Left brain dominance

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I am very left brain dominant. It would hard to overstate how dominant the left half of my brain is. Is this normal in AS?

Although there are exceptions, the general rule is that people with aspergers are left-half dominant and people with HFA are right-half dominant, so yes, it's normal.

I think aim right brain dominant but aim diagnosed whit Aspergers, are there any tests for this? I didn’t have a language delay, I talked very early

Look at the NLD sticky thread...and look up non-verbal learning disorder on Wikipedia.

Only an fMRI would test for it, it might not 100% guaranteed to be conclusive and they usually only give those to people who are suspected of having serious neurological problems, so no tests that are available to you unfortunately. You can analyse your behaviour, make assumptions and educated guesses but it's nothing definitive. Here's some generalisations for you to use, if you find HFA represnting you better then perhaps you are right-brained...

People with HFA have speech delays because in 90% of individuals speech is controlled by the left-hand side of the brain.

People with HFA are more likely to have ADHD as well, since one cause of ADHD is dopamine dysregulation, and dopamine systems are mostly left-sided.

People with Aspergers are more likely to not "see the big picture", and only notice the details.

People with HFA are more likely to not "see the details" of a situation and only see the big picture.

People with HFA are more likely to be expressive than those with aspergers, affective display is right-sided.

I could probably think up some more, but some people's heads would probably explode seeing so many generalisations in the same piece of text.

What type of HFA are you talking about? Because isn't Asperger's technically considered a form of HFA?

I agree with all of that (you know, in general) except that HFAs do not ALWAYS have a speech delay, or at least not a noticeable one. :B

Haha i agree with you, although diagnostically you can't have HFA without a speech delay. I think they do this because it's the only consistant non-generalised thing they can get their hands onto, and it's hard to judge exact deficits of children.


No they are two distinct conditions diagnostically although the confusion is understandable because lots of the terms are used interchangably. HFA involves a speech delay, Aspergers does not. There is some talk of merging the two together, although i think this was be a very bad thing.

According to which diagnostic criteria? Because ICD-10 and DSM-IV-TR explicitly do not demand a speech delay for classical autism/HFA.

Some professionals do have their own opinion though, as some like their own ideas about HFA better than what's generally officially established.

You can read the different diagnostic criteria here

I think you might have taken me too literally when i said speech delay, this section is missing from the aspergers diagnostic criteria and each part concerns speech/communication. Either way, to qualify for autism rather than aspergers you need one feature from that list, that's the diagnostic difference between aspergers and autism.

I am right brained, and I'm left handed and use my left for everything. I always thought it was AS that was right brain and HFA was left.

I took you too literal.

I thought that rather than 1 from the list of 4, you literally meant that the criterion of a speech delay if a must-have for a diagnosis of HFA.

What would one be diagnosed as, if, say, one exhibits characteristics of both the left-brain and the right-brain. What if, for instance, one person has a remarkable spatial ability (right brain characteristic), as well as a remarkable logical-mathematical ability (left brain characteristic)? What if one displays some rational characteristics and some intuitive characteristics, but neither are more dominant than the other? This individual did not have any language or cognitive delay. This person, however, cannot maintain a fluent conversation in person due to not being able to express themselves orally, and they prefer to converse over the internet since it is easier for them to type/write their thoughts than it is to speak them. Bear in mind that fluent speech is a left half function. And this is NOT a hypothetical situation.

Take Einstein, for example. He had a remarkable spatial ability as well as mathematical ability. He had a speech delay. According to wikipedia, "Neuroscientist Steven Pinker postulates that a certain form of language delay may be associated with exceptional and innate analytical prowess in some individuals, such as Albert Einstein, among others." Commonly, analytical ability is found in left-brain individuals who also develop speech on time or even earlier. So, if HFA are more commonly right-brained because of their language delay, how is it that some individuals with language delay (such as Einstein) develop a remarkable analytical (left brained) ability because of their language delay?

Maybe there is a difference between Einstein's particular language delay and that typical of an autistic. And perhaps one's ability to analyze takes place in a different region of the left hemisphere than does the ability to develop speech and/or language, therefore resulting in a mixture of both dominant right brained and left brained traits.

For the above reasons, I believe the Left/Right Brained tests to be biased and inaccurate.

The main reason for making generalisations was because autism has many different causes and i do realise the right brain/left brain generalisations will not be true for everyone. It's possible for an autistic individual to have both a left-brain and right-brain deficit (Phelan McDermid Syndrome), because the receptor that causes it is found equally in both hemispheres. I'm sure it's possible to have partial-deficits in both as well, that wouldn't fit aspergers or HFA cleanly. I do believe however that the vast majority of people on the forum have similar deficits cause by problems in the same sub-systems of the brain. I also think they should look in more detail at the causes and the deficits they cause, because what is true and helpful to one group might turn out to be false and unhelpful to the other.


The problem here is you've made a generalisation in your question. Mathematical ability is neither a left or right brained ability but is equally laterised. However school and exams do favour a left-brained individual, although this is true for most subjects at school. Daniel Tammet is an example of an individual who has extremely good mathematical skills and good visual-spatial perception. Each side of the brain is able to excel at a subject, they just do so in different ways.


How does one measure analytical ability objectively? Although i understand why the left-hand side of the brain is labeled analytic and the right side holistic, this yet again misleads people. The right-side of the brain is highly analytical, it just varies in it's execution. It is possible to appear highly analytical and only be using hollistic processes.


It's certainly possible. I'd love for them to sequence his dna and find out exactly what made him tick.


There's plenty of people like this, having a group that is mainly right and a group that is mainly left does not exclude having a group with a specific set of mixed traits.


If you are reffering to my generalisations then of course they are biased, i'm a highly skewed right brain individual, they were labelled as generalisations. If you are reffering to fMRI tests and the wada test, then no, they are not biased or inaccurate. I'm not suggesting everyone on the spectrum be exclusively placed into a right or left brained group, that is too simplistic as some individuals would be better accounted for in other groups. It doesn't mean it's not accurate for some, or unuseful however.

Understood.



Understood. Certain aspects of mathematics, such as fractions and numbers themselves, seem to have a holistic property. While some people learn algebra in a largely sequential manner, others will learn it easier by using holistic thinking process and visualizing the problem in question. I understand why mathematics is neither a left-brained or right-brained ability. I understand now that since the left-brain is more sequential, it is therefore labeled as the logical half.



Understood. I myself have mixed left/right brained traits, so I understand how the right side can be highly analytical.



Understood.



I was referring to the tests that anyone can take online.



Please excuse my tendency to think in terms of 'black and white.' I understand that these are mere generalizations. They are actually interesting. Can you provide me with the source of this information and/or where I can find more, similar information? I'm looking particularly for information about the language delays of HFA individuals. Also, have you ever read anything by Steven Pinker? He seems to have a lot to say about language and the mind.

Thank you for sharing your knowledge with me.

Um.... Im not sure. I have the side that rules creativity and imagination and stuff like that. Which side is that ? ? ?