with, nothing. The aspergers diagnosis was seen as an easy way out for psychologists. If you had this thing called aspergers, you were made to believe that it was just something you had to live with and there was nothing you could do about it, which does nothing but obliterate self-confidence. It is a terrible thing to have to live with, especially when you're compared to the kids who are forced to take special education classes in school where they're treated like kindergärtners even though they're in high school. You're made to believe that you can never be as sociable or as vibrant or as powerful as your peers just because you have this fabricated condition that prevents you from doing so. No one should have to live that way, and I feel really bad for those who do because it gives them the "I failed before I even really tried" mentality. The brain is way too complex to be restrained, and the mind is capable of anything.

Overall, I believe that if aspergers was really a real condition, then a lot more people would be taking it more seriously. After all, people do need good communication and social skills to survive, Why aren't there major groups out there dedicated to helping specifically people with aspergers develop better social skills? Of course, there are plenty of groups out there that are dedicated to developing better communication skills including world-renowned groups like Toastmasters International. In fact, socializing and communication is one of the biggest things that many people try to help others in and there are so many resources out there, but not once is the aspergers label ever used. In fact, most people don't even know what aspergers is, even though the supposed symptoms are serious in nature. I just personally believe that aspergers tries to simplify something that simply can't be simplified - the human mind.

Nice theory and all, but most of the neuro imaging being done in the last few years has proven that autistic brains are very different from nts. What this exactly means is all up in the air, but it's a well supported theory.

You can't escape the fact that people with AS have real, provable sensory perception issues. This is what differentiates it from psychological disorders.

I don't think it is a theory but I do believe it is overdiagnosed.

If Asperger syndrome it's a theory, then so is bipolar disorder, as every persom with BD have varied symptoms and are much affected by upbringing and environment. For that matter, so is restless leg syndrome, in that it manifests in a different way from person to person.

But the problem with THE THEORY THAT'S IT'S A THEORY, it that it is not a theory to those experiencing it. It can only be called a theory by those who are looking in from the outside. Eveyone who actually HAS Asperger syndrome knows what it is, what the effects are and how it makes them feel. For those of us WITH AS, it's about as much a theory as gravity (which, by the way is a theory also. See the link below to learn the different between theory and law:)

http://thehappyscientist.com/science-ex ... ory-or-law

Now, what you CAN say about it is that it is not necessarily a disability or a disadvantage. For some, it is just a difference, which is just one of many differences that make people unique.

Oh, and one more thing:

I plan on writing a book on this very topic. It will be titled The Church of Aspergers.

Gravity's a theory, too. It's just well-supported and well-researched.

And please remember that most autistic people don't just have social problems. For me, social problems aren't particularly high on the list of the issues that I deal with. Quite a few autistics have problems with self-care, executive functioning, speech/language, sensory integration, and transitions, for example.

The strong association of autism with social problems is probably there because neurotypicals find social-related symptoms the easiest to detect. Practically everybody with autism has non-social problems, and a few with atypical autism have no purely-social problems at all. (A few with atypical autism have just social-only problems, of course, so it goes the other way too.)

The idea that "autistics are fine; it's society that's messed up" is kind of trivializing the very real struggles many of us have to deal with every day, even if we interact with nobody at all. Yes, society is messed up in the way it deals with us, and yes it has to be changed. But there is more to living with autism than blaming your problems on the world around you, because there are some compensatory skills you have to learn, some disabilities you have to accommodate for. I am all for telling society to stop rejecting us and start letting us participate, to stop discriminating and start valuing our contributions. That is absolutely critical to the future of autistics. However--the impairment itself will always be real, as long as it exists. In an autistic-friendly world, autism would no longer be a disability because we would have all the accommodations we would need--but we would still need those accommodations, because our impairments would still be there.

What people often mean when they say they don't want to be seen as disabled is that they want to be treated with respect, to be given equal opportunities to advance, to be able to use their skills, contribute to their world, and be seen as equals. If people were to treat disabled people that way, then there would be no need to avoid being seen as disabled.

Op has absolutely no idea what he/she is talking about, "I firmly believe aspergers is a theory". What?

I did not have an over-bearing, over-protective, obsessive mother at all. My parents were there physically (sometimes) but not psychologically (except for when my mother and later, my step-father were abusing me). I did grow up in small town but it (was) a very community centered area also (everyone knew each other and there was always some sort of "get together"). I did not have cable, internet, etc. until I was an adolescent (and I mainly only used them during the dark hours when everyone else was asleep). Despite all of this, I still have the majority of the symptoms of AS. Out of all the people I grew up around/with, I am the only one that is (obviously) abnormal (even my siblings are normal).

Social skills might be skills but it is undeniable that some people (the vast majority of neurotypicals) have a natural predisposition to them; I (and many other non-neurotypicals) do not. Non-neurotypicals are the minority (by a lot) and it is not uncommon for the minority to be overlooked, ignored, etc. by the majority. I do think that Asperger's Syndrome is "over-diagnosed" in some areas (but it's also "under-diagnosed" in areas that think like you do), however, there is still only a small percentage of people (world-wide) who have it. It tends to, unfortunately, be "human nature" for the majority to overshadow the minority. Just because it's not known by most people doesn't mean it's not real.