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Six phrases and questions likely to confuse people with Asperger’s.

RobertLovesPi — Sat, 14 Feb 2015 19:01:01 +0000

Throughout this post, I will refer to people with Asperger’s as “Aspies.” This is not considered a derogatory term; it’s simply how we refer to ourselves.

First, we are not stupid. We also are not trying to be difficult when we say we don’t understand you. We don’t have a disease, and the vast majority of us would refuse a “cure,” if one were discovered, for such a development would be seen by many of us, myself included, as an attempt to commit genocide. Like other groups of people, we want to stay alive, as individuals, and as a culture.

We are, however, different from most people. Our brains are hard-wired in ways that are not typical, with the result that we do not think in the same manner as others. These differences give us certain advantages which we value, but the trade-off comes in the form of problems involving communication with non-Aspies. You can see this in fiction, to get used to the way we think, simply by watching (or reading) Star Trek stories which feature Vulcans, or the android named Data. The difficulties those characters have, when trying to communicate with the humans they encounter, are very much like what happens when Aspies and non-Aspies attempt communication. Why is this the case? The answer is simple: Star Trek was written that way.

Here are some specific questions, and phrases, which many Aspies find particularly baffling. In each case, I will attempt to explain why this is so.

1. “Who do you think you are?” — Ask an Aspie this question, and you’re likely to simply be given his or her name, in response. Apparently, this offends some people, but please don’t ask me why, for I don’t understand it myself. If a person were to ask me this question, my first guess would be that the questioner simply forgot my name, and needs a reminder. The meaning of volume, voice tone, and body language are mysteries to us. Sometimes we can figure out these mysteries, but it doesn’t happen automatically — we have to reason our way through it, and that takes time, especially for nuances of communication which are based on emotions.

2. “What do you think you’re doing?” — My likely response to this question would be an honest one: “I’m trying to understand what you’re saying, but it doesn’t seem to be working very well.” However, that’s an answer from an Aspie in his fifth decade of trying to understand other people, so I’ve had a lot of practice. An Aspie teenager, in school, might simply say, “I’m walking to class,” “I’m taking notes,” or something like that, and then get in trouble for “backtalk,” as it is called — when the student was simply answering the question, without intending any disrespect whatsoever. Whatever answer this confusing question gets, from one of us, that answer will be both literal, and honest. It is not in our nature to lie, but it is definitely in our nature to think, listen, speak, read, and write literally, and logically.

3. “Do that again!” / “Say that again!” — If we have done or said something which you don’t like, and you actually don’t want to witness a rerun, why would you demand one? We think, speak, and interpret what we hear in terms of the actual words which are spoken. There’s nothing wrong with thinking literally, and, frankly, it puzzles us why so many of you think in other ways, so much of the time. If you ask for, or demand, a repeat performance of something you didn’t like, from one of us, you’re quite likely to get one — and then you’ll get angrier, we’ll get even more confused, and absolutely nothing of value will have been accomplished. If, on the other hand, you refrain from using “x” to mean “not x” (since it doesn’t), and simply tell us exactly what you mean, communication will become much easier, for all concerned.

4. “Don’t get technical with me!” — As far as I can tell, this means that the speaker wants us to refrain from choosing our words with precision, but I could be wrong, for this is the most baffling item on this list, so far. Clarity of language is desirable, for it facilitates communication, and sometimes, technical terms are needed for this purpose. I don’t know what to suggest as a substitute for this phrase, since I don’t understand it, but I can assure you that using it, with an Aspie, is a complete waste of your time.

5. “What’s wrong with you?” — This is another baffling question. If asked very loudly, the most likely answers Aspies will give are “I have a headache,” or perhaps “Sudden-onset tinnitus,” with the cause, in each case, being simple: from our point of view, the questioner is trying to deafen us, by yelling things which make no sense (at any volume). Do you like being shouted at, from close range? No? Well then, this is one way that we aren’t so different from non-Aspies, for we don’t like it either. Also: it’s quite likely that we don’t see anything wrong with us at all, for, in this situation, we are not the ones shouting nonsense-questions, so you might even get this response: “Nothing. What’s wrong withyou?” In such a situation, that isn’t backtalk — it’s a perfectly legitimate question, and we are not responsible for any emotion-laden, irrational response the non-Aspie questioner might display.

