Is this a good reprenstation of autism?

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I'm writing a story, and one of the main characters is pretty severely autistic, the other had aspergers( although at the point i'm at in writing, no-one knows this yet.).The autistic means well, but he has no sense of "danger", doesn't really speak, and what he does say is repeated from something else.

The aspie is like an aid who helps him, but he never tells anyone that he's an aspie, Because he's scared that he might get fired from his job and never be able to help the autistic(something he holds very dear). Because of this he is quite defensive, because he doesn't want to lose everything he has worked for,.

THey both end up meeting a girl who is non-autistic.The non-autistic is underage...and she falls in love with the aspie(who is an adult).

So throughout the book the main focus of the story is obliviousness, as the aspie is oblivious to the obvious feelings that the girl has for him.The autistic knows that the girl has feelings for his aid, while the aid only knows something weird is going on and that the girl is very..odd.The autistic ends up getting very frustrated with the fact that he has been trying to communicate the fact that this girl was weird, this girl was dangerous(not saying how), only to have the aspie raise an eyebrow and dismisses it as "weirdness".

This is the story so far, and i want to know if this is an okay portrayal of autism and aspergers.I do paragraphs from all three characters point of view, i made the autistic who can't speak the 'smartes' one out of the bunch, i also made him understand quite a few things better then most.

(not to offend the MR,or families and friends of the MR.I just want to blow away the stereotype that all autistics are MR.)

So i'm just wondering, is this an okay representation of autism and aspergers?

The aid (with AS ) is higher functioning, correct?

The autistic, as you mentioned, is severely effected. Then, how does the severely affected autistic realize that the girl has feelings for his aide? I don't think the autistic kid would pick up on this.

Yes, It does make sense that the aspie would not want anyone to know he's an aspie for fear of losing job caring for autistic. Yet, I don't know that this would be so uncommon to have an aspie as an aide to someone autistic that is more severely affected. So, the worrying about being found out might not work. Aspies might be drawn to this line of work, assisting autistic people more needier than they are.

I would like more of the interplay between aspie and autistic--hopefully this is emphasized. Is this a short story or novel?

hope this helps (I, too, am in the process of compleing a novel dealing with this subject matter)
equinn

Yes, he is.

THe person with autism is more severly affected in the sense that he is mute, doesn't like change, ETC.He doesn't understand a few emotions, but he knows about love.(insert bad childhood exprience here).The boss at where the aid works is kind of..old fashioned.

Should i have been more clear?

This does help.alot.thanks.

It's a novel.

I like your story idea! And, yes, you do have artistic (autistic?) license. You could even make the 'lower-functioning' autistic has a savant 'twist,' just for fun! I'm a (nearly/partly) mute HFA. Just remember that both characters, with the possible exception of the Aspie, lacks Theory of Mind so they cannot 'know' what another is thinking, if that helps.

Good luck, writer! And a NT romance angle....interesting.

Thank-you.

No, he doesn't know what exactly she is complwely feeling, he just knows that she is in love with the aid cause she can't flirt properly..so she didn't everything she seen in a movie...the same movie that the autistic saw. If that makes any sense.

He isn't completly 'low-functioning'.He;s just..lower functioning then the aspie.

It sounds like he is VERY low functioning. That IS interesting, but most normal girls don't have to rely on movies. ALSO, if he can't respond to more overt actions, she will suspect he is gay, dislikes her, or has another problem.

Good point.Maybe i should make her a bit of an aspie, too....

Last edited by demoluca on 19 Apr 2008, 8:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Depends how old the kid was and how much he'd seen.

Keep in mind, some of the trouble autistic people have with reading body language, is that we're too busy trying to do the following:

1. Understand language
2. Use language
3. Control our bodies in certain ways
4. Interacting in certain ways

Autistic people either unable or not doing one or more of those thing, whether temporarily or permanently, often can read body language. And they're starting to show that for instance autistic people with severe enough language problems do often notice body language. Some autistic people even report being so overwhelmed by their perception of other people's emotions that they shut down and have trouble interacting for that reason.

So it's not like autism has this linear thing where "higher functioning" == "less trouble reading body language", especially since "higher functioning" generally means the ability to do a few particular skills, out of many skills an autistic person can have, it doesn't necessarily even mean "less autism".

And some autistic people are very perceptive about these things, it's then usually the ability to act in certain ways on that perception that gets screwed up.

Certainly if I can't process language I can read body language, not all body language, not always the same body language other people read, but I do read it. Even Temple Grandin says the only reason she can't tell tone of voice is because she's too busy figuring out the words, she can hear one or the other, not both. A lot of this has to do with autistic people (or, involuntarily, our brains) having to choose which of the dense information we are flooded with, not a simple inability in certain areas.

The problem is, ironically enough, that people who are able to talk about it are more likely to be expending all their energy on language... which means it's only recently they've done enough research to start finding that in more language-impaired autistic people some people do read body language. (Which autistic people who've either gotten over a language impairment of that sort within a time they have significant memory of, or who intermittently have language impairment of that sort, have frequently been saying all along.)

So I find that very plausible. I've actually done this with friends who are autistic (first by accident, later on purpose): My friend analyzes the words (thus shutting out nonverbal cues), I perceive the nonverbal cues (either because language has shut down, or because I don't bother to turn language on, and this is the role I tend to fall into because receptive language has never been my strong point), and between the two of us we come up with more thorough conclusions than one of us alone. I don't pretend to read the same parts of non-verbal cues non-autistic people do, but I do read something (most of which is processed without intention), because non-autistic people have even called me highly perceptive and valued my perceptions of people (often these are the same people I have to rely on for the social cues that I do miss).

I'm not always particularly good at sensing romantic interest (on one memorable and mortifying occasion I dove under the table because a woman was making relentless eye contact with me, only to be told by a friend that she thought I was attractive), but it doesn't mean no other autistic people would be. And I am often (not always) the first person (if only non-autistic people are around anyway) to sense that someone's dangerous, those are instincts even many otherwise-oblivious autistic people hone by being targets our whole lives, plus most people who are in fact dangerous try to hide only the social cues that non-autistic people are likely to recognize, and leave in all the bits of unconscious body language that most people aren't likely to pick up on.

This story is OK, but I'd prefer it if the girl who was in love with the Aspie aid was old enough to have sex with him!