The neurological 'Opposite' of Aspergers = 'Aspergers+?'

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I've wondered this for a bit, that if Aspergers are far off into the spectrum, and Neurotypicals are in the middle, if there are other facets of this 'spectrum' and similar disabilities with issues stemming from the same causes as Aspergers/autism.

(Warning long post/theory ahead)

Now keep in mind that aspergers/autism is a mental differentiation in the brain from what would be considered 'normal', and you know the rest. And well there may no be exact 'opposite' for a mental alteration, technically there's no solid thing as an 'opposite', it's just a concept that can be applied vaguely to a lot of things. America/Capitalism is often considered the 'opposite' of USSR/Communism, even though there's no rigid logical basis for this (like 1 is the opposite of -1, ect) As an example I've heard here, the opposite of 'cancer' would be a disease where cells fail to divide/multiple properly (as in not at all) and the body decays thus.

I've done a little research on the internet, as well as other theories/thoughts on this. From what I've heard of this website, I've heard a lot of crazy conclusions ranging from people being 'ladylike' (Richard Simmons) to people being schizophrenic. The most common suggestions and speculation is that such a person 'opposite of aspergers' would be social, outgoing, artsy and flamboyant/expressive, and extremely empathetic.

While these theories aren't baseless, I think the most fundamental problem with them is that they're only looking skin deep at the problem. They theorize that because the stereotype of aspergers is people who struggle socially and have certain traits/habits, but don't think about the actual reasons for these traits; the neurocognitive basis.

I've also heard 'William Syndrome' being considered an opposite,because the people that exhibit it are overly open,friendly,and polite but often unintelligent. However that's a chromosomal disorder, and I'm trying to think more literal here.

Neurologically speaking, the (most commonly theorized) reason for autism/aspergers is a lack of brain differentiation within areas throughout the frontal lobes where emotional empathy is commonly processed. Mirror neurons in the brain that normally would mimic thoughts,feelings and sensations and allow us to put us in each other's shoes intuitively are lacking, and the un-differentiated brain compensates in other ways. (Like by using the un-differentiation as massive stores of memory and information, thus the intelligence often associated)

So I tried to devise a theory of 'what a person would be like over-developing these regions and over specializing and differentiating these cells.'

So I thought hard about this for a while and came to an interesting conclusion. A person with this kind of mindset, would think drastically differently than someone with stereotypical aspergers and yet, at the same time couldn't appear more similar.

When I think of over-specialization in these frontal lobes, I imagine this kind of mindset:

-Very empathetic and caring, understanding. But socially inept and incompetent because of it
-Incredible Intuitive thinking and strong 'instinct', but not seemingly very logical to others
-Highly abstract and broad thinker, terrible memory and recall but able to grasp general ideas and concepts with great ease well not quite understanding the sum of it's parts
-Incredibly verbal, but bad at communication and expression,especially rhetoric
-Incredibly broad 'passions' and interest with 'weak focus' and 'fickleness'
-Also struggle with memory but great ability to draw conclusions from information presented
-Despite intelligence, problems with skepticism,clearity and issues regarding purpose/intention


The way I see it, this person would be crippled in many of the ways that aspergers are, but for the entirely opposite reason: Their over-brain differentiation allows for empathy, intuition, and grasp/attention to aesthetics well withholding the actual USE of them due to an over-reliance.

Let me explain by example and then part by part,

Assuming that Aspergers are 'colorblind', people with this sort of mind/set disorder are those that can see beyond the visible light spectrum, but are so far beyond it they cannot focus on the 'visible colors' that 'neurotypicals' see. Unlike those in the middle but like the asperger end of the spectrum, these people are 'philosophically' blind.

An example of their social incompetence would be their over-relying on context and not able to focus on appropriate behavior. Theoretically mirror neurons fire and allow us to not only sympathize with others, but understand the etiquette of social behavior, to conform and act appropriately. Aspergers people lack this and their brains don't 'fire right', so they don't pick up on this.
People with on the far opposite 'over-fire' instead, so they cannot understand what's right to do because their brains are constantly fired and tuned to social behavior of all sorts, but due to over-compensating they cannot pick it up 'just right.' They may understand the general idea of something well missing the point of it (the fine details and intrinsically), causing distortion in the way they interpret it. Reading faces and body gestures for instance, would be difficult because they'd 'pick up everything', so much to the point that they cannot pick out what's important, they'd try to rely on context but do to being able to over-absorb this as well they wouldn't be able to put proper actions with correct interpretation.

For example, is someone is sad or in a bad mood due to a terrible situation, where one with aspergers may miss out on cues to their misfortune, someone with the reverse may pick it up unconventionally but not pick out on obvious details that make it so, or even come to a 1000 unwarranted conclusions , a 'gesalt' of paranoia and over stimulated emotions, that make normal socialization impossible.

Additionally, I socializing in group settings or with multiple individuals would be strained because the constant 'mirror neuron' firing would overload the individual with sensory date, making it incredibly hard to adjust without being emotionally over-whelmed or over-exerting and exhausting themselves.

This disorder would also allow for incredibly intuitiveness, reasonable conclusions as opposed to logical linear/narrow thinking. For example I'd imagine a child with this would be frustrated with routine, directions, rigidness, and would rather do things a 'follow-and-feel' way. Puzzles, do-it-yourself type things, abstract thinking problems, and thinking outside the box. I think they'd be terrible at details and individual nit-picky stuff, possibility creating a lot of learning problems, but be able to understand and do things in broad strokes. They'd think entirely in terms of 'context' as opposed to absence of it. This would make organizational things incredible hard, and thus they'd have a preferential for certain routines that make 'sense' in their mind. Just like Aspergers.

