Rain Man movie good or bad for us?

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Einstein didn't speak until he was 4 years old. It's suspected he was on the spectrum. Also, when they examined his brain, it weighed less than average, but had a greater neuronic density.

It's being suggested that autism is linked to neanderthal genes, but modern media portrays the neanderthal as being less advanced since they were succeeded by sapiens. They were indeed succeeded my sapiens, however, they were not less intelligent, but more. NT pride and ego will render them ignorant to this, which is advantageous in that they won't recognize the impending (geologically speaking) succession of the next step of humanity. Using Occam's razor as my guide, it would seem, and scientific research supports this, that neanderthals were individually more evolved than homo sapiens and would have flourished fine on their own. However, when confronted with the sociological dynamics of coexistence with homo sapiens they were assimilated into the gene pool and subsequently became extinct via reproductive disadvantage. Research has proven that people of European and Asian descent have neanderthal genes, roughly 4-6%, while Africans have less than 1%. If modern autism is the result of an abundance of neanderthal genes than it would explain some of the characteristics inherent in those with autism. The next stage of humanity might very well be us, the neander-sapien hybrid. Modern humans view themselves as a finality, human evolution, however, has not halted.

Of course we can't ignore the moral, ethical, and religious dilemmas involved. Proving evolution would all but destroy religion, as much in favor of that as I am there's a lot of people making a lot of money from the power religion holds over the ignorant. Neurotypites have murdered countlessly in the name of religion, there's no reason to assume they wouldn't do so again. Also, would outing ourselves as genuinely "different" from neurotypicals work to our advantage? Not likely, the society that spectrumites need to flourish is vastly different than the one neurotypites have constructed. On a positive note they seem to be fomenting their own demise. Subjectively they will be missed, objectively... it doesn't matter my personal feelings, evolution, that is, nature, continues regardless of the human ability to perceive it via the phenomena of consciousness. Just because neuronic density grants us the subjective experience of consciousness and just because we've discovered evolution doesn't mean we can control it. Neurotypites of power could never accept such a truth, denial is their specialty as they clamor to hold sway over the ignorant masses.

About your reference to the high-functioning aspies. I would have to disagree, they don't "become" high functioning as a result of NT social exposure. They integrate so well with NT society because they are high functioning not the other way around. If they were put into a conducive environment they would excel beyond NT with relative ease. Evolution doesn't happen in a vacuum though. This might be a somewhat controversial manner of looking at it, but the aspies that integrate and adapt to NT society the best are being naturally selected. In an information age, the mutation is suddenly beneficial and therefore will naturally select itself to proliferation. Social success lead to reproductive opportunities and the continuation of the genes.

It's not evolution by design, that's an oxymoron, but it's evolution nonetheless. My son is an Aspie, very high-functioning, it's likely I can coach him to be able to coexist without ever having to be diagnosed, given the powers of the state over the "mentally ill" and NT disposition for discrimination, I can't see a benefit to having him diagnosed honestly. I now have a 2 month old daughter with a different mother, NT just like my sons mother though, I'm very interested to see if she's gonna be NT or aspie.

Sorry if I got off topic, anthropology is my fascination. The movie had pros and cons. It might promote a degree of understanding, but it's more likely they'd assume all spectrumites were like Hoffman, where as we know it, is not an accurate representation of all those on the spectrum.

I believe idiot savants are even fiewer than 1 in 10 autistics.
I believe this data is out of a time were autism was recogniced just in a fiew cases.

The problem with this movie is that it claims Rain man would be "very highfunctioning" while in reality he is more lowfunctioning.
So me, with an HFA diagnosis, if I tell I'm HFA, once I even heard as a response: "Oh, like Rain man"

Second, the movie is also based on the life of Kim Peak and Kim Peak definitly an idiot savant, but not autistic.
I think Kim Peak was great it would have propably been better to make a film who is just based on the life of Kim Peak without autism.
So far I know around 50% of idiot savants have ASD, meaning that the other 50% have not.

