Severely Autistic Characters

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Hmm... starting to rethink Temple Grandin...

I only got to like the 4th page of her book anyway...

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I have HFA, ADHD, OCD & Tourette syndrome. I love animals, especially my bunnies and hamster. I skate in a roller derby team (but I'll try not to bite )

First of all, you're right, i should've been more specific. My character doesn't have Down's or any condition that would lower her actual IQ (sorry if Down's doesn't do that- i don't know that much about it) and she can communicate basically- i think she talks when she needs to, but couldn't and wouldn't have big long conversations. Basically, she should be intelligent and actually relatively high functioning, but also very wrapped up in her own mind and imagination. I had actually had this idea that being in her own head almost constantly would end up allowing her to reach this spiritual nirvana- sort of like the Who's "Tommy." So i guess she's really not severe at all, since she would probably not die if she was on her own. She is in a special ed classroom, though.
Thanks for all your input- it helped since i had a very warped idea of what "severe" means in terms of Autism.

Just one more thing:Danielismyname says that Temple Grandin overstates her parents' affects on her because her Autism is affected by which of her genes are activated.
Gene activation determines how "high-functioning" you are on the spectrum, but the environment you grow up in affects how you learn to react to the world through the framework of your condition. For instance, if i had been raised by other parents, i would still be borderline AS, but the people who had raised me instead might not insist on my being mainstreamed or have advocated for my educational needs in the same way that my parents were and are able to. Many parents of special ed students don't know how to deal with school districts to get the necessary services through the bureaucracy. I've seen this happen. So if i hadn't grown up in the environment i did, i would have the same place on the spectrum, but because i wouldn't have had the same services and necessary advantages, i would not be able to do the things i can do now.
Or, as my biology teacher puts it: if you have a pair of identical twins, they both have the same DNA because they come from the same embryo. But if one is raised in the arctic and the other is raised in the tropics, they will look and act differently even though they have the same genes activated. Genetics determines a lot of things, but environment counts for many things too.