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Anybody else get this memory problem?

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Do you get this memory problem?
Yes and I'm Aspie 70%  70%  [ 46 ]
Yes and I'm neurotypical 2%  2%  [ 1 ]
Yes and I'm neither Aspie nor neurotypical 8%  8%  [ 5 ]
No and I'm Aspie 21%  21%  [ 14 ]
No and I'm neurotypical 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
No and I'm neither Aspie nor neurotypical 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
Total votes : 66

willmark
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22 Jul 2009, 9:38 am

fiddlerpianist wrote:
willmark wrote:
This is also a common attribute of people who are the inverse of NLD, that no one has bothered to create a convenient acronym for yet, that I am aware of.

What exactly do you mean by the "inverse of NLD"? The ability to have special skills in the areas where others have deficiency?

Folks with NLD have strong language skills and suffer in visual spacial areas from what I have gathered. My strengths and weaknesses are the opposite. Go to google and search for "I think in pictures, you teach in words" and you can read all about me.

fiddlerpianist wrote:
willmark wrote:
3. Something about me that seems to be different from most Aspies is I get almost nothing accomplished when I strive to not multi-task. My mind gets side tracked so badly. It's easier for me to accomplish two things at the same time, than only one, unless I go into hyper focus, which can be lead to great embarrassment if that happens at work, and great frustration if I go there in front of my wife.

So you have a tendency to like to juggle a lot of things at once, and when you concentrate on one, you still have that tendency? That sounds ADHD-ish, though I'm no expert in that area.

Yeah, that is what I have been assuming, but when I tried to get myself diagnosed for that, the psychologist said my tests came out as borderline, and he concluded I was probably experiencing depression. (I don't think so)

fiddlerpianist wrote:
willmark wrote:
4. I have very much a holistic learning style. I am the type that is just lost until I get the whole picture loaded, and then something clicks, and my mind runs circles around everyone else, but until I get there I am feeling like a perfect dunce. I need the structure of the overview to hang my accumulated details on. But people who think in wholes are supposed to not be good with detail. I seem to have a foot in both worlds.

I would just call this "normal learning style." :)

As in neurotypical? Most of the other programmers that I work with are not limited by a need to grasp the whole system before they stop feeling lost when trying to figure out how to fix a problem in a particular program. There are those who are holistic learners and those who are not, even among neurotypicals.

fiddlerpianist wrote:
willmark wrote:
I just had a random memory from my high school years. I was attending a football game. Everyone else was all excited about the plays of the two teams, but not me. I noticed this beetle making his way across the field, and suddenly I was focused on this little bug crossing the field under feet of the football players, and the events of the game didn't matter any more. And I watched as these huge feet stamped all around the beetle who seemed blissfully unaware of the danger that was all around him, but somehow he managed to reach the other side of the field without getting himself squished.

That sounds very Aspie-ish. You noticed some particular detail in the landscape that was not really apparent to anyone else and you focused on it.

Yeah. I kind of thought so.



ToughDiamond
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22 Jul 2009, 11:01 am

willmark wrote:
4. I have very much a holistic learning style. I am the type that is just lost until I get the whole picture loaded, and then something clicks, and my mind runs circles around everyone else, but until I get there I am feeling like a perfect dunce. I need the structure of the overview to hang my accumulated details on. But people who think in wholes are supposed to not be good with detail. I seem to have a foot in both worlds.


It's known that Aspies have problems working with only a partial knowledge of a job, and often need to wait until they get the whole picture:

"it can be very hard for students with AS to develop pilot / initial ideas..........sometimes because they cannot function until they know what the whole process / concept / product is and why it is appropriate."

"Unless they know exactly what it is they have to do, know how and when to stop and, all the steps in between, many students will not be able to make a start on a piece of work or an activity."

The quotes are from the same document I mentioned before. Neurotypicals think predominantly in terms of the big picture, but they're also good at zipping in and out of the detail. Aspies think predominantly in terms of the detail, and although they can't easily relate that to the big picture, it's known that they also need to have all the information before they can make a start. It does seem strange, but I can testify to both those tendencies in my own brain - if my managers simply gave me small-ish tasks to do, one by one, with no requirement to see any big picture at all, then my working life would be pretty carefree. But in real life I know there is a big picture, an overview, and if I sense that I need to know that big picture in order to perform the sub-tasks properly (which is usually the case, either at work or with my own life's endeavours), then I feel unable to begin until I have the full details of what the big picture is. If I have to begin anyway, something inside me tells me I'm on dangerous ground and could be doing more harm than good, and I complain that I "haven't got my brain round the job." I can work with a big picture as long as it's very clearly and completely set out in front of me.

So I tend to worry a lot about not having the overview crystal clear in my mind, and at such times I try to take comfort from the following quote, attributed to Einstein:
"You never really understand a thing. You just get used to it."



fiddlerpianist
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22 Jul 2009, 11:16 am

"it can be very hard for students with AS to develop pilot / initial ideas..........sometimes because they cannot function until they know what the whole process / concept / product is and why it is appropriate."

"Unless they know exactly what it is they have to do, know how and when to stop and, all the steps in between, many students will not be able to make a start on a piece of work or an activity."

Huh. I guess I thought that was normal. That explains why so many developers just simply code without thinking. I never understood how anyone in their right mind could do that.


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willmark
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22 Jul 2009, 12:33 pm

ToughDiamond wrote:
Neurotypicals think predominantly in terms of the big picture, but they're also good at zipping in and out of the detail. Aspies think predominantly in terms of the detail, and although they can't easily relate that to the big picture, it's known that they also need to have all the information before they can make a start. It does seem strange, but I can testify to both those tendencies in my own brain - if my managers simply gave me small-ish tasks to do, one by one, with no requirement to see any big picture at all, then my working life would be pretty carefree. But in real life I know there is a big picture, an overview, and if I sense that I need to know that big picture in order to perform the sub-tasks properly (which is usually the case, either at work or with my own life's endeavours), then I feel unable to begin until I have the full details of what the big picture is. If I have to begin anyway, something inside me tells me I'm on dangerous ground and could be doing more harm than good, and I complain that I "haven't got my brain round the job." I can work with a big picture as long as it's very clearly and completely set out in front of me.

I guess I am more neurotypical in that I think in terms of the big picture, but I use that structure so detail has a place to stick in my memory. My mind is constantly striving to find commonalities between diverse ideas, and it will spin it's own big picture when enough detail has been provided, or discovered. In MBTI Personality Theory this tendency to find commonalities is called "Extroverted Intuition". But learning is much easier for me if the teacher starts with an overview and then builds the detail around it. Going at it the other way around is a very confusing experience until I can build my own.