Tony Attwood's different autistic people

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Hi, I'm new here (ish). I have been lurking for a few months. I am in the queue to discover if I have autism or not; I believe I do and so does my fiancée. Before university I had never considered myself to be autistic just 'different' - weird , nerdy - whatever. I used to be hit at school for 'swallowing a dictionary', teachers reports state that I used mature language - I like routines and do things the same way in order to feel safe (especially; walking the same way, washing dishes the same way, closing certain doors on an evening).

I am struggling to find information that pertains to Aspergers for the specific type of autistic person I believe I am - Dr Tony Attwood describes an autistic child who likes to socialise with people (but isn't too good at it) - who likes to argue with people (Asperger's himself said something along the lines of do not argue with these children) and they are usually convinced to study to become a 'defence attorney'. This particular snippet in Tony Attwood's 'Aspergers Syndrome' book really describes me to a T.

Unlike books from Temple Grandin, which are wonderful but appear to really only consider things from her point of view (a visualiser) or Robison, whom, also likes to visualise and 'make things' - I am a verbal thinker and the more reflection I do, the more I realise that sometimes I say things out loud (to think them through) - often this is what causes me to have arguments with people. I must say that to me arguments are fun and enjoyable but nevertheless, I don't want to have them all the time with people and people just know me as the argumentative one. People literally call me to 'push my buttons' to have arguments with me about trivial things (video games or not so trivial - politics).

I am fairly proscribed in my interests, I like technology, psychology - philosophy and have a law degree. I'm wondering if there are any other people here that 'relate' to this almost footnote kind of autistic person described by Tony Attwood and if so, would like to learn other people's perspectives.

Is it normal to not be able to visualise things AT ALL?

Many thanks

Sogen.

"Is it normal to not be able to visualise things AT ALL? "

Maybe not "normal," but is is certainly something that is now recognised as a condition. I have it too; it is called aphantasia. I have absolutely no mental imagery, and have no conception of what it would be like to be able to visualise things in my mind. All of my thought processes are conducted by means of having a spoken "internal conversation" with myself. Interestingly, I had no idea anyone else was any different until a few years ago when I first heard about aphantasia. Until then, if I ever gave it any thought at all, I just assumed that people were wildly exaggerating, and being purely figurative, when they spoke of "seeing things in their mind's eye."

Many of the other things you mention apply to me also. For example, even as a child I had a reputation for remorselessly pursuing an argument until everybody else was worn down and couldn't take it any more...

Welcome to WP Segen

Good luck in finding a certain type of person on the spectrum.

If you stick around and join in you will learn that we are all different but have some similarities in certain areas.

The best thing I've read describing someone with autism is this.

“If you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism,”

Diagnosing autism accurately is expensive because everyone on the spectrum is different, so you need to spend a lot of time categorizing that individuals abilities and disabilities. You can't stop halfway through and have any idea what the other half is going to test out. You need to test it all!

It is highly unlikely that you will find another autistic person that matches you.

Thank you for the welcome!

Yes, I have read that all autistic people are different - it just seems that they broadly fit into some categories of thinking and I have been unable to find much about people without the visual abilities.

Thank you for providing me with this terminology, I will look into it and see if that is what is going on with me. The internal dialogue you mention is exactly how I process information (almost like talking to myself, which I also do, if and when I feel able to (no one else around or just people really close to me).

https://network.autism.org.uk/good-prac ... sia-autism

Some autistics have an entirely different way of perception and thinking that is hard to describe.
https://network.autism.org.uk/good-prac ... sia-autism

I can process symbols either by listening or visually. It isn't really thinking in pictures, thought I can do that too. I am also very good at working with numbers.

Another aphantasic here too. I also can't imagine smells,sounds, taste and touch.

Useless Trivia That I Know: Penn Jillette ( Penn & Teller ) has aphantasia

Welcome to Wrong Planet.

If you think about it, many of the skills that mankind has is the ability to think in terms of symbols. The spoken language is the ability to understand audible signals. The written language uses another set of symbols. So does mathematics. The letters of the alphabet and the numbers are symbols.

From my perspective, low level autistics have not made the leap to understand these symbols whereas high functioning autistics (Aspies) have. Jason Lu wrote a book called "Eikona Bridge" in which he describes low/medium level autistics as Video thinkers and Picture thinkers. And I think he is on the right track. If you think about it, when you are an infant, all you see is images passing in front of you [video] and strange sounds that people make. Eventually you can make the transition by stopping the video, by freeze framing it, to seeing the symbology in static images pictures (such as Temple Grandin). And finally you make the transition to understanding the symbols (letters, numbers, words, mathematics). So most individuals in the world (HFA and NeuroTypicals (NTs) are Symbol thinkers.