But still, on the other hand in this time ASD got more known in public and we don't know where we would be without this movie who started a huge interest in public about ASD.

Undoubtedly there is divergence over Rain Man's illustration of the Autistic spectrum, but it is somewhat reasonable in a distinguishable point of view. Although I was quite impressed with Dustin Hoffman's depiction of Savant syndrome and Classical Autism (LFA), he was incorrectly assumed by psychiatrists as a "high-functioning" autistic, which inexorably has led to an obtrusive amount of misconceptions regarding ASD's as of today. For instance, there is the notorious media stereotype which implies that autistic individuals typically possess savant skills, when in fact 1 in 10 of them demonstrate these prodigious abilities.

If that's not enough, a fair proportion of NT's have an unrealistic perception of Rain Man being classified as having Asperger's syndrome, which suggests they unable to deviate between someone with high-functioning Asperger's syndrome and a person with full-blown autism who is also developmentally disabled. Rain Man resided in an institute for people with developmental disabilities and I sincerely believe that a minority of the patients living there had a slightly higher level of adaptive skills than him.
__________________
Diagnosed with "Classical" Asperger's syndrome in 1998.
AQ: 47/50

Last edited by TheRedPedant93 on 07 Sep 2012, 3:04 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I'm watching it for the first time right now. It's making me laugh (I'm not sure if it's meant to?)

I think that describing him as high functioning was a bit of an oversight, but when was this film made? I'm sure we've come a long way in terms of understanding autism and aspergers since then, so maybe at the time that was correct? I don't know. I think the fact that he's verbal counts for something with the "high" functioning aspect maybe?

It's interesting to see a NT's (even though it's acted) initial reaction to someone who's autistic. The scene where he stops in the middle of the road when the sign says "Don't Walk" made me laugh - my partner is always getting really angry at me because I refuse to cross the road unless the green man is showing.

It might not give the general public an accurate picture of autism (certainly not high-functioning, as the character is described), but he's a likeable character (at least I thought so), and not an inhuman monster, so I'd say it's better than some of the more recent stereotypes.

You're forgetting the fact that Hans Asperger himself was an Austrian, and that the more than 400 children he examined lived fairly normal lives even though they were seen as eccentric by their peers, with the key difference being the high unemployment rates (30%) and the bizarelly high divorce rates.

Furthermore, Lorna Wing also wrote that her descriptions in her research papers accounted for more serious cases.



High-functioning autism is not a formal diagnosis, allthough the term implies "normal" language at adult age, the ability to live somewhat independently, no mental retardation and the ability to read and write at an adult level. Rain Man had very poor self-help skills, very limited language and was mentally ret*d. To top if off, he's primarily based on Kim Peek, who did not have autism or lower social skills than other people with his IQ.

Please bear in mind that "high-functioning" means something else today than it did 20 years ago. Back then, only the most obvious cases got the autism diagnosis.

Correct. Today, I think he'd be more content with an Asperger's diagnosis rather than a diagnosis of classic autism, though.



Neanderthals were probably better at logic skills than homo sapiens sapiens were, but the placement of their tongue ment that their words had to be longer, making fast communication when hunting or in battle harder. Furthermore, homo sapiens sapiens is a highly territorial and possesive "ape", which would probably make our ancestors better suited at a harsh environment than the neanderthals were.



Not really. No organizations donate more money to science than the catholic church and the vatican accepted evolution at least as early as 1950.



Just like Josef Stalin or Kim il-Sung have murdered in the name of atheism.



The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. This means that we have to learn to communicate with the NTs or simply fade away from the society's surface.



I have a moderate case of Asperger's, but thanks to exposure and leaving my comfort zone, I can cover it up enough so that many people don't need to know.

If we tell aspies from the childhood that they're "much different" from everyone else and that they should never get an education, date, socialize and promote the idea that they're like Rain Man, they'll be ruined.

