My New Theory on the Spectrum

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Tantybi Quotes on that she's referring to "mild autism" and not "severe autism."









Maybe i didn't repeat myself enough, but I think it was obviously clear I was referring to "mild autism" meaning Aspergers, PDD-NOS, and other "syndromes" and "disorders" that fall under the mild part of the spectrum. To use the term "mild autism" isn't so crazy since the DSM is thinking of getting rid of all the PDD's and the Aspergers and just putting it as Mild, Moderate, and Severe autism (as well as two more that I can't remember off the top of my head right now).

Using Autism to say we are handicapped in fighting back productively is using an excuse. Any kid knows to tell a teacher or parent when being bullied. Any kid can also figure out how to punch a guy in the face. As a kid with Aspergers, I had a hard time not fighting back. I'm to the point where I'm 30 years old and some girl who is the sister of my husband's drummer seems to hate my guts for something that happened way back in 1993 and I don't know her as far as I know. I might of beat her up over something I misunderstood, or I might have just been a rude witch to her over nothing. Either way, I know in retrospect a lot of my history was I thought I was standing up for myself but really I was being the bully because I misunderstood the non-verbal aspects of what was going on and assumed people were picking on me when they in fact were not. My nephew with Aspergers has been the one labeled a bully in the school system because he fights back (and sometimes, he just fights for the hell of it which I think is for the same reasons I fought when I was in school). We may stink at the non-verbal aspect of verbal games, and we may stink at the non-verbal/non-physical games people pull, but in no area does Aspergers or Mild Autism conclude that we lack the physical skills to physically stand up for ourselves. And, no where does it say we lack the ability to be a tattle tale. If anything, autism would make us more dangerous because we know, and I mean we KNOW, how to throw a good temper tantrum. If someone didn't stand up for themselves, it would be a difficult argument to attribute that to Aspergers unless an adult told the person to bite the bullet and take it. AS is in the realm of "NON VERBAL" difficulties. Straight bullying where there are broken noses fall more under "verbal" and "physical" areas of life as opposed to "non verbal difficulties."

On whether or not AS can be viewed as ego dystonic and ego syntonic, I've seen too many posts on the WP to make it sound more Ego Syntonic than otherwise. It really is a matter of opinion for each individual. While some parts of AS may be more ego dystonic than other parts, many still consider AS as a whole to be who they are and therefore, don't want a "cure" or any paranoid beliefs that someone might "enforce a cure." In addition, it sounds to me that ego syntonic/dystonic are more adjectives as opposed to a category. A person in denial that they have a disorder might be considered ego-syntonic because they don't feel guilt associated to their disorder; however a person who is unhappy with the same disorder would have an ego-dystonic disorder because they do feel guilt with it. That can be both good and bad. Someone who is happy with their disorder will probably not seek to fix it, and that's bad when the disorder is physically unhealthy such as anorexia or a disorder where people think it's okay to hurt people. On the other hand, when the disorder has no immediate danger to the person suffering/happy with the disorder or anyone around that person, then it would be healthier for that person. Either way, it has no bearing on the conversation here because it's about whether or not you have guilt as a result of feeding the ego vs contradicting the ego. Well, actually, if AS does affect our guilt, then it's safe to say that it affects our feelings which would be one of the components of a personality. I'm glad I got you to admit that part so far.

Thank you.

Just some supporting documentation on the subject....

you have a vendetta, i find it cute.

but anyhow...

yes you are partly correct. up until a point who we are is determined by our genetics and environment, but then choice comes into it.

if someone does not like themselves or the way they are/act/feel (ie, their personality), they can make a choice to change it. if someone has a very cynical personality due to genetics/environment they can choose to be a different way if they are unhappy with the way they feel, or unhappy with the results they get from having such a personality. they may actively choose to try and see different sides to stories in order to become more optimistic and hopeful. they may stop reading certain publications that enforce a cynical veiwpoint. yes they are changing parts of their environment, but it is their CHOICE to change it, and they can because their brain is wired with that ability.

i think that ability is somewhat less in people with ASDs (and the concept is lost on many), not only because of some peoples inability to choose a different personality path or because of the stress involved with doing so.

