71–80 of 178 posts
Please don't take this the wrong way, but there is a 3-to-1 male-to-female ratio in autism prevalence. Does this mean that males invent more things than females? Or is the percentage of people with autism too small to have an effect here? https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28545751/
Note that the author is reporting primarily on his own research, not all of which is uncontroversial. Cohen's assertions have mostly been anecdote-based, without a lot of support from formal studies, even to quantifying what this "Invention" faculty even is.
Interesting read. Minor point of clarification: It's noted that many autistic folks struggle with empathy. There are two dimensions to empathy, cognitive and affective . Cognitive is more about perspective taking, or reading the feelings / intentions of others, while affective is the ability to share/understand the emotions of others, and respond appropriately. Putting aside that the two may overlap, it's often the c…
I strongly relate with this as a child. As I grew older my friends would often come to me for emotional advice, which I explain as having found an understanding of the patterns behind emotions. I still have no clue how my own emotions work, but I share that with everyone.
I wonder how much this is autism and how much it is people with low trait agreeableness being diagnosed with autism for being "bad with people". Refusing to do rituals without a good explanation makes people think you are autistic, but it could just as well be that they are disagreeable by nature and don't do things just because people tell them to. And refusing to do things the way everyone else does them obviously…
I'm also diagnosed with ADHD which is often co-morbid with ASD.
I very much refuse to go along with a looooot of things just for the sake it. Anything steeped in tradition without a whole lot of logic to it gets met with mostly flat rejection. This has steadily increased as I've gotten older.
My mum used to be a special needs teacher and she kind of suspected I might be on the spectrum when I was a teenager. I've met people diagnosed with ASD whom I share a bunch of lived experience in common with. My step brother has a son whose diagnosed with ASD and he sort of indicated I show some signs of it. So, there are hints that maybe I am somewhere possibly the invisible end of the spectrum? Or maybe it's just my personality?
I read through Asperger's The Complete Guide. There are a few puzzle pieces which fit like ding ding ding. But there just aren't enough of them. And I watch things like Love On The Spectrum etc and I have had my share of difficulties perhaps but nowhere near what those people experience.
I've kinda tossed up getting a professional opinion about it multiple times. I just mostly feel like this is me and it's who I enjoy being. Perhaps my 20s were just one big development of coping mechanisms? My social skills just haven't really troubled me until this year. Mostly it's either workmates, long term friends who share my interests, or special interest groups where I have stuff in common with people. This year I had to take my son to a school thing where there were other parents and the only shared context was our children. It was very anxiety inducing and I just felt like I had nothing. My son wanted to stay longer but I panicked and I said we had to go home.
So... At this point I don't really know.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Mental disabilities are mostly adaptations that have huge upside. There is extremely scant evidence to support this claim, and conversely, an enormous amount of evidence to disprove it. The first part is questionable in its very premise. Mental disabilities as an adaptation? By what metric do you measure this? And having huge upsides? There aren't many upsides to someone being born severely mentally retarded. There…
I think a big problem of this is that we don't actually represent these people and the way we talk about mental illnesses and disabilities is just strange. Like a lot of people were confused by Robin Williams and Chris Farley, but I don't think anyone that's ever suffered from depression was surprised at all. We think of depression as sadness instead of the existential emptiness or mundane that many experience. Autis…
My God, this is so well said. Thank you for this comment.
I could not agree with you more.
Obviously autism != intelligence, but I'd wager a fair amount of people are thought to be "on the spectrum" when really they just have an incredibly high IQ compared to their peers.
Obviously not coming at this from a medical background.
Interesting read. Minor point of clarification: It's noted that many autistic folks struggle with empathy. There are two dimensions to empathy, cognitive and affective . Cognitive is more about perspective taking, or reading the feelings / intentions of others, while affective is the ability to share/understand the emotions of others, and respond appropriately. Putting aside that the two may overlap, it's often the c…
Would cognitive empathy not be prerequisite to affective empathy? How can you share in another person's emotions if you're not able to recognize them in the first place?
+ I wonder if people with these 'differences' really at the end of the day just have 'different viewpoints'.
If 'everyone' were autistic a person that we might consider to be 'normal' ... would literally be an 'empath' - someone with uncanny magical powers to read emotions. That person would probably seem 'innovative' for having such a worldview.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep. I was diagnosed with Asperger's later in life. I received this diagnosis after I already had a successful career, happy marriage, and house full of kids. Not much of a hindrance, right? On the other hand, my brother suffers a much more severe form of autism. He does hold a profession job in finance. But he otherwise requires a full-time caretaker, tons of medication and understanding, etc. No friends. He's not s…
I too received a probable-diagnosis later in life. (It was part of neuro-psych testing to look for ADD, so they didn't run the specific test battery used for Asperger.) In many ways my life has been just fine: steady well-paying employment, wonderful wife and kids, etc. So as with you, being (probably) somewhere on the spectrum isn't correlated with a crappy life. But... I've also had some unusual personality traits…
Interesting read. Minor point of clarification: It's noted that many autistic folks struggle with empathy. There are two dimensions to empathy, cognitive and affective . Cognitive is more about perspective taking, or reading the feelings / intentions of others, while affective is the ability to share/understand the emotions of others, and respond appropriately. Putting aside that the two may overlap, it's often the c…
> as well as the related concept of Theory of Mind. On the topic of theory of mind and ASD, I think this is quite an interesting read: "Empirical Failures of the Claim That Autistic People Lack a Theory of Mind" – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6959478/ "We conclude that the claim that autistic people lack a theory of mind is empirically questionable and societally harmful"