Famed Women with AS ?

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Sinead O'Connor discolsed on Oprah back in October of 2007 that she was diagnosed as Bipolar back in 2003.

There was a thread a long long time ago (maybe almost a year) where everyone was analysing her mannerisms and body language and speculating that she seemed very AS-like,

There is a great deal of confusion about the difference between being gifted and being autistic. Experts in giftedness see gifted people being misdiagnosed with autism, ADHD, bipolar and OCD all the time, because they are so intense: intensely intellectual, intensely emotional, intensely sensitive, intensely energetic and intensely imaginative, not to mention intensely fed up with being called stupid by less gifted people because they are out of sync with the rest of the population. I am working my way through two of Michael Fitzgerald's books on "famous auties" and he is using symptoms typical of exceptionally gifted people and assuming they are symptoms of autism, when there is no evidence of autism in addition to giftedness. I do not see any proof that his famous auties are anything but unusually gifted, and by his own descriptions some are definitely not autistic. (In general, experts in autism don't know much about giftedness and may not realize how weird many gifted people are without qualifying for a DSM diagnosis.) The book Misdiagnosis and dual diagnoses of gifted children and adults is a must-read for anyone who can't tell the difference between gifted and disabled (though these authors make the same mistake Fitzgerald does assuming autistic people don't have empathy). Obviously, some people (including me) are both.

What I mean by "get there under their own power" is that they are famous because of themselves, not because they've been born into a famous family (e.g. Royals, who may actually be spectacularly normal, unlike most famous people). It takes more than talent - it takes the ability to find a place for yourself in a system that may not know what to do with you. Gifted people often have a hard time when they're younger, but thrive when they find a niche where their talents are welcome, no matter how weird they are (and some fields even cultivate weirdness). Autistic people, no matter how gifted or talented, may fail to thrive, no matter how much their talents are welcome, if they don't get sufficient support. Autism is a disability, not a personality trait. I know that idea will offend some people here, but get real. Imaginary autistic role models won't help all the people who have real problems. If anything they will just make things worse, by setting up unrealistic expectations. We need facts, not fairy tales.

Courtney Love

There's really no "proof" that anyone is "autistic" - it's just a loose label that was made up by doctors to describe a set of traits that sometimes go together in people with social and sensory difficulties. I see your point that giftedness is poorly understood and could be confused with AS, but I think your point of view is the result of nothing more than an extreme desire to be "realistic" which has been taken too far and crossed into the realm of pessimism. There are plenty of very successful people who have been diagnosed with ASDs. How about Matt Savage? Is he just "gifted" too? Of course not. He's clearly autistic. Dan Akroyd has been diagnosed with AS. But, I suppose in your opinion his doctor was wrong, and he is in fact only gifted. And maybe you would be right in that case.

Sure, it's annoying to see almost every celebrity who has ever done anything weird or who speaks in a monotonous voice diagnosed by WP experts as having AS, but it is just as annoying for someone to shoot down every single case of hypothesized AS for what seems to me like no good reason at all (your reasons are that giftedness and AS are often confused, which really doesn't say much, and that people with AS don't have the social skills to be successful, which is ridiculous).

I can't speak for anyone who is alive (and don't want to). If they want to comment on whether they're autistic or not they're welcome to. As far as famous historical figures go, perhaps some on the lists were autistic - but I need a clearer argument. It's not enough to say: she's weird, she's isolated (yes, but why?) - she's in, which is what people seem to be doing. And I can see that some definitely weren't autistic. What's wrong with that?

As far as autistic women go, has anyone wondered about the character Laura in The Glass Menagerie? They didn't have the diagnosis of autism back then, and Tenessee Williams's sister (who presumably had an influence on how the character was written) was diagnosed with some kind of psychosis. Does Laura look possibly autistic? (emphasis on "possibly") How does she fit with stereotypes and personal experience?