ASPartOfMe wrote:
There was no internet, Asperger did not speak English and the two clinicians were living in countries fighting a world war against each other so it is possible Asperger had no idea what his ex-underlings who fled or Kanner were up to.
Thats an interesting point. Given that internet only came about in late 90-s, how did people deal with giving proper credit for multiple other discoveries in, say, physics, math, and so forth, prior to that?
ASPartOfMe wrote:
Kanner bragged about not diagnosing 9 out of 10 children referred to him. It might make him look better to discover a "rare" condition than one that is obvious.
So what would make you more famous: to discover Rett's or common cold? On the one hand Rett's is more rare so you must be "smarter" for discovering it. But on the other hand common cold happens all the time, so people would be giving you credit on a daily basis rather than just once in a while if you discover cold.
Or lets take math example: what would make you more famous, to discover calculus or basic algebra? Calculus is harder, yet basic algebra is what would be giving you more credit since, even while people do calculus, they would have to give you credit as they use basic algebra along the way.
ASPartOfMe wrote:
The idea that autistics have no feelings and do not care about other humans was thought to be a reaction to their cold, uncaring, neglectful parents. So the no empathy stigma is a direct result of the refrigerator mother theory.
I am not sure I agree here. I mean, if someone believes autism is all neurlogical and has nothing to do with parenting, they can say that autistics have no feelings because the part of the brain responsible for feelings didn't develop properly.
Now, if someone believes that autistics don't have feelings because of refrigirator mother, they can say "well lets give them some warmth now to bring those feelings back" on the other hand if someone believes that autistics don't have feelings because they are neurologically aren't capable of having them, they would say "its useless to treat them warmly they won't recipropcate anyway". So thats why it feels like, if it comes to things like ostracism, the neurological view of autism would lead to more ostracism.
I have a first hand experience of this. No, I didn't have "refrigirator mother": on the contrary, my mother spoiled me, and thats why when I had to face the real world, at the age of 21, it was a shock, and I reacted badly at the way I was treated by the real world. Now, when I say to a potential girlfriend "look, I didn't do those things before I was 21, I only started doing them after I was 21 in reaction to ostracism, so if only I were to enter into a relationship, be introduced to my partner's friends, etc. then ostracism won't be an issue and I would stop doing those things" nobody takes me seriously, because they are convinced that asperger is neurological, so if I bring anything other than that, its just my lacking insight. But if they were to believe in "refrigirator mother" theory then who knows maybe they "would" have taken my explanation seriously: even though it doesn't blame the mother, it still blames some "people" treating me certain way, so at least with "refrigirator mother" people would have been open to a concept.
Prior to the internet information moved slowly or not at all. Something that was in style in the city would take two or three years to become popular in the suburbs. In the case of autism we are talking at first about one article by each person in a journal.
The roots of Autistics have no empathy goes back to the refrigerator mother theory. It was popularized by Simon Baron Cohen decades later.
If a person is viewed as having no feelings they are viewed as not fully human and will be ostracized no matter what the percieved cause.
28 Apr 2018, 12:17 pm