This would carry over to their speech and communication, and make it incredibly hard to convey what they mean, because everything they say sounds either flowery, mystical or 'non-specific',despite it actually being quite intelligent, they'd have difficulty speaking things in concrete terms, a common complaint would be 'What's your point?' or 'Just say what you mean!' (Having great trouble being blunt,literal, straightforward) The problem is they'd think so broadly that they just sort of tell something without assumption of the details of the thing that actually make it important. I think they'd also replicate the infamous 'little professor' speech for various reasons.

Their 'passions' I think would be incredibly fragmented, distinct Aspergers, they show intense interest in things but not in full comprehension in them. Like if they liked football or a soap-drama, they'd love the 'idea' of the show and what it represents, but not be one to actually care about the content of it. (Players,scores, or relationships and plots, ect) They may also be extremely passionate about ideas of concepts of things with inability to narrow their focus (Care about environmentalism or magic or media without care for a lot of specifics). As opposed to someone with Asp who may obsess over the details of something but not care about the idea of thing in itself. Their 'overly broad interest' would mirror overly narrow ones from and outsiders perspective though.

And lastly their 'over-saturation' of such thoughts would make it incredibly hard for them to pick out details or importance within the larger whole, and thus they'd prefer organization or 'order', although on their own terms. They'd seem to need 'routine' in order to organize their lives because their abstract thought processes make it hectic otherwise, thus the need for additional order and structure.

They'd possibly have difficulty with writing, art, all sorts of expression just due to their inability to easily organize the subjectivity of their information, despite being able to purport great amounts of it to show.

Anyway, I know that jumble was all alot to read, but it's all part of my theory and points to a larger point at hand: How people with completely different though processes can, when observed, seem so drastically similar.
An inability to communicate or socialize due to being unable to read/over-analyzing visual cues and signals would be in both. A propensity towards odd and eccentric behavior. An ability to either pay incredible attention to detail or draw far-reaching conclusions and see the 'big picture' from seemingly disjoint and unrelated pieces of information. A need for routine and structure for entirely different reasons.

My overall point is that I think someone who has neurocognitive conditions opposite to aspergers would likewise seem diagnosed with same thing due to similar behavior and difficulties. This would sorta equate the idea that autism tends to be more of a scale than a spectrum, and that those with disabilities of similar origin might result in identical diagonsis.

For the record, it's been speculated that many famous historical/fictional individuals could have aspergers, and I further speculate they could have this 'variant' of it as well, with people such as Sherlock Holmes or Einstein (great deduction and abstraction, can bridge unrelated details into coherent ideas, tended to have a variety of interest led into passions but not often fragmented, like Sherlock's varying information) People with this possible variant I think would be exceptionally good at human sciences (literature,cultural studies, anthropology) as well as theoretical sciences (physics, chemistry,ect)

So what do you guys think? Could there be any weight to this theory?

This description sounds exactly like someone I know. This person is very hard for me to live with! He seems ADD and tries to do everything but can't seem to do any of it right. He totally picks up on all my moods and emotions but always comes to the wrong conclusions about why I feel that way. Super empathetic. His main fields of interest are very very broad but he knows no details at all. He really seems to fit the whole description actually.

If the people who are like this get along with me, we're usually quite good friends. But yes, I've thought of this before. I know people like this, oddly enough, I know one of my friend's, he's diagnosed Aspergers/NVLD like me, and is a really cut and dry "classic" Aspie in the way he works, but then his younger sister is this opposite extreme you're speaking of. It was really neat seeing the way she thought of the world, she'd appear to be a total dunce-like "dumb blonde" and then bring up something and it'd be like "wow, I never thought of things that way." I think the reason this will never be a "syndrome" though is that usually people who are like this are quite more successful than most people with "Aspergers."

I don't see how AS even has to have an opposite. If so, there's probably multiple conditions that qualify.

Though according to Simon Baron-Cohen, an extreme empathizer would be the opposite of AS.

Firstly, I'd love to hear from the person who voted pure nonsense, can you elaborate?

Second, yes I also know a couple of people who fit your description nicely. I think they get along better in society than aspies because of my "don't give a s***" theory (name taken from something someone said in another thread). Aspies, being detail-orientated, are more likely to really care what others think, what the result of our actions might be, what is the exact right thing to do, what could go wrong (that's a big one), etc etc. NTs care less, and are happy to get by doing things wrong, or often don't even realise. Opposite of aspie? Well they might be even less likely than an NT to realise they are making mistakes. They may be even more highly susceptible to things such as confirmation bias, where they only acknowledge or remember things that support their ideas or what they already think. They can come across as extremely optimistic, confident people, and in human society that really helps in "getting ahead".

Big picture thinking, while not so useful in actually "getting stuff done", is just as valuable as our detail-orientated thinking. An Ideas Man is a valuable part of a team, just as a behind-the-scenes nitpicky worker is. But the Ideas Man is still more socially accepted, I am suggesting, because of their confidence, and their ability to instil it in others (sometimes just by confusing them with wishy-washy jargon!).

Thank you for your post. Very insightful and certainly worth some further consideration.

1. Have you heard of the Intense World Theory? That sort of inability to process because of overload from too much information is the type of reasoning why they're proposing that we can't process it all. Many of us on here are big fans of the theory and find it describes us well.

2. Some of that description is quite similar to me, and most of it is quite similar to my boyfriend (who is very much autistic). It doesn't seem to be so much the opposite as a different subtype that is different than the stereotype. Neither of us are the stereotype, neither being the type who go up to people and monologue on about our special interests.