6. “I need this done yesterday!” — Many of us can explain, in detail, why time travel into the past is not permitted by the laws of physics, as they are currently understood. Those who request, or demand, reverse-time-travel, from an Aspie, should not be surprised to hear such an explanation. Ask us to flap our arms and fly, and the response will likely be similar.

I could give more examples, but I think the point has been made. We aren’t all alike, so the examples of hypothetical responses I gave, above, will vary from one Aspie to another. What isn’t likely to vary, though, is the confusion each of us experiences when things are said to us which make no sense, if interpreted literally. That’s the key to communicating with us: when we hear something, we automatically use logic, and rational thought, to attempt to understand the literal meaning of what has been said to us. For many of us, that is the only meaning we can understand.

In my case (and probably in the cases of at least some other Aspies), this goes a little further: rational, literal, and logical interpretations of language are the only ones I want to understand. This is a self-protection mechanism, for the idea of losing even part of my ability to think clearly, and rationally, is extremely frightening to me. To pour a lot of effort into trying to think in non-Aspie ways, I fear, could damage my mind — if, that is, I was successful in the attempt. I don’t want to risk turning into a person who considers “x” and “not x” to be interchangeable, for one doesn’t equal negative one. To change, in this way, would effectively kill the person I am. It wouldn’t stop my heart from beating, of course, but some things are even worse than physical death. If such a change ever happened, I would look the same, and would have the same legal name, but I would no longer be RobertLovesPi. It makes perfect sense for me to be absolutely unwilling to risk something so dangerous.

In addition to the central importance of the fact that we think in literal terms, while others often don’t, Aspies have some other difficulties (or the rest of the world does, depending on your point of view). I attempted to describe these difficulties, which involve coping with the emotionalism and irrationality of numerous other people, in the examples of confusing phrases and questions given above. Emotionalism and irrationality are, to us, severe impediments to understanding anything, and we live our lives in a state of near-constant bombardment from both, since Aspies are outnumbered by non-Aspies by a huge margin. On this planet, to borrow a book title from Robert Heinlein, I live my life as a “stranger in a strange land.” I know that many other Aspies see life in a similar way, for that idea is embedded in the name of the largest online community created by and for Aspies, as well as others on the autism spectrum: www.wrongplanet.net. If you are curious about how other Aspies view the things I have described above, or if you are, yourself, an Aspie in need of an temporary escape from social interaction with non-Aspies, you can find a great many of us at that website. (Also, if you want to find me there, just search for me, using the name of this blog — my not-at-all-secret identity, all over the Internet.)

[Note: this was originally posted on my personal blog, http://www.robertlovespi.wordpress.com, on 24 August 2014. The target audience for this post is non-Aspies, but those with Asperger’s may find it interesting as well. Other posts on the same blog, related to Asperger’s, may be found at https://robertlovespi.wordpress.com/category/aspergers/. Most of the rest of my blog is devoted to my special interest — esoteric topics in geometry, especially polyhedra.]

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Autism center awarded $188,000 state grant

Alex Plank — Fri, 03 Sep 2004 13:44:14 +0000

Auburn’s Autism Center recently received a $188,000 grant from the state Office of Special Education. The three-year subsidy is part of a state improvement grant for special education. The University’s center opened in January to serve children and families dealing with Autism Spectrum Disorder. The disorder affects children’s communication skills. Symptoms include difficulty with verbal and non-verbal communication and social interactions. Dr. Robert Simpson, co-director of the Autism Center and professor of special education, said he hopes it meets families’ needs. She said the center could reach 600 children this school year with the grant money. The Autism Center is unique in its individual therapy approach, said Dr. Caroline Gomez, the center’s co-director. Its students interact with each other and with peers who do not have the disorder, which she said is important. “With this grant we can focus on Alabama,” Gomez said. “We will be able to hire two outreach consultants for families and teachers.” Auburn city schools donated space for the center, housed at Yarbrough Elementary School. Autistic children ages 3 to 5 participate in a typical preschool setting at the center. Simpson said the center began as a program in Auburn’s department of special education and rehabilitation. It originally trained master’s-level students in a four-week summer program, but now teachers participate in a regular school term based on the Auburn city school system.
“We use an integrated approach,” Gomez said. “We implement philosophies based on a child’s specific needs. For every one (teacher), there are two children. The children get a more individualized approach, and that’s what the parents want.” The center has benefitted from private funding, but Gomez said the center couldn’t exist without grants it receives. Jennifer Muller, executive director of the Autism Society of Alabama, said Alabama families dealing with Autism Spectrum Disorder don’t have many choices when it comes to care providers. Muller said the state’s Autism Society, which provides information and referrals as well as education and advocacy to Alabamians, receives approximately 3,000 calls a year and sends out about 10 booklets a month to newly diagnosed families. The American Society of Autism states 1.5 million Americans are believed to have some form of the disorder. The U.S. Department of Education shows the number of people in Alabama identified with the disorder has grown from 68 in 1992-1993 to 904 in 2001-2002. http://www.theplainsman.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/09/02/4136879a64cca

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Speech disorder study

Alex Plank — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 07:00:00 +0000

New research from Purdue University shows that even when people who stutter are not speaking, their brains process language differently. Christine Weber-Fox, assistant professor of speech sciences, and John Spruill III, a doctoral student in the Department of Audiology and Speech Sciences from Virginia Beach, Va., prepare a subject for a continuing study to evaluate the brain’s role in language processing in adults who do and do not stutter. Weber-Fox and Anne Smith, a professor of speech science who studies the neurophysiological bases of speech production, conducted a series of studies that looked at the brain activity of people who stutter when they are performing language tasks but not speaking. They found that there are some differences in brain activity when adults who stutter respond to complex language tasks, even in the absence of overt speaking demands. “Traditionally, stuttering is thought of as a problem with how someone speaks, and little attention has been given to the complex interactions between neurological systems that underlie speaking,” says Christine Weber-Fox, an assistant professor of speech sciences who is interested in the brain’s involvement in language processing. “We have found differences in adults who stutter, compared to those who don’t, in how the brain processes information when people are thinking about language but not speaking. For example, there was a significant delay in response time when subjects were given a complex language task. We also found that in people who stutter, certain areas of the brain are more active when processing some language tasks.”
Weber-Fox, a cognitive neuroscientist, teamed with Anne Smith, a professor of speech science who studies the neurophysiological bases of speech production, to study language and speech production systems. A series of studies were conducted to measure semantic (word meaning in sentence processing), grammatical and phonological (sounds of the language, such as rhyming) aspects of language. In each study, the brain activity of adults who stutter and don’t stutter were measured when they responded silently, by pressing a button, to questions regarding sentence meaning, grammar or sentence structure, and rhyming. This is believed to be the first time brain electrical activity has been studied in a series of language tasks in people who stutter to determine whether their brains function differently even when there are no overt speaking demands. The researchers’ findings will be presented Friday (July 23) in Portland, Ore., at the American Speech-Language Hearing Association’s conference on Fluency and Fluency Disorders. Their study, “Phonologic Processing in Adults Who Stutter: Electrophysiologic and Behavioral Evidence,” will be published in August in the Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health. “Adults who stutter often have great language skills, meaning they don’t have problems with rules of grammar or with the sounds we use to code the words of our language,” Weber-Fox says. “When they speak, however, their motor output falters, so they pause or trip over words. We wanted to evaluate the brain activity when they were not stuttering and, in fact, when they were not having to engage their speech motor systems.” Smith, who also is head of Purdue’s Department of Audiology and Speech Sciences and has been studying the physiological aspects of stuttering since 1988, says, “Neither a cause nor treatment has been found for stuttering,” “Our research found many complex interactions between the language and motor systems, which leads us to believe that there is no single cause for stuttering. Stuttering is the result of a complex interaction among many factors, including genetic, language, motor and emotional. But our research found many complex interactions between the language and motor systems, which leads us to believe that there is no single cause for stuttering. These findings will help reduce the stigma – such as the myth that the disorder is the result of poor parenting or a psychological problem – often associated with stuttering.” Stuttering, which interrupts the flow of speech, affects 5 percent of people in the United States at some time in their lives. Stuttering usually begins in the preschool years, and there is a higher incidence in males. Characteristics of the disorder can range from repetition of sounds, prolongation of syllables, elongated pauses between words and speech that occurs in spurts. Weber-Fox and Smith’s most recent study focused on phonological aspects of language, specifically rhyming. Just as in the earlier studies that evaluated responses to semantic and grammar language tasks, brain activity was measured in milliseconds. This non-invasive technique uses a skull cap with electrodes to measure activity for groups of brain cells. Response accuracy and time also were measured in this study. In the rhyming study 22 subjects, half of whom stutter, saw a series of two words flash on a computer screen. Their task was to identify which pairs of words rhymed without saying the word out loud. Some word groups were spelled alike but did not rhyme, such as “gown” and “own,” and others did not look similar but did rhyme, such as “cone” and “own.” The other variations were words that looked similar and did not rhyme, such as “gown” and “own,” and words that did not look similar or rhyme, such as “cake” and “own.” This method evaluated the adults’ ability to translate sounds when not verbalizing them. The researchers found that individuals who stutter experienced similar brain activity, response accuracy and response time when it came to three of the four rhyming variations. For example, if two of the words look alike and rhyme, such as “thrown” and “own,” most people can quickly identify that they rhyme. But if two words look alike but didn’t rhyme, such as “gown” and “own,” then the response was delayed to 410 milliseconds for those who stutter. The other three variations averaged about 350 milliseconds among all participants. “We saw no difference in the fundamental processing when looking at words like gown and own,” Weber-Fox says. “The difference was in the complexity of the language task. Also of note during this study was the increase in activity in the brain’s right hemisphere for participants who stuttered as they viewed the rhyming words. This shows the individuals who stutter are using right hemisphere brain areas to a greater extent to accomplish the rhyming tasks than those who don’t stutter.” Weber-Fox says this relationship to the right hemisphere is a consistent finding that has been shown in other forms of brain imaging, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging. The right hemisphere is considered the non-dominant hemisphere for language, and the activity may indicate that the right hemisphere is compensating for something that is not happening in the left hemisphere, she says. In similar experiments, the researchers are now looking at stuttering in children and are introducing a hearing task for adults who stutter. “We looked at the brain’s reaction when reading words, and now we are focusing on hearing words,” Weber-Fox says. “Do we see atypical responses when somebody who stutters is listening to sentences instead of reading them? We have preliminary data that suggests yes.” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/07/040723085902.htm

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Dyslexia study

Alex Plank — Fri, 27 Aug 2004 07:00:00 +0000

Italian researchers have observed significant reductions of gray matter volume in areas of the brain associated with language processing among people with a family history of dyslexia in comparison with controls with no reading problems. Published in the August 24 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology, the study also lends support to previous studies suggesting intensive reading therapy activates areas of the brain necessary for word de-coding. The study of 10 people with familial dyslexia and 11 controls was the first to employ an advanced testing method – voxel-based morphometry (VBM) – which allows more in-depth detection and measurement of gray-white tissue volume and density differences than other testing tools, including magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI. The brain is made up of gray matter, where the brain cells reside, and white matter, where the nerve tracts that allow connections between different parts of the brain and spinal cord reside. The study also was the first to account for variabilities in whole brain volume, age of the subjects and differences in brain shape. Each of the subjects with dyslexia had at least one close relative with either clinically evident dyslexia or a long history of reading problems.
Dyslexia is a brain-based type of learning disability that specifically impairs a person’s ability to read. These individuals typically read at levels significantly lower than expected despite having normal intelligence. Although the disorder varies from person to person, common characteristics among people with dyslexia are difficulty with phonological processing (the manipulation of sounds) and/or rapid visual-verbal responding. Statistically significant gray matter abnormalities were located in many parts of the brain that are important for language functions: the planum temporale, inferior temporale cortex, cerebellar nuclei, the left superior and inferior temporal gyrus, and the right middle temporal gyrus. “Previous studies employing MRI have suggested that intensive remedial training results in the activation of the posterior portion of the left superior temporal gyrus, which is necessary for the decoding of written language,” said study author Daniela Perani, MD, of Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy. “Our research showing reduced gray matter volume, including this region of the brain, adds further support to the effectiveness of intensive reading remediation therapy to correct the reading problems associated with dyslexia.” http://www.learningdisabilities.org.uk/profilenews.cfm?pagecode=NENE&areacode=NEWS_FPLD&id=6402

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