Here is an excerpt from the free pdf booklet Asperger - An Intentional Life
Chapter 2 — How behavior became pathology
There are some physiological conditions that re-
sult in behavior problems such as with some tu-
mors or brain injury or malformation such as
with severe autism. However, these are not very
common and are usually so profound as to dis-
tinctly herald a causative pathology. However,
recently the range of what is considered
“normal” has been narrowed. There was a time
prior to mandatory public education when a di-
versity of behavior was more widely accepted.
Being a character, unique, or different was not
the anathema it is today.
By way of background, we can examine what
came to be called ADHD. Henry Ford perhaps
best demonstrated the efficiency of mass produc-
tion. This was greatly expanded during world
war II. So many people had come to accept the
mass production of war material such as tanks
and planes and the mass processing of soldiers
and sailors that the continuing mass processing
of children in school was never questioned.
However after the war the intensification of the
mass processing began to reveal problems. Not
every child could pass through the system with-
out difficulty. However, no one seemed to ques-
tion the assumption that uniform conveyor-like
processing was suitable for all children.
Charitable organizations like the Easter Seal so-
ciety had grown during the early 20th century
into massive financial fund raising machines.
They funneled many of their donations into
medical research to find cures for various child-
hood diseases. The vaccine for polio was greatly
aided through their funding. In 1963 the Easter
seal society held a meeting with the National In-
stitute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness
Public Health Service that resulted in a paper
published in 1966, DHEW publication (NIH 76-
349). This document was written by Sam D. Cle-
mets an associate professor in the University of
Arkansas Medical School. The paper was titled
“Minimal Brain Dysfunction in Children”. This
was the result of “task force one“ which was sup-
posed to provide a definitional emphasis from a
medical perspective. This report acknowledges
that there is no physiological causative condition.
However, as can be seen from the paper title,
there was every expectation of medical technol-
ogy finding one eventually.
Essentially, the assumption was that difficulty in
being processed in the school machine was in-
dicative of some defect or pathology (as yet un-
known) in the child that required intervention
and correction.
Since the 1960s medicine has accepted behavior itself a a condition to remedy chemically. Getting speed to help you focus can be useful, but you usually have to pay a price. I found I could work 80 hours a week, but would have to veg out on week ends to recovers. Finally age got to me and I discontinued the speed.
If one considers neurology as genetically heritable, one can see that there would be some variability in what was expressed. If one has a faster, more complex, or more sensitive neurology, one would expect it to manifest differently than what is typical. If you call this "autism", Aspergers, or ADHD, it may not matter much. Being targeted for being at the edge of a bell curve for not being "normal" is not usually a fun experience.
Kindness can help one listen longer to someone who is boring. We can all learn to stretch our skills and manage to be better at dealing with others. With age often comes better skills at coping. For example asking someone questions who is boring can help you have an interest as well as help them focus on being more concise.
14 May 2025, 5:59 pm
