Aspies ARE imaginative

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Asperger's is VASTLY OVERDIAGNOSED!! !! !!

No, it's rather underdiagnosed. Only 50% (estimated, that is) of all aspies are ever diagnosed. I highly doubt you are a professional psychiatrist, since you probably wouldn't use that much exclamation marks then...

Most sources state that Heather has Asperger's. Asperger's is often mistaken for ADHD, though.

Steven Spielberg is diagnosed with AS. I'm not sure about Akroyd, but at least he claims to have it.

Tim Burton's wife claims that he is an aspie, he also recognised himself in several autistic traits before Asperger's became a diagnosis. Edward Scissorhands is based on Burton himself, and fits the description for AS perfectly.

I get what you're saying there. I always hated having to write stories in school. I turned in blank papers sometimes in English class. It was the only class I didn't get A's in and only because of those types of assignments. I think we are all creative in some ways and not creative in others.

The claim is that autistics don't develop so-called imaginative play at a young age the way NT children do. I think NT's are biased in what they consider "imaginative play". They usually mean play that is centered around people or living things. Why is building block towers or aligning toys in patterns considered less imaginative than acting out scenarios with action figures, dolls, or toy cars?

In any case I think that diagnosis criteria is more focused on very young children than on autistic adults. I don't see AS adults as any less imaginative than NT adults.

Some 'proffesional' psychiatrists will surely know what they're talking about, and my former psychiatrist certainly is good at his job... I'm pretty darned certain that, if there was any doubt of my AS, it would have been clarified as a misdiagnosis later on.

I have an awfully poor imagination.

I have a hunch that aspie imagination is like aspie "special interests": Just as our special interests can be focused extremely sharply on a few specific topics, I believe most of us have imaginative and creative powers that are similarly focused: We may excel in a few very specific, "imagination-requiring" activities, whereas in most other "imaginative" fields we may perform worse than the average NT. Poopylungstuffing gave a few examples which I think fit neatly with that understanding.

um..thank you!

I wanted to point out that the Trent fella who seemed to be freaking out on this thread earlier has his dignosis listed as "not sure if I have it or not"...That seems evidence enough to me that he is clearly not an expert.
I would not dare make such broad generalisations unless I had a proper diagnosis...(which I don't......and openly admit that I don't...)
He clearly does not seem to know enough about the autistic spectrum.

Henry Darger was a complete social recluse, and was thought to have had Aspergers syndrome (or possibly HFA)....he was among the most amazingly prolific artists i have ever witnessed (i heve been fortunate enough to see exhibits of his work twice)...he wrote huge brilliantly illustrated novels thousands of pages long that were not discovered 'till after his death. He never married...hardly interracted with anyone and worked for years as a Janitor.

Last edited by poopylungstuffing on 09 Oct 2007, 5:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

WOW! You could say SO many things against some peoples diagnosis here, and you say THAT!?

AS people HAVE to have imaginations! As far as my ability to visualize? Maybe I am too hard on myself. HECK, I used to think I was SO bad in math, yet I have seen people from SEVERAL countries struggle with basic math. Only an hour ago someone from India, that views himself as so good, had lots of trouble. I know the average person doesn't visualize as well as I do. I come to this by viewing their lack of abilities, and determining their weaknesses.

As far as acting? I can do some decent acting. I went to an acting class once and did some improv, and the teacher, who is apparently famous, and DOES have some famous students, said I did well. I just kind of dove into the part and acted like a depressed person almost wanting to commit suicide. It wasn't MUCH of a stretch for me but, at the time, I WAS feeling pretty good.

And WHAT does AS have against filmmaking? OH YEAH, as far as the girlfriends? Maybe he is lucky. As I recall, he DOES have siblings. He IS going to college.

I have a very vivid, enjoyable imagination.

I think that imagination the way it is meant to be interpreted in the claim 'people with AS lack imagination' in a manner not inconsistent with creativity. I know I lack imagination especially in regards to people. When I was a child I spent months raking over a garden patch while trying to imagine a different (to the one I had read of) 'first meeting' between Mary Stuart and Catherine De Medici. I could choose all kinds of different things Mary might have said and/or done - although none were based on what I imagined Mary might realistically have said or done because I just cannot imagine. The game always restarted when I was unable to imagine how Catherine would have responded to the adjustments I had created for Mary. It was not that I could not think of reactions a person might have in such a circumstance, it was that I could not imagine which likely fitted and which likely did not fit for Catherine.

The adjustments I had created for Mary also lacked any imagining of Mary herself. They were alternate ways of conducting oneself at such a first meeting rather than alternate ways in which Mary herself might have acted, consistent with what I knew of her character. I just cannot imagine the way either might have reacted to anything because I do indeed lack imagination of this kind. I'm quite able to induce various potential reactions based on creatively arranging the raw materials of what I already know about the behaviour range of human beings, but I cannot for the life of me imagine how either of these two people would actually have responded, even within the limited sphere of the particular characterisations of them in the source material from which I was creating.

I do not recall having heard it said that people with AS lack creativity, in fact claims to the contrary often accompany claims regarding a lack of imagination. Obviously in the context we are considering the two are different things (otherwise it would make no sense to claim people with AS have a deficit in one and a tendency towards advancement in the other). One creates from raw materials, but imagination is fantasizing something into being. I can creatively arrange raw materials, but I think that I do lack the ability to fantasize the materials themselves into being.

I've always had an extremely vivid imagination. I'm the type of person who can be sitting there, and will suddenly blurt out a random plotline for a new story. I love to write and am constantly creating new characters and stories (my only challenge is actually finishing them). English projects that involve short stories have always been ridiculously easy for me, then again I was always annoyed during English classes anyway (because of my poor organizational skills, I was put in the average class when I could have easily handled Honors).

I could also always see drawings in my head. My friend is a brilliant artist, but she never has any idea what to draw. So I'm usually telling the random scenarios I think up, then I get to keep the drawing!

Ahh creativity is easy, but math? Not my forte. It's not that I'm horribly bad at it, but I'm very slow. If I recall it took me much longer to learn the multiplication table then it did everyone else. Now I have no problems, I just need a bit of time with it.

Okay what's next? Are you going to say Bill Gates isn't aspie and Temple Grandin isn't autistic?


You should use those people as role models by telling yourself, if they can do it, that means I can too. I can be successful. I sed to think I'd never live on my own or ever have kids or get married or even have a job but my mother told me "yes you can," and my Dad started saying "Your grandmother has aspergers." and I never beleived him because she has always seemed normal to me until my parents started pointing out her aspie traits she had. Now I am convinced she might have had it.

When I started to read about aspies having jobs, getting married and having kids, being independant, I knew then I can get married and have kids, I can get a relationship and get a job. Now here I am in my third relationship with a guy. I had two different boyfriends in one year and then met my third guy in July and we have been together since. I didn't get my first guy till I was 20. Does that mean I am cured now?

Does Laine Holliday Willey have AS?


She is married and has three kids. She also has a job too and does speeches at AS conferences. She was diagnosed with AS.

I played with action figures as a child up til about middle school (when my friends destroyed all of my action figures with garden shears and then laughed about it in my face), but it was mostly just borrowing and re-arranging plots I had seen on TV, in books, video games, movies, etc. I didn't come up with anything original, just repetition and re-arrangement. Sometimes I'd even re-do a particularly good arrangement I'd put together a couple times, for the enjoyment of moving the figures, pacing, and remembering what came next.