Here’s the thing, when I pointed out that some people with AS (aka Asperger Syndrome, one of the conditions you are now citing as being among the “mild Autism” you are referring to) cannot live independently, you came back at me with not wanting to repeat you are referring to mild Autism. Are you or are you not referring to Asperger Syndrome when you say mild Autism (and imply you are talking about the condition described by Hans Asperger)? Now if you do not understand that Asperger Syndrome contains such a range, that’s fine, and if you want to restrict the scope of those you claim more have a “personality” type or something than a disorder to some sub set of Asperger Syndrome instances, that’s fine too, although it would be helpful if you could be more specific. Precisely who is mild and who is not?

This kind of thing is evidently why I do not like the phrase “mild Autism” anymore than the phrase “mental disorder”. It’s my view that you generally know what the words and phrases you use mean, and when phrases trip up even more advanced language users, they are clearly more trouble than they are worth.

People use the phrase “mild Autism” to mean all kinds of things. I used cooperative pragmatics to infer you included Asperger Syndrome (and I think you intended to). This probably has something to do with you having heard or read the phrase “mild Autism” in connection with Asperger Syndrome, and that’s all perfectly reasonable. The problem is “mild Autism” is meaningless, but when people process language they attribute meaning. So unless I am mistaken this led you to misattribute the meaning you applied to “mild Autism” (a phrase that like “mental disorder” has no meaning) to Asperger Syndrome. So when I referred correctly to those with AS (Asperger Syndrome) who cannot live independently, you perhaps think I mean someone without Asperger Syndrome (Maybe you thought I was using AS to denote Autism Syndrome or something).

At any rate, if you were unaware that despite often been described by or tagged with the meaningless phrase “mild Autism” that not everyone with Asperger Syndrome is sufficiently “mild” to live independently, then you might want to consider how this applies to your view that Asperger Syndrome is more a “personality”. I have Asperger Syndrome, and I cannot safely navigate supermarket car parks without assistance (luckily all the drivers I have stepped out in front of were going slowly and had good reflexes).

I am not saying it’s crazy, but I think it’s counter productive. Your list of what you include in “mild Autism” includes Asperger Syndrome, yet when I describe facts that apply to individuals in this group you counter by claiming you only mean “mild Autism”. Obviously your view of what this means does not necessarily include everyone whose diagnose you believe the phrase refers to. I suggest this is because the phrase is meaningless, but as is natural, when you encountered you attributed a meaning, and that meaning does not actually apply to the things the phrase is often applied to (for instance your understanding of “mild Autism” would seem to exclude many who have Asperger type Autism, but you believe the phrase does apply to these people). This is why I think the phrase is on a level with “mental disorder” as both useless and liable to cause confusion.

Firstly, I will take the word of clinicians and researchers in the field over what you assume to be the case, especially since it’s now quite clear that you do not actually understand what Asperger Syndrome is. You might understand some of what it is, but if you do not understand that some effected people cannot live independently, would not know to tell a teacher or parent if bullied, and would not know how to do so effectively even if they thought to do so, then you do not understand this condition at all, because what I have just described applies to a significant proportion of those who meet this diagnostic category.

In the second instance, yes I told teachers and was told to not tell tales. Yes I told my parents and they asked what I did to make that happen because according to them kids do not pick on other kids for no reason. On one occasion even my mother was shocked with the physical signs of assault and rang the school. The teacher took me aside and asked if I knew why the class bully picked on me more than anyone else, and when I said I did not, told me it must just be a one of those things.

You continue to treat what I experienced as though it were something you did not know is linked to Asperger Syndrome, as though clinicians were not reporting that bullying is a particular concern with this group, and were not reporting that our ability to defend ourselves or even seek help is compromised by our disorder. These are not exactly secrets and these facts are well described in literature within the field.


Great help when the guy is much bigger than the little girl fighting back. Not that I never tried this, but the broken nose on one occasion and the two black eyes on another did not inspire me to view this as a particularly productive response. The other occasion resulted in the abrasions to my hands, hair loss and head bruising that caused my mother to contact the school leading to the response of “just one of those things”. Great help.