Don't get me wrong, if they benefit from it, they should get a diagnosis, but they should also be tought to use their abilities and at the same time be integrated into the society. If this is done, the child may become a succesful engineer or mathematician.

What's your point?

The symptoms that Rain Man exhibits in the film can be taken straight from Hans' original paper too (Kanner's paper too).

He also fits many outcomes studies of those with HFA/AS that have been done recently: living with parents or in an institution*, not working and few or no friends.

*He was only in an institution because his parents forced him to go there. He could live at home just fine if he had support.

His symptoms read straight from the DSM-IV-TR for AD.

You'll note that he tried to do a lot of things in the film. He failed, of course, but he tried.

A agree that Kim Peek is fascinating . A film could be made about the real Kim Peek - maybe not main stream but I would watch it.

I'm confused about high functioning though. the depiction of the rain man is not what I would consider high functioning - is there a definition for high functioning????

HFA = IQ over 75

It generally means better communication skills in those with autism (Rain Man could communicate his needs fine. He just didn't communicate "socially", which is what autism "is" and always has been).

That's the official term (IQ over 75). It was started some time back by researchers to separate groups based on IQ for research papers.

Rain Man isn't really based on Kim Peek though (just the special skills are. Granted, the special skills are a big part of the film).

He also exhibits symptoms not described in his original paper.



[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN0DczbPznY[/youtube]

Most people with AS or HFA do not live in an institution, allthough many unemployed people with AS have to live with their parents.



Yes, symptoms of SEVERE autism with mental retardation. Only the most severe case of autism at my job has symptoms as pronounced as Rain Man.

A lot of people with severe autism can try to do things. The fact that he failed to do almost everything and that he needed constant supervision by his brother only prooves my point further.

If you want an example of actual HFA, Temple Grandin is a good example. The sriptwriters tossed Rain Main a few bones of intelligence now and then because of a rule of thumb that says that you should never go full ret*d in a movie, but all in all, the character seemingly has an IQ of 50-60.

In reality its just a movie, I don't think its really good or bad......if someone enjoys it its good for them, if they don't like it then its bad for them. If anyone bases their factual information on movies then they are not very smart for doing so.

I don't really care for that movie. I didn't care for it when it came out, either. My impression of that movie is that it sends a message to our NT family members that it's okay to treat us like crap, if there's something about us that they don't like. It can also blow up in their faces, because we're much higher functioning than Raymond and we can be blunt as well. If somebody tries to make me fit in, I tell them that I'm being myself.

Kurgan,

What symptoms does he display that aren't in Kanner's and Hans' paper?

I have a statistic that says 40% of those with HFA live in an institution or government housing; the majority of the others with parents (only a small number are independent). That's now. It was far worst a few decades ago.

The video you link to are autistic symptoms; whats your point? You do know he was stolen away from his home and forced to travel across the country? He functions better than I would in that situation, and I've been described to have relatively mild AD/HFA. Point out any symptom shown and I'll tell you that I experience the same to the same severity, because I do. Need for routine? Check. Echolalia? Check. Scared of things and recites statistics to prove the point? Check. Refuses to do things he's not comfortable with? Check. Little to no social speech? Check. Meltdowns over seemingly trivial events? Check. Can't handle change? Check. Motor mannerisms? Check. Odd speech? Check. And I can go on and on.

The thing where I'm better is knowing the worth of money; some positive that is when I lack the awesome special skills.

He's not severe. If you think he is, you know literally nothing about "severe" autism. (Severe autism would be the dude from The Black Balloon.)

I know all about Temple Grandin, and her filmed portrayal wasn't much better than Rain Man in severity. In fact, I found her to be more severe in some ways in the film.

Well I suppose Rainman was "fair" for its day, but now it would be like Family Guy doing an episode on Aspergers/Autism.

The more recent Temple Grandin movie gives a far more reliable view of autism, IMO