The Trouble With Genius

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Students diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, a mild form of autism, perform as well as or better than their peers academically but, despite their large vocabularies, struggle with social interaction. The University of California, Santa Barbara’s Koegel Autism Center, long a world leader on autism research, hopes to teach the students the art of conversation:
http://www.miller-mccune.com/article/302

Honestly, I think its the average person that has the problem with conversation. You get little response if you try to talk about anything outside very limited and familiar sets of concepts. People really resent it when you deviate from the conversational norms, but where is the color or fun in that? I think teaching people how to communicate a certain way is a bit dismissive to the fact that I think autistic people often do know how to communicate, just a different way. Maybe others should learn a bit of that as well. We need some people who do not play by the rules of average communication styles so our perceptions are challenged. There is a place for this, especially in University.

Look at all the talk shows, they invite the most fascinating people on them but still, they are never willing to have a real discussion about anything, there’s almost no point in watching them at all. They will fly a celebrity over to spend five minutes smiling and saying nothing of consequence about anything, its almost like an absurdist culture.

Dude. . . say what you will, it is a useful skill. Yay for adapting and functioning. .

Kids with AS are hardheaded.

College I was planning to go to this year has similar communication courses, about $500 apiece and this is the cheapest community college in the area. I learn better from books anyway.... The USA education system sucks.

Conversation piece topic

NTs follow a script...this is why they "converse" so well.

Example NT Number one: "I can't cook." Repeats this twice.
NT Number two: "Well, you don't have to brag about it!"
NT Number one: smiles. Says nothing back.

To me, 'converse" is the name of a sports shoe. I witnessed the above. I found it boring. I would have stated the cooking thing differently and if someone thought I was still bragging I would have started a big rebuttal.

The trouble with genius is ... your head remains lodged up your a$$.

There's more than one kind of genius.