Ways in which NTs and Aspies are the same?
1. I can (if I wish) arrange to be in the company of people of my neurotype most of the time.
2. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I want to live.
3. I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.
4. I can go shopping alone most of the time, well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
5. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my neurotype widely represented.
6. When I am told about our national heritage or about “civilization”, I am shown that people of my neurotype made it what it is.
7. I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their neurotype.
8. If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on neurotypical privilege.
9. I can go into a music shop and count on finding music I like, into a supermarket and find the foods I like, into a hairdresser’s shop and get my hair styled or cut the way I like it.
10. Whether I use checks, credit cards, or cash, I can count on my neurotypical behavior not to work against the appearance of financial reliability.
11. I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them.
12. I can sew, or dress in secondhand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the mental or perceptive disabilities of my neurotype.
13. I can speak in public to a powerful group without putting my neurotype on trial.
14. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my neurotype.
15. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my neurotype.
16. I can remain oblivious of the difficulties and limitations of neurodiverse people without feeling in my neurotype any penalty for such oblivion.
17. I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behavior without being dismissed as mentally or perceptively limited.
18. I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to “the person in charge,” I will be facing a person of my neurotype.
19. If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my neurotype.
20. I can easily buy posters, postcards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys, and children’s magazines featuring people of my neurotype.
21. I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in, rather than isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, or feared.
22. I can take a job with any employer without having coworkers on the job suspect that I got it because of pity for my neurotype.
23. I can choose public accommodation without fearing that people of my neurotype cannot get in or will be mistreated in the places I have chosen.
24. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, my neurotype will not work against me.
In fact the only discernible difference I see is that they seem to be more social.
![Nerdy :nerdy:](./images/smilies/icon_nerdy.gif)
Or that they are more "socially privileged".
The fallacy in that statement is that they are more equipped with the innate tools to be social with others, so they get more of the reward-response chemicals going as a result. The statement is akin to saying that non-dyslexics enjoy reading more. In other words, it transcends personality traits.
Distinction without a difference.
He is also being tongue-in-cheek. Talking about NTs as if they were a different species. Like some orangutan species are more social, and some are more solitary. But if organgutans themselves were doing a study, an orangutan zoologist of the solitary Borneo species might conclude that the more gregarious orangs of Sumatra "are our closest cousins, differing only in being more gregarious.".
![Laughing :lol:](./images/smilies/icon_lol.gif)
For many people, it comes naturally. In differing degrees, yes, but there's a line wherein it becomes a problem if it isn't happening naturally often enough. That's the spectrum split between NT and AS. Most social problems Aspies have translate to not getting our needs adequately met socially.
What does this mean?: That we have the same social needs, to varying degrees, as NTs. That part is the same. What's different is statistics. NTs get their social needs met naturally most of the time. Aspies rarely get them met, and when they do it's either through luck or familiarity.
If an NT woke up with Asperger's tomorrow after a life time of being neurotypical, they'll commit suicide within a week.
For many people, it comes naturally. In differing degrees, yes, but there's a line wherein it becomes a problem if it isn't happening naturally often enough. That's the spectrum split between NT and AS. Most social problems Aspies have translate to not getting our needs adequately met socially.
What does this mean?: That we have the same social needs, to varying degrees, as NTs. That part is the same. What's different is statistics. NTs get their social needs met naturally most of the time. Aspies rarely get them met, and when they do it's either through luck or familiarity.
If an NT woke up with Asperger's tomorrow after a life time of being neurotypical, they'll commit suicide within a week.
Right, so the feeling of borderline psychosis and emotional angst due to being perpetually alienated or cast out is arguably very similar between NTs and ASD folks; the difference is, we've been at the end of the abyss, so to speak, for much longer than they ever have (if they ever KNEW that feeling). Which is why, as you say, they'd be likely to off themselves for not being able to cope if they ever hypothetically "contracted" Asperger's.
I myself have had a genuine desire to be popular, and despite being undiagnosed ASD in the '90s in my youth, I liked to wear trendy clothes (I didn't have fabric sensitivity, lucky there) and enjoyed learning slang or metaphorical expressions. So speaking for myself, those parts were the same, not sure about others... but even so, I still lacked the nonverbal / ToM coupling & fluency which was the big shortcoming that set me apart
![Sad :(](./images/smilies/icon_sad.gif)
I hate it when people say "nobody's normal". It's true that nobody's perfect, but there's a difference between perfect and normal.
Normal is subjective, but when used in this context, "normal" people are people who aren't born with any neurodevelopmental disabilities or disorders, or people who don't have a brain disease such as dementia, or people who have a "healthy" mind (with or without meds).
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Normal is subjective, but when used in this context, "normal" people are people who aren't born with any neurodevelopmental disabilities or disorders, or people who don't have a brain disease such as dementia, or people who have a "healthy" mind (with or without meds).