Again, that’s about you and your personality. Many with Asperger Syndrome fail to understand when they are being picked on. Whether one responds to the trait of Asperger Syndrome of being unable to utilize non verbal communication, by being naive to the “attacks” of others, or being hyper sensitive and paranoid even when there are no such “attacks” is a matter of personality. I often have to be told when I am being picked on, although the non verbal communication entailed in being kicked, spat on, shoved, hit etc is within my ability to decipher, and not the kind of thing I am likely to be wrong in interpreting as aggressive.

Just to be clear, the bully concerned told me himself he picked on me for being weird. Teachers did take me aside and ask if I knew why I was picked on, including without any instigation from my mother. Other people have told me that they have picked on me and the reason was mostly for being weird. No one has ever suggested that I have been or am picking on them, or that anything I had done other than “being weird” was the reason for their aggression. You might think that never having met me, never having been present for these incidents you not only know better than me based on how you behave, what happened, but also better than everyone else who was there. You might also think you know based on how you behave, that the experts are wrong to suggest that many of us are bullied and picked on as an outcome of our impairments, but do not expect everyone else to assume your opinions based on your sample group of one mean anything when applied to anyone but your sample group (aka you).

It’s also no secret that boys with Autistic Disorders have a much greater propensity to “act out” aggressively. Reasons include that they are being picked on but lack the skills to avoid being the one who gets caught when they fight back, also not responding followed by an explosive and disproportionate response. Further, a good proportion of children, and many of them boys will respond to the unbearable frustrations of their impairments with explosive rage or other aggressive acting out. None of which undermines the well known facts that people with Asperger Syndrome are often excluded and picked on by their age peers because of their impairments, and are very often not able to respond to defend themselves or improve their situation, again because of their impairments.

Other than the 50% with significant motor dyspraxia?

Why would any particular impairment be needed? Most children who are bullied are bullied by physically bigger and stronger children, or children in a group. Bullies are not usually brave and are well known to target those least able to fight back. Not having friends to stick up for you, not being able to communicate the issue to adults to get a productive response, and not being able to fight back are all things that are well observed among those with ASDs and are well known to be the kinds of attributes that bullies favour in their victims. Putting the blame on the victims of bullies is actually repugnant. Children kill themselves over being bullied. That’s a rather extreme thing to do if they could access other solutions.


Really? So a condition entailing significant communication problems could not interfere with communication, and a condition entailing a propensity towards being inappropriately passive could not at all interfere with the proactive step of telling on someone. And of course there is no way a condition like this could make the person seem insincere or otherwise fail to convey using non verbal cues that something beyond everyday childish tit for tat mutual aggression is going on, nor result in the perpetrator being able to better misrepresent their “side” so as to convince adults to not take action?

I can only suggest that just because you have not encountered information personally, that does not mean it is_not there.

Evidently this kind of information is readily accessible. I believe both Attwood and Baron Cohen have written extensively on the relevant impairing traits and how they result_in those with Asperger Syndrome and other ASDs being at significant risk of severe and overlooked bullying.

None of this is any secret, nor a startling new discovery, these facts have been well known and much published on for many years. I have no idea how if you actually have done much reading in the area, you failed to be confronted with multiple sources explaining these issues as being a particular problem and an area where those with ASDs need particular protection. Indeed one mother’s response to learning her son might have an ASD was to immediately worry about whether he was being picked on (she came to WP seeking advice and claimed this as a primary concern). She admitted little knowledge of ASDs but said she knew enough to be aware that bullying was a particular risk. So as I say, it’s no secret.


Excuse me? People with ASDs are no better at throwing tantrums than those without. Some are actually impaired in doing so.

I hope you are not referring to debilitating “melt downs” which are certainly not temper tantrums. One major difference being they are completely involuntary so that one could not choose to pitch one just to deploy it on a bully. If you are having temper tantrums, please do not call these melt downs. That is insulting and belittling to those who suffer actual melt downs and constitutes using symptoms you do not have as an excuse for your own voluntary behavior. That’s not fair or honest. If you have ever had a melt down, you will know it is not a temper tantrum. It is not voluntary, you do not have self aware control over what you do (you are as likely to hurt yourself as some bully in the area), and the aftermath leaves many virtually unable to function for hours or days afterwards. It would not surprise me if in the future it becomes clear that these episodes entail some kind of epileptic neuro seizure. This is a debilitating symptom for those who experience it and it is not fair, accurate or reasonable to conflate it with mere temper tantrums.


