Why so many people think Asperger/ADHD person are dump?

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pawelk1986
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02 Aug 2016, 6:36 am

Einstein in his school years was considered dump, i recently read book about Jacob Barnett who had autism and when he was child no one believed that he can achieve anything in live.

In other hand we in Poland had Painter Nikifor Krynicki, in his time he was respected painter but deemed imbecile because his eccentricity, in today world he would probably be diagnosed for ASD :mrgreen:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikifor

I recently read that professional skater Tony Hawk had ADHD have problems in school, but also he had IQ 144 and skateboarding that make him fame was in his case actually form of therapy that help with his hyperactivity.

Now more and more psychologist coining term of Neurodiversity as common name for Autism, ADHD, bi-polarity and so on.

I wonder why so many people see neurodivergent people as someone worse, while many aspies and ADHD are smarter than average population :D



Ichinin
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02 Aug 2016, 6:45 am

Probably because they watch movies like Forrest Gump, Rainman, Snowflake and assume that those movies are representative of Autistics. Says more about neurotypicals than us.

I was so bored by everything in school, only thing i liked was electronics (high school), most people said that i would never amount to anything, and i believed them. But now i know better. My IQ is higher than the average joe and i'm able to do more complex things than at least 95% of the population.

I can visualize solutions to problems in my head and then just sit down and write the code for it. I am my own IT-department i despise people who site with word all day and write forever without accomplishing anything and i'm a hands-on individual.

This would be impossible without my diagnosis.


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kraftiekortie
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02 Aug 2016, 6:55 am

Forrest Gump would never have been autistic, by anybody's definition.

Rainman: of course he was considered a "high-functioning" autistic person because he could speak.

I don't think Gump would even be considered "ret*d." He would probably be called "slow," or "dull-witted," by those who seek to judge.

Yes, he was naïve about certain things. But he damned well saved all those people in Vietnam!



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02 Aug 2016, 8:12 am

pawelk1986 wrote:
Why so many people think Asperger/ADHD person are dump?
Maybe because many Aspies seem to open every conversation by asking "Why?".

Or maybe because many Aspies lack a firm command of the English language, and repeatedly make the same mistakes in grammar, punctuation, and/or spelling.

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catunderfoot
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02 Aug 2016, 8:23 am

I have found that many people have a really hard time understanding that there are multiple perspectives/experiences of the world that other people can have. If someone cannot describe their experience in words, NTs often have a really hard time with it. They don't see all the other ways of communicating because they don't generally NEED to.

I tend to relate this issue to animals, as well, because people often do the same thing to animals they do with ND folk. They can't seem to gauge their intelligence because they don't bother to learn the specific way that particular creature communicates. They're still measuring from THEIR OWN perspective. So they think it's stupid because it has trouble communicating with them in THEIR preferred, human way. Animal behavior/Communication is a special interest of mine, and I can't tell you the number of articles I've read about it by people and was blown away by how they missed obvious communications.



Ichinin
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02 Aug 2016, 9:08 am

kraftiekortie wrote:
Forrest Gump would never have been autistic, by anybody's definition.

Rainman: of course he was considered a "high-functioning" autistic person because he could speak.

I don't think Gump would even be considered "ret*d." He would probably be called "slow," or "dull-witted," by those who seek to judge.

Yes, he was naïve about certain things. But he damned well saved all those people in Vietnam!


Tell that to the neurotypical part of the population. All those things you just posted are totally unknown amongst them.



Fnord wrote:
pawelk1986 wrote:
Why so many people think Asperger/ADHD person are dump?
Or maybe because many Aspies lack a firm command of the English language, and repeatedly make the same mistakes in grammar, punctuation, and/or spelling.


You do know what hyperlexic means and what it imply? When i took my Asperger test they asked me a lot what complex words meant, i asked why and it was to identify hyperlexia.


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johnnyh
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02 Aug 2016, 10:22 am

They think we are because of the executive dysfunction, poor generalization, inability to gather information from context, inability to perform actions subconsciously with ease, and tendency to focus on details instead of the bigger picture. All this among other impairments such as memory and understanding cause and effect. On the other hand we often have a lot more depth and consistency in our beliefs than NTs, so why not have the good and none of the bad?


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02 Aug 2016, 10:55 am

Because we act different and function different so people assume we won't be successful. But kids evolve, kids grow up, grow out of their behavior and problems or learn to deal with them and learn to control it. But I have noticed anyone with a disability that has succeeded in life, people make a big deal about it than they would about anyone without a disability.

Forest Gump would be considered normal by today's standards, he is just slow and not very bright. People with below average IQ but not quite intellectually impaired are considered normal. That makes no sense in my mind because that also impacts their life and holds them back and makes it harder for them to function in life because they have to work harder and they can still run into roadblocks due to their low intelligence. It also affects their judgment too and figuring stuff out and understanding so how would that help with employment? My husband went to school with someone who was slow and you could tell he wasn't very smart by the way he talked and acted and today he has to have someone with him whenever he goes out in public now. My husband happened to run into him on the bus months back. So how is this not a disability? Many of them also quit school because they can't keep up and schools are not required to accommodate them because they are considered normal so therefore they do not qualify for special ed. But when you look at Forest, you see what he has done so it would make you think there is no way slow learners are disabled and they can live a normal life like anyone else and he lives on his own and raises a child on his own. I would consider Forest a high functioning slow learner. :wink:


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02 Aug 2016, 11:06 am

When I was a child I was called things like "bright", "intelligent", and "talented" by some people. But they were wrong. I AM dumb and and untalented and all that praise just gave me delusions about being "special". I think most people on the spectrum are of above average intelligence, but I'm not. :(



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02 Aug 2016, 11:18 am

Of course, many NTs have the unfortunate habit of thinking we all just stepped off a conveyor belt after being mass-produced in a factory. It's called a *spectrum* disorder, we're all different! If I have enough intelligence to see that then anyone should, because I'm lucky I even know how to tie my own shoes. :doh:



Joe90
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02 Aug 2016, 11:40 am

It's 'dumb' not 'dump'.


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pawelk1986
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02 Aug 2016, 12:49 pm

Joe90 wrote:
It's 'dumb' not 'dump'.


Excuse me, apparently I'm dump ;)



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02 Aug 2016, 12:58 pm

Considering how bad I am with relationships, I'd say I'm "dump" material. :lol:



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02 Aug 2016, 3:17 pm

kraftiekortie wrote:
Rainman: of course he was considered a "high-functioning" autistic person because he could speak.

The real life person he was based on wasn't actually autistic, many people don't know\appreciate that.

And we can't say if Einstein was either. You can't arbitrarily diagnose people postmortem to prove a point.



pawelk1986
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02 Aug 2016, 5:08 pm

Chichikov wrote:
kraftiekortie wrote:
Rainman: of course he was considered a "high-functioning" autistic person because he could speak.

The real life person he was based on wasn't actually autistic, many people don't know\appreciate that.

And we can't say if Einstein was either. You can't arbitrarily diagnose people postmortem to prove a point.


Why not, we can diagnose historical figures using their writing and so one, but it's may not 100% accurate



kraftiekortie
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02 Aug 2016, 6:16 pm

Yep....it turned out that the "real Rainman" wasn't autistic at all. He had a severely atrophied corpus callosum (if I'm not mistaken). He had a much more prodigious memory than many people who are considered to have a prodigious memory.

He had autistic features. Even so, he an appreciation for socializing with people, and a bit of sense of humor, too.