Doctors are 'failing to spot Asperger in girls'

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No, but people might object to it being referred to as a dysfunction.

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And at the moment the "cognitive organisation of reality" that it encourages/facilitates is like that surrounding homosexuality when it was deemed, ( by virtually all scientists ), to be a pathology. Or that of race, when people with its biological markers were deemed to be less capable than whites.

"Efficient cognitive organisation of reality" is a subjective matter. Whites thought they had it well organised when they saw black people as inferior beings, unable to cope with responsibility, suffering from poor executive function, both over-sensitive/over-emotional like women and children and unfeeling like "brute" animals, etc.

And black people are more susceptible to certain illnesses than white people. Should they be labelled as dysfunctional in consequence? Obviously skin colour is a disadvantage in many societies. It attracts abuse and discrimination, exclusion, disdain, and hatred. Does the situation in which so many black people still find themselves mean that they are dysfunctional?

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Surely you do not honestly believe that I was asking if you knew what the word "spectrum" most commonly means? After all what would that actually have to do with anything?

The Autism Spectrum is simply an organizational concept that means what it is defined as meaning. And frankly the fact that you seem to think this is relevant again leads me to wonder what you think the "Autism spectrum" is. It is simply an organizational "tool". Do you also argue with filing cabinets?

To be clear, the "Autism Spectrum" is simply a concept for categorizing/organizing. It simply associates certain conditions on the basis of certain features of those conditions.

I have no idea why you think proving anything about this means of categorizing, proves anything about AS being something or other about personality. After all if you proved "rodent" was a flawed concept, you would probably not expect to somehow prove being a rat is some kind of personality thing, or that rats are not real anyway, or they are just a result of cultural trends in not accepting ratism.

I am rather bemused that you seem to think the words in the name prove anything about the validity of an organizational concept, and am not at all clear as to what your intended point is in arguing that the Autism Spectrum is a flawed concept. Assume it is. Then what?


That would be entirely circumstantial I am sure. I doubt someone being propelled by its force, at a rate of 100kms per hour, on a collision course with a relatively immovable object, will be singing its praises, although it might be more kindly looked on by someone who has their feet on the ground.

Nonsense. If the Autism Spectrum notion were suddenly rejected, that would not make AS no longer a diagnosis. Unless your problem is being associated with people with Kanner type Autism, in which case I cannot help you.


Of course, it is also conventional, not to mention inevitable for humans. Do you and ManErg understand that the "Autism Spectrum" simply incorporates information from the diagnostic criteria and no matter how much mud is slung at it, the diagnoses themselves remain untouched?

I am confused as to why either of you appear to believe anything of substance about the criteria can be proven by criticizing an organizational concept that relies on the criteria. Only if the diagnostic criteria relied on the spectrum concept could anything about the criteria be proven by this route, but they do not, so I am mystified as to quite what the point is supposed to be.


If in your view, being short-sighted means someone should be labeled dysfunctional, then by all means any person who is ill would qualify for the label according to your values. It is entirely up to you and your values whether you choose to view those who are experiencing biological dysfunction as being best labeled as dysfunctional in consequence.

You say that it is "simply" x, y, and z, several times there, ( you seem to feel that the "simplicity" of the process needs stressing, for some reason; methinks you do proclaim its "simplicity" too much ), as if the way in which information/qualities are organised was something "transparent", necessarily "impartial".

It is not. "Organisational concepts" are always loaded with value judgements. The way in which society chooses to label/categorise people, and behaviours, is not simply a process of putting them into already-existing pigeonholes. It is creating the pigeonholes in the first place.

There are many ways of cataloguing things. And how it is done varies from culture to culture, reflecting in each case the mostly unconscious and/or denied biases and prejudices of that culture. And cataloguing extreme introverts as Aspergers reflects how inimical society has become towards introverts and/or the highly sensitive.
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Last edited by ouinon on 19 May 2009, 8:45 am, edited 3 times in total.

So when the impairments become zero, do we have an NT?

Can one change ones place on the spectrum as one develops over time? Perhaps when I was diagnosed as AS, I actually *was* AS at that time, but have since drifted away into a being merely an 'introverted NT'?

It could be just as useful to have a single "social functioning" spectrum, with exreme autism at one end and extreme NT at the other.

One can move around on the Introversion/Extraversion spectrum.

Study has shown that chronic/prolonged stress can cause an introvert to become more so, until have had enough peace etc in which to recover so that the brain can reset its activity levels at rest. And people may be extravert for quite a long time, and then become introvert, as a result of stress, if their brain-activity levels were originally only just within the levels associated with the extravert 75% of the population .

A great many people on WP describe variations in their degree of so called AS problems through their lives.

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You said "it is a fact". That is very different from the reality of it being, as you're now saying, a theoretical construct. It is clearly not a fact in the sense that "the earth goes round the sun" is a fact. It may be a fact in the sense that "Ford make the best cars" is a fact.

And as a spectrum is a variation in a SINGLE SET OF ATTRIBUTES, my opinion is that the autistic spectrum does NOT facilitate an efficient etc etc etc

Case in point, a scenario I've seen on forums hundreds of times:

Person A: Autism/Aspergers doesn't need to be cured. It's natural neuro-diversity, not a neuro-disorder

Person B: How Dare You!! ! If you'd spent X years coping with a child that screamed all night, rarely spoke, was violent, continually runs off when we go out, can't read, can't write, can't perform the most basic self-care, self-harms etc etc etc then you'd damn well want a cure NOW!! !! !

Are they talking the same ball park let alone the same thing, here? Personally, I feel like a total fake when comparing the 'impairments' that led me to be diagnosed as AS to the 'impairments' in child B above. I have more in common with a random NT. This is not to denigrate either position, just to show how when the definition of a spectrum becomes too broad, it is no longer of practical use to anybody.

The "efficiency" of ones "organization of reality" is very subjective, surely? I can see a broad spectrum of even the slightest social impairment being very convenient for those in the profession who need the customers, have books to write, need funds for research. Yet it is totally useless and perhaps damaging for the rest of us.

I do not feel the simplicity of the "process" needs stressing. I am not entirely certain which process you mean, but I would unsurprised if it were something other than simple. If it makes you happy, replace every second occurrence of the word "simple" in the phrase with "mere" for added variety.

In this case the organizing principal is rather transparent (in that it is clearly stated). In what way is it "partial"? Partial to what exactly?
What would you have us do? Stop thinking?
Humans cannot think without organizational concepts, associations, dissassociations, classifications and categorizations. The flaws you describe are common to the necessities of our thinking and cognition. I am uncertain what you think you are proving about AS in particular by pointing out that the mode of human cognition does not produce perfect results. I think this is probably already widely known and widely accepted.


Ah, a strawman. Because of course the criteria for AS does not require even mild introversion; many people much more introverted than I am would never and have never met the criteria, but I do. AS is not introversion, and introversion is not AS.

I asserted that it is a fact that both Autism and Aspergers Syndrome are on the Autistic Spectrum.
There is no contradiction in asserting that it is a fact that the Autistic Spectrum is a human construct that organizes information by associating certain conditions as being on a spectrum, two of which are Kanner type Autism and Asperger Syndrome. Such as assertion is not self-contrary or self-contradictory at all.

No, it is a fact in the sense that a President of the United States of America is Commander in Chief is fact.

You are welcome to your opinion on that, but what I do not understand is in what way you believe any of this is relevant to quite whatever it is you are actually arguing, which is less clear than mud at this point.

Who knows. My nephew has a Kanner diagnosis, and contrary to the most hyperbolic and hysterical stereotypes about those with Kanner, he does not scream all night, he often speaks (although is difficult to understand and needs an assistant at school to help him communicate), is not particularly violent (no more so than the other boys his age, much less than many actually), does keep his parents fit watching after him but can usually be relied on to stay in very clearly communicated physical boundaries, can read and right, and although he does have challenges with self-care, so do I, he does not self-harm any worse than I have known people with AS to.

The fact is, many who meet the Kanner diagnosis are difficult to distinguish from those meeting the AS diagnosis, whereas for others the difference is much more marked. Notably a person I know has had their AS diagnosis questioned in their early 20's, with suspicions that HFA might be more appropriate. Clearly the difference is not that marked when it becomes difficult to be certain which DX fits in someone who is in their 20s.

My nephew might have more in common with a random NT than the child in example B. What he would share would be the triad of impairments that the "Autism spectrum" refers to. He has few of the behaviors you listed, and in fact the case described is extreme and not as common among Kanner type Autistic people as some fund raising or politically motivated persons might wish everyone to believe.

Unfortunately it is all too easy for people to grab concepts they do not properly understand and start pushing their bandwagon with it. It is also common for people to misrepresent what they do understand to add some propulsion to their bandwagon. In most instances you describe, in my observation, both parties are aware of the extreme manifestations of Kanner Autism, and most are aware that even with Kanner type Autism there is significant variation between individuals and sometimes very unpredictable variation within a single individual, and they are usually both aware that AS is not identical to the most extreme instances of Kanner Autism.

In most such instances the two are not confused about each other's positions, they are simply more interested in asserting their own.
Within limits, subjectively would be a factor, but so what? Assume that the spectrum is not the most efficient way of organizing and communicating about the relevant information. Explain what this would mean for your argument regarding AS and personality and quite whatever about these two things it is that you are arguing.


I cannot see the point personally since any of these books, any of this research, and any of these customers could have as easily been generated using the individual diagnostic categories that are included in the spectrum.

Last edited by pandd on 19 May 2009, 10:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

In the same way that AS is not autism and autism is not AS?

To which you replied for me by describing the process to which I had already referred:

This very same process has both justified, and been responsible for, abuse, discrimination, many wars/bloody conflicts ( aswell as great achievements ). It is obviously not "simple", and referring to it as such is disingenuous. Describing the concept of the Autism Spectrum as "simply" a cognitive tool is denying a hundred years or more of study into how bias creeps into such "tools"/systems, and how these systems are used to exploit/oppress and exclude.


You're absolutely right. That is the whole point. Aspergers is a dysfunction/disorder, something pathological, whereas introversion is not, and yet there is a massive correlation between introversion and AS. The results have been repeatedly the same, ( the Myers-Briggs Jung Personality test having been reposted and reposted at least half a dozen times in the last year ) the vast majority of WP members fall into the category "introvert".

The label Aspergers declares that you are "dysfunctional"; the label "introversion" does not.

Whether the bias is the result of society being increasingly geared to extraverts, intolerable for more and more introverts, putting them under stress which increases their degree of introversion to the point of disability, or whether it is the attitude of society that it is the people suffering who are the problem rather than society, or whether it is a mixture of both, the classification reflects deep partiality for the extravert. Something which has not always been the case.

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No. In the same way that eating is not talking and talking is not eating.

Thinking? Well I certainly would not consider that to be a simple process at all. Quite the contrary, it seems rather a complex process.

Naughty thinking!
Arguably though it is also entailed in coming up with solutions to curb abuse and discrimination, can be a useful thing in peace negotiations and creating solutions for conflict. Again I ask what you would have us do? Not think? I doubt I could comply if I wanted to.
I did not refer to thinking as simple though.

No it is not denying anything of the kind; it is not even commenting on such matters.


In and of itself, such a correlation is rather meaningless. We need more than mere correlation to make sense of the relationship between two things.


I have no idea why you think this is actually a reliable indicator. Many respondents may have been undiagnosed people who actually are mistaken in believing they have AS. Most significantly, there is no way of determining the extent or nature of the selection bias that occurs when respondents self-select to be respondents based on how interested they are in responding. For all we can know, there is a direct correlation between introversion and taking Myers-Briggs Jung personality tests, and/or answering questions about it. I cannot understand why anyone would take such a poll with anything but a grain of sale.

It would not surprise me at all if introversion were more prevalent among those with AS than among those without AS, but I certainly would not rely on polls of this nature in forming an opinion either way about anything.


Asperger Syndrome refers to dysfunction in particular domains of functioning, if in your view a person experiencing dysfunction in one or more domains of functioning is a dysfunctional person or dysfunctional (to the point of their personhood being subsumed) that's not something I can do anything about. It's up to you if you choose to valuate people on the basis of whether or not they experience perfect functioning in every domain of functioning. The world's population of "non dysfunctionals" must be pretty darn small according to such a valuating system.

Got tired of strawmen and decided to move onto false dilemma for a change of pace?

Because of course if it were that introverts were being distressed to the point of disability and that is what AS is, then no extrovert would have AS, and everyone with AS would necessarily be more introverted than everyone without AS, so it cannot be that.

Of course the same would be true if it were just society's attitude to introverts. So we can be quite sure that neither of these alternatives you posit as though they were the only possibilities are even plausible possibilities, much less the only possibilities.

No, the "process of categorising" that you described four times in your earlier post as "simple".


Uh no! Not "thinking" in general, but the complex process of categorising ( that you referred to ) which has created and supported some of the most discriminatory systems that have ever been invented, and which the Autism Spectrum is an example of. You know, the process which you described as "simple".


No, you referred several times to the process of categorisation/cognitive organisation involved in the invention of the Autism Spectrum as "simple", ( eg. "simply a cognitive tool" ).


Your claim that the process of categorisation on which the Autism Spectrum is founded is "simple", ( when it has been established that the process of categorisation is far from simple, is inevitably, or at least very likely to be, biased, and has justified much abuse/exclusion etc throughout history ) either suggests that you know nothing of such analysis, or are wilfully ignoring it.

You seem to perceive, or at the very least to present, the act of categorisation involved in the concepts of AS and the Autism Spectrum as something "simple", when it is not. Is this because you are in fact completely ignorant of the now well established fact that these systems are never simple, almost always biased in some way? Or is it because you are afraid to see the confusion and ambiguity and outright bias involved in the concept?

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Actually I did not describe the process of categorizing as simple either. Why ever would I describe that as simple? The fact is I did not describe any process as being simple.

cannot be separated from thinking as thinking relies on association and disassociation, in other words categorization.
I have never described the process as simple ounion. If your argument is "the spectrum concept" is categorizing and there are examples of categorizing being bad therefore the "spectrum concept" is bad, I can only point out that you are human, some humans are bad, you are not necessarily so.

I did not assert or imply that any process is simple. Certainly I described that the spectrum concept being simply a tool, but this is quite different from claiming it is a simple tool. My computer is simply a tool, but it is not a simple tool in my view.

I have not made such a claim though.
No, although it does appear that you may perhaps have mistakenly inferred as much.



I have no idea why you would so woefully misunderstand such a common "turn of phrase" in order to perceive an appearance that I had asserted, implied, believed or intended others to believe that any cognitive process (including but not limited to categorization) is simple. That's a question only you can answer I guess.

I have no idea quite what you think it would prove if the process was described as simple that would not be provable if it were complex, that is actually relevant to missed diagnosis/misdiagnosis of females characterized by AS, or to AS being something or other to do with personality or introversion, or something......

In just one post you used the word "simply" five times to describe the AS/Autism Spectrum. The Autism Spectrum is not "simply" anything. It is far from simple.

It is a highly complex social construct, based on some scientific observation and an awful lot of value judgements; about what makes a person dysfunctional/disordered; about what constitutes "impairment"; about what people "should" be like to be fully functioning humans; about the role which society can be expected to play in ensuring tolerable/enabling environments for its citizens; about the kind of environment which is "good" for humans; about how "sensitive" people are allowed to be; about the kind of social networks and contacts people should be able to deal with; about the value of the many activities in society involving large groups, eg. the ubiquitous day-long attendance in schools, teamwork in offices, etc etc etc.

It is very likely that many tens/hundreds of thousands of people are being labelled dysfunctional/disordered mainly because modern society has not only become an extremely inhospitable/hostile environment for many people, but also because society is not prepared to make the adjustments/sacrifices/changes which would be necessary to re-enable these people, and prefers to make it their problem by applying medical labels to them.

I am not suggesting that this is the case for everybody currently diagnosed as AS/Autist, just that it may well be for the majority, thousands, of those currently diagnosed as AS/HFA/PDD, and that this "simple" cognitive "tool" is justifying systematic discrimination under the institutional "cover" of medicalisation, all the more powerful precisely for being so "vague", ( and which is also very profitable for pharmaceutical industries and health professionals ).

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