Aside from the counter factual content in that statement, it’s rather meaningless in application if the individual concerned is told to suck it up, or “just ignore it” or that it’s :”just one of those things”. I have no idea why you have not considered the effect of not being able to use non verbal communication to express oneself in a situation that entails someone getting adults to understand that they are not just tattle telling, they are not just experiencing normal childrens’teasing that will pass if ignored, and that are telling the truth when it comes down to their word against that of the bully/bullies.


Good grief. No. To the extent where diagnosticians when asked to observe a group of verbal Kanner type Autistics and Asperger type could not identify which were which. All the subjects were noted to manifest verbal communication anomalies and impairments. I have no idea how you have failed to consider the effect of delivering information verbally without any of the non verbal cues that signal depth of feeling, urgency and sincerity. You do realize that adults in such situations largely decide who to believe or how seriously to take things almost entirely on the basis of non verbal indicators?


I can only suggest that your knowledge of Asperger Syndrome is not particularly comprehensive.


So what?

In the first instance nothing whatsoever necessitates that AS would only effect people whose personality is contrary to the imposed traits, and the imposition of the traits will effect the development of the personality, so that even if AS is not a personality we would still expect many of its traits to be ego syntonic by the time personality had fully developed.

If however, AS is a personality, we simply would rarely find that any of its traits were ego dystonic to any individual characterized by the particular trait. Since this does occur, we can conclude that AS is not a personality. It’s really that simple.

Tantybi you seem to have some kind of an issue dealing with the logical implications of correlation. Take a dog, it has four legs, a tail, fur and is warm blooded. Now imagine I tried to prove a cat was a dog by listing the aforementioned attributes for a dog and then asking if you agreed the cat also shares these attributes. Would you not find me a bit silly if I thought I had proved the cat was a dog by this means, because this is what you are doing with personality.

You have not defined personality, but have listed attributes that apply to many things that are not personalities. Intelligence for instance is not considered to be a personality and is considered to exist as an independent trait even though it is viewed as being an environmental factor for personality development, and even though it can be influenced to some extent by personality. Pain is another thing that your list of attributes could be applied to and it’s not a personality either. Why you think that I have suddenly “conceded” that ASDs are not irrelevant to an effected persons’ emotions at any time, I have no idea, since I have never denied as much, it seems to me so obvious as to go without saying, and it does not substantiate your claim as many things that are not personalities can influence someone’s emotions, like when your cat dies, whether you are in pain,_or_whether you are intelligent enough to pass a test you need a good mark for to get your heart’s desires.

pandd

I was using the term mild autism to mean high functioning (can pee in the toilet more often than not, can clean up own vomit, able to shower and brush teeth, can roll over by themselves at night, can cook without supervision, knows what's required for basic nutrition and therefore can create a healthy diet, can write a check for the amount on a bill and mail it, knows that bills need to be paid in order to keep services, etc. etc. etc.). Note: my list in parentheses are based on what i hear from workers who provide in-home care to people who cannot live independently. If you are telling me the inability to make friends, repetitive behaviors, and clumsiness causes one to not pee in the toilet more often than not, cannot brush their own teeth, etc. etc.,...... It may interfere with living luxuriously, and it may interfere with living completely independent, but not to an extreme in comparison with most people. I'm not talking living the paradigm of how one should live independently because nobody follows that. I'm talking about the ability to survive without the aid of someone in your house 24/7. If you need to have someone take care of you for you, then you have a lot more than Aspergers at play, and actually probably wouldn't qualify to be diagnosed Aspergers according to the DSM.

I think it ridiculous to say "advanced language" uses words differently than everyone else since that contradicts the whole purpose of language. Language is a realm where "the norm" supercedes "the reality" because there really is no reality to language but the norm.

My problem is if "mild autism" is meaningless (along with mental disorder), then is Psychology leaving any words that I am allowed to use that still has meaning? Or are they not satisfied until all the words in the English language lack complete definition? Maybe the APA could learn from the IRS and the law who do define all the terms they use before using them.