Since you are unsure if you have autistic/Asperger traits, you might begin your search by taking an on-line test. This will not give you an official diagnosis but it will come close. Here is a link:
Take the online Asperger’s Test
There are others free tests available on the Internet.

Most NTs find it useful to graph measurement data when conducting experiments, while I can spot patterns just from the numbers.

Welcome to Wrong Planet.

Your description matches a fair bit of my expression of autism. I'm also visually aphantasic (less so in other senses), and certainly a "word thinker". Words fascinate me to a degree which many people seem to find rather odd (if you sit in front of a poster, I cannot listen to you until I have read the words on the poster.) The "walking dictionary/thesaurus" description has been used of me since an early age, and I have good reason to suspect that I was probably a hyperlexic child (and possibly a hyperlexic adult, though the life-long effects seem not to have been studied.)

Arguments? Yes, I like those - not fights, not conflict, not petty point-scoring - arguments; debates. I cannot stand dogma nor apparently arbitrary rules which are "just because"; I have a deep need for justifications, and I struggle to keep my mouth shut if the justifications appear flawed to me, even when experience tells me that it's probably not in my best interests. I get frustrated when my "thinking aloud" is taken to be my firm opinion rather than part of the process of arriving at one, or when my disinterested observations are mistaken for passing judgement (it doesn't help that I can't always tell when my mouth is echoing my "inner voice".)

I have had some great conversations about all of these things with people on Wrong Planet. Only a small sub-set of them, perhaps, and each sharing maybe only a sub-set of my traits. But they are here, and it has helped me enormously to have found them. I hope you find the same.

Best wishes.

Thank you for all the helpful resources and kind words. I have taken the test pasted and my result is as follows;

Thank you for taking the AQ Test. Here are your AQ Test results:

Your AQ Test Score is: 42
The official criterion for Asperger’s Syndrome is an AQ score greater than 32.

According to statistical analysis, 26 – 31 Is a borderline score.

86% of people with a score of 26-31 can be correctly classified as having Asperger’s Syndrome.

I have also previously taken the RAADS-R test and my result was 157 (neurodiverse). In my initial assessment meeting I scored 10/10 on the threshold test so have to wait the two years in the queue (in my area) for the diagnosis. Fortunately we have a good health care system so I won't have to pay for the tests myself - just wait the two year period.

I know that some people are happy with a self diagnosis but I don't feel comfortable with that personally though am happy to look at any and all resources available.

It's cool to see that other people consider themselves verbal thinkers too - I didn't really understand that people can see in pictures until recently when I asked friends / family about it. My inability to visualise what other people are talking about causes some frustration and has gotten me into some issues in previous employment when I informed to a manager 'what you just said does not make any sense'. Then I was told to start thinking 'laterally'. I didn't last so long in that employment and issues with crashing in and out of jobs has been one big factor in pursuing diagnosis. I get bored really easily after around six months. I find it less than ideal because I sit thinking how I don't wanna be doing (x) for the rest of my life and that causes me to feel trapped.

Thanks again for all your kind words - I was apprehensive about actually posting.

I'd suggest identifying stress in your life and seeing if anything can be done.

For instance, I like going to movies like Endgame but they can be too loud. I enjoy movies much more if I wear high fidelity earplugs to cut the volume down.

I have a traditional but silent wall clock in my office.

This little pdf booklet (free) may give an insight to Aspergers;

http://christianpioneer.com/blogarchiev ... e_2017.pdf

Thank you for this PDF - it is really quite interesting and useful. As you are called Timf and it is written by Tim I assume you're the author? great work! I have almost finished it.

Thanks a lot

I regard all "types" as rather arbitrary boundaries. Sometimes I compare the brain to something like a big sound mixing board. If a lot of the sliders are against their stops, someone is non-verbal, but if only a few are, we can re-wire around them to some extent, and may have some keen special effects. However, the variety among the selection of which are "off" is enormous.
I have no trouble seeing you as a fellow aspie, even though the last time I designed a processing facility, I had to do it all mentally because I was driving. I usually sketch a bit, and may leave out extraneous details to the point of being unidentifiable later. The drawings boost my short-term memory, and may highlight problems.