Right, but then you also have people who are born with color-blindness, Tourettes, ADHD, dyslexia, and other conditions... but some of those can still be regarded as "normal", based on degrees of societal leeway. It is only that our condition is more stigmatized by society, due to the intrinsic social impairments.
Also, you could have "normal" folks who suffered a TBI in an accident, whose behaviour dramatically changes, outside of the scope of what most would deem "normal" - even though they were born without abnormalities.
Just playing Devil's Advocate here
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)
Normal is subjective, but when used in this context, "normal" people are people who aren't born with any neurodevelopmental disabilities or disorders, or people who don't have a brain disease such as dementia, or people who have a "healthy" mind (with or without meds).
Right, but then you also have people who are born with color-blindness, Tourettes, ADHD, dyslexia, and other conditions... but some of those can still be regarded as "normal", based on degrees of societal leeway. It is only that our condition is more stigmatized by society, due to the intrinsic social impairments.
Also, you could have "normal" folks who suffered a TBI in an accident, whose behaviour dramatically changes, outside of the scope of what most would deem "normal" - even though they were born without abnormalities.
Just playing Devil's Advocate here
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)
I think it depends on how much a disorder affects a child's social and/or intellectual development that generally lasts the rest of their lives. Autistics aren't the only group of people whose social skills are affected (yes WP friends, just drink a glass of water after your shock of finding out that). Most neurological disorders can affect the social skills as well, in their own way. Even non-autistic people with intellectual disability aren't as socially adept as their NT peers. I used to know this 20-year-old with severe intellectual disabilities; he was physically disabled as well as intellectually, and he wasn't autistic but he couldn't speak a word. He was social in his own way but he wouldn't be able to tell if people were laughing at him. The world through his eyes is a friendly, innocent, trusting place. Understanding that the world isn't friendly, innocent and trusting is actually a social skill. Also people with downs syndrome can be naive and literal. And ADHD can affect social relationships. And people with Fragile-X syndrome, with or without autism, still share a lot of traits with autistics and can find it hard to make friends or find jobs.
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I think personality and physical traits are often the same, albeit can manifest more "extremely" in ASD (or ND) folks. Many of things I experience and think are similar to NTs, but for me seem to be more extreme, or "severe".
Disclaimer: By "some" I simply mean not all ASD or NT folks have these attributes; I am not defining quantity of many, some or few.
Speaking for myself:
I am extroverted, as are some NTs. How I go about it seems to be different.
I am energetic, as are some NTs. My high degree of energy is perhaps more along the lines of ND.
I am intelligent, as are some NTs. Albeit my perspective seems to be different.
I am athletic, as are some NTs. How I go about it seems to be different.
I care about equity and justice, as do some NTs. How I go about it seems to be different.
I am anxious, as are some NTs. My high degree of anxiety is perhaps more along the lines of ND.
I care about people, as do some NTs. How I go about it seems to be different.
My physical appearance is similar to some NTs. How I "maintain" it seems to be different.
Effectively I am an NT, in the extreme.
Disclaimer: By "some" I simply mean not all ASD or NT folks have these attributes; I am not defining quantity of many, some or few.
Speaking for myself:
I am extroverted, as are some NTs. How I go about it seems to be different.
I am energetic, as are some NTs. My high degree of energy is perhaps more along the lines of ND.
I am intelligent, as are some NTs. Albeit my perspective seems to be different.
I am athletic, as are some NTs. How I go about it seems to be different.
I care about equity and justice, as do some NTs. How I go about it seems to be different.
I am anxious, as are some NTs. My high degree of anxiety is perhaps more along the lines of ND.
I care about people, as do some NTs. How I go about it seems to be different.
My physical appearance is similar to some NTs. How I "maintain" it seems to be different.
Effectively I am an NT, in the extreme.
![Wink :wink:](./images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
OK, well what you just described in this list reveals an overarching (or underlying, whichever) theme of us ASD folks lacking applied smarts, as opposed to intellectual smarts. The "how I go about it" clearly bespeaks the applied part.
Asperger activitst Rudy Simone once said something like "on the average, we have a higher fluid intelligence (than NTs), but we do not have a higher crystalized intelligence, which is the ability to apply knowledge."
Which is why, both pre- and post-diagnosis / awareness of ASD, we were told things like we lacked common sense, and getting abrasive replies like "I don't understand how you could be so smart, yet so stupid."
![Shocked 8O](./images/smilies/icon_eek.gif)
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Normal is subjective, but when used in this context, "normal" people are people who aren't born with any neurodevelopmental disabilities or disorders, or people who don't have a brain disease such as dementia, or people who have a "healthy" mind (with or without meds).
I agree. People who say that seem to think of normal as a point. Normal is a range. No one is exactly perfectly normal, but that doesn't mean that most people aren't normal.
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That's so true.. could you imagine what would happen if an nt got an epidsode of selective mutism.. omg they would be all. Oh noes did I died.!?!?
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