I got two views of Aspergers Syndrome. One is based on experience of having it, having family members with it, and what i read on the WP. Since I realize that's not considered a scientific method (though most of our theories in psychology are based on one guy's personal experience), I also have my second view defined by the diagnostic criteria in the DSM and what most researchers say on the subject, and I've been trying very hard to just go with that.

In the case that a child could not tell a teacher that they are being bullied because of a pscyhological reason (I don't know what word to use, so I'm making one up), then they do need some sort of special service to help protect them from the mainstream. More than likely, there is more than Aspergers playing a role in the individual if they are so bad off that they can't verbally tell a teacher. Now if the teacher responds with, "there has to be a reason or you are lying..." then that teacher sucks and needs to be removed from the school system. In my view from what you've said about your situation, the bully and the school are at fault, not you. I'm not trying to blame you when I say Aspergers is an excuse. No, you didn't have any negative behavior to excuse. Aspergers is the excuse you have given the bully and the school. The bully was wrong, and the school was wrong to enable the bully's behavior. I'm sure you are not the only victim to this bully and the ignorance of that school. If you really want me to, give me the name and address of this person as well as a picture and after I give birth to this baby and breastfeed for a while, i'll be much obliged to go break their nose for you.

I do agree though that bullying is common with Aspergers. I don't think we are incapable of defending ourselves. Now, there's a big difference between being incapable and just not knowing how. In your case, I really think you just didn't know how. Most people are that way, but they get by with it because they don't often experience bullying to the level of Aspergers. Imagine a homosexual who is bullied. Now, you can't tell me homosexuality will interfere with the person's ability to defend him/herself. No, most of the time, either the person gets beat up a lot and tries to avoid situations, or the person learns how to fight (whether it be from a teacher or self taught) and then they have the determination to stand up to their bullies, or they sue. Either way, Aspergers doesn't take away that choice to stand up for one's self. Someone who is sitting in a wheel chair who can't move their arms or legs do not have the ability to stand up for themselves, and even then, you will find some people in that situation rise above their situation and find a way. But I wouldn't expect them to.

Oh, and I have taken down dudes three times my size in less than 30 seconds (given they were Navy guys...Marines took me much longer). Anyway, if you want to learn a method to take down people three times your size without much effort on your part, the Marine Corps Martial Arts program teaches methods that really don't require you to outweigh, out muscle, or out run the opponent...even when used against people with the same training. I also seem to have the benefit of flexibility, which means my body does things most bodies don't do and I have that element of surprise.

I only gave my example because you gave yours. I was trying to communicate a point and thought that what methods you use to communicate your point would be better methods to get my point across. There are times though that I don't realize I'm being picked on. I love it because ignorance in that case is bliss...lol. I do remember one time this guy at Burger King (and I've said it on here before) was making rude comments to me, and after he made about 4 of them, I realized they were kinda rude but wasn't sure, so I asked him if he were complaining about something I was doing, and he had to say yes before I screamed at him and the employees for allowing people like him in their establishment (and for making me go in to begin with because i was trying to drive thru). Let's just say I screamed so well, my 2 year old who was in my arms behaved for three days straight....lol.

Most kids are always looking for someone to pick on for obvious reasons, and weird does attract it. It does not, however, excuse it. The school is responsible for the health and safety of all the students during school hours. If your health or safety was violated during school hours, then you would have an interesting law suit on your hands.

In all honesty, I personally think that boys are more aggressive because of testosterone. I think my nephew has pent up aggression formulating also.

Again, Aspergers itself doesn't prohibit one to stand up for themselves physically. Motor dyspraxia isn't supposed to be so severe that we can't defend ourselves physically. if it is, then something else is going on other than Aspergers. But thank you for mentioning it (no sarcasm) because I had to look that up and didn't realize there really was a name given for our clumsiness. It really came in handy to know that for personal reasons. My sister doesn't believe me when I say it can't be helped, and that's for sake of my nephew.



Because you are the one who suggested that Aspergers is a particular impairment prohibiting one to stand up against bullies. Otherwise, are you suggesting possibly that Aspergers isn't the problem as much as the bullies?

Again, I think Aspies know how to be a tattle tale. If they are incapable of that, then there is more going on than Aspergers. Just because Aspies are at significant risk of severe and overlooked bullying does NOT mean that A, Aspergers causes the bullying, NOR does it mean B, Aspies are so handicapped that they can't tattle tale on the bully. Correlation does not prove causation. Is it possible that Attwood and Baron Cohen have written extensively on the possible traits they believe to result in Aspies being at a risk based on correlation? I'm making an assumption here, but when someone writes, "this is possibly due to" or "probably because" doesn't mean "it is." Any study that says, "We did this experiment, and the statistics show that this causes this..." is wrong because any Research Methods course is going to tell you "CORRELATION DOES NOT PROVE CAUSATION."

The bullying is no secret and I never suggested it was.

Most people do refer to Aspie meltdowns as Temper Tantrums. I used the word synonymously because that's the only way I've heard it used. Understand that all my meltdowns all my life have been referred to as a "temper tantrum" and I just assumed I had a problem controlling my temper, and as I learned about Aspergers, I realized that probably had something to do with the difficulty controlling my temper. A temper tantrum is what happens when someone doesn't control their temper. I understand the concept of temper means ability to control, but most people attribute temper tantrums to the sudden loss of control over the temper. People with Aspergers seem to control their temper pretty well until the meltdown/temper tantrum.

Yes we are better at it than most people. Not better at controlling them, but better at throwing one. That's one of the symptoms. One of the reasons why most parents of children with aspergers and autism want a cure because the parents can't take their child's temper tantrums. If they were impaired at throwing a good tantrum where nobody got hurt and nobody really noticed the tantrum, then it wouldn't be listed as an issue.

Yeah it does matter if a child is told to "ignore it" or "suck it up." Reason being is that Aspergers people tend to work off the concrete and literal thinking, and they would take that word for word. Also, just because an adult doesn't feel like dealing with the fighting children doesn't mean that it's because the Aspergers child failed to communicate the gravity of the situation. You just cannot blame a child for the negligence of the adult.



I've seen a lot of research label Aspergers as a Non Verbal Learning Disorder. Considering most of our "impairments" are related to "nonverbal situations" on a social level, it kinda backs that up. Of course, my opinion is that there's more to it than that so far, but that's my opinion. I'm trying to go by what the research and all the researchers say on the subject.

Yes, I'm very well aware adults use a lot of non-verbal communication to communicate. I don't see how that helps your claim that autism is not in the realm of "non verbal" difficulties. I don't see where in the diagnostic criteria does it state that a verbal difficulty was part of the diagnosis for Aspergers. I do think it's possible (IMO, and not mentioned in the diagnostic criteria) that Aspies have a hard time organizing information in a ways to effectively communicate it such as relevancy, being to the point, etc., but that's an impairment to the verbal communication which is different than saying they are verbally impaired to an extent that they cannot function independently. In context, this is about bullying. Is there one person with Aspergers and no other disorder out there who is incapable of telling an adult, "That kid just punched me in my nose"? If a child with Aspergers did say that and the adult does not believe that child after seeing a broken, bloody nose on that child...if that is the case, then the adult has a severe learning disability or is completely brain dead.



Based on what? The fact that I seemingly produce links and quotes from pretty decent sources to prove my point and you've only given me your opinion.



I almost wish it were that simple, but there are many personality traits that people don't like about themselves and often do feel guilty afterwards. Or are we going to describe personality as only the things we do like about ourselves and everything else is a disorder/dysfunction? Because then, personality needs to be re-defined to mention that (as psychology seems to love to do here), and then a new word would have to be formed to mean what personality once did mean (things like charming, bitchy, hormonal, overly dramatic, ecclectic, hateful, bitter, addicting, etc.).



As a result of the four legs and fur, they are both animals as opposed to plants. Personality is a broader term such as plant, animal, mineral.... Aspergers is a specific term such as dog, cat, mouse. I'm saying the dog and cat are similar because they are animals, but they are different because they just are different. Aspergers could fit into personality just like that as well as any other category we feel like sticking it into. I believe it matches the definitions of Personality Category better than the other choices (as I see it now, but I'm still formulating the opinion), just as I believe Dog and Cat both best fit the category of Animal, as well as pets. I'm sure someone can argue with me that dogs and cats are not really animals because they are pets, so therefore they don't belