what would be a good way to ...

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What would be a good way to let neurotypicals experience what it's like to have Asperger's?

Move to a completely different culture...and be forced to learn how to survive there.


That's most accurate simulation I can imagine.

I like this one actually.

One more thing though. You aren't allowed to learn the language.

"You aren't allowed to learn the language" -- how will the simulation-runners prevent learning it?

Right. You can't, which proves yet again:

There is no possible way for an NT to ever experience and totally understand what it's like.

Going to a strange land and never being able to understand the language is the closest approximation I can think of to the real thing. Unfortunately, yes, it's impossible to synthesize. If they've ever been to a foreign country though, where they couldn't understand the language, they should be able to get a slight idea of it. And that is possible! Of course the real thing is far more complicated than that.

Have them raised by chimps, with no contact with humans. Be sure the chimps think of humans as defective chimpanzees, too. Remember, someone who moves to another culture knows their own culture, has had time to learn it. We may be aliens, but we've also never known any place else. Earth is the only home we've ever known, and it's still as alien to us as a foreign country. That's something you can't capture in someone who has ever belonged, has ever had the chance to learn how to deal with their own mind. There are formative experiences you can't replicate, experiences you shouldn't replicate. You could maybe teach them what it's like to be an Aspie, but far more important is what it's like to have been an Aspie. I can count on one hand the number of days during which I haven't felt like an unwelcome alien; having one day of feeling that way will never capture the way it feels to have grown up that way.

But NTs could be told, could have it explained to them. I think they could grasp it on an intellectual level. Just tell them. Add in visceral details. Vignettes. (I'm a writer. I have a lot of faith in the ability of a good story to explain an experience you'll never have.)

If you did want them to move to another culture, with another language, it would be fair for it to be a language where people communicated via smell, and where the people had noses like wolves to pick up on it. And it would only be fair not to warn them that that's how these people communicate. They'd have about the same trouble as we do. (Maybe more. It's possible for us to at least see people's faces... but still.) Bonus points if there's an auditory component to the language as well, and the words/phrases for "I love you" and "I don't want that" sound suspiciously like the English words for "God, I hate you, you pile of excrement" and "that would be wonderful."

But you'd never really capture it. After all, they grew up being taught how to use their own language, their own brains. Every generation, we reinvent the wheel, teaching ourselves things NTs figured out once as cavemen and passed on from generation to generation, improving and refining all the while. That is the worst part. All the wasted effort, doing things the wrong way or using a lot of time and effort trying to figure out the right way. (And then realizing that you get better results from your instincts on how to do things than from listening to teachers, and so learning to ignore it when people try to teach you better technique. And then ignoring useful advice, because it sounds exactly the same.)

I think an NT who read this post would understand better than an NT who you dropped into a foreign culture.

So, what should we do to "learn how to deal with [ou]r own mind[s]"?

That's the track you want to be on. Learn who you are, accept it, and grow from there. Don't worry too much about trying to get NT's to get it. Most never will. I do think there are a few who have the ability to step out of their own minds and imagine what it's like, but it's only temporary. Nothing will ever teach them what it's like to live it every day of their lives.

How to learn your own way is hard for anyone to say who isn't you. You are the key to your own way. Sounds kind of like a dead end, doesn't it? It doesn't have to be. Just be patient with yourself. Allow yourself to be who you are, and learn from that. Eventually, you'll learn to adapt. It won't be in the same way that NT's do, but so what? Whatever works man! Whatever works.

At this point, we each have to live. Trial and error, basically, and making as much use as possible of sites like this. Find what works, find what doesn't. Once the population has the practical knowledge, fund studies to learn why and see if the practical application can be refined. Throw embarrassment to the wind (in private), at least long enough to figure out the whys of things. Don't assume.

Most important is to give back what you find out. Whenever you figure out what works for you, you should make it publicly available to others, so they can learn it younger and waste less time. Encourage others to seek what we already know, and point them in the right direction. Then the next generation will not need to reinvent the wheel, and... honestly, I predict that my grandchildren will be comfortable in their own skin and will never experience the ostracism and failure that plague us. (With that will come a greater percentage surviving to breeding age, and a greater percentage of those being able to mate; I expect autism to become more prevalent in the next generations. That is, if current rates don't nosedive from all the murders and Lupron. What will happen to society then is beyond me to predict; it will probably be good for the Autism Community in itself, but for its members and for people everywhere... well, I guess our success in matters of romance will always be limited, anyway.)

So I guess what you should do now is identify any areas where you find that your autism (Asperger's, PDD-NOS, whatever) is disabling and ask for help here or from autistic friends, or look for solutions yourself.

Our local school has a unit on understanding handicaps, including invisible ones. This is an excellent question, to which I might add, in a one or at most two day session of 45 minutes with a full classrom of kids. If you come up with an answer I would be glad to pass it on. I know that for ADHD a remote that constantly flips channels is actually quite good. How about everybody has a mask with an ambiguous facial expression and they have to talk about an emotional subject. This needs work, but its a start. Hmm. ironic having those emoticons for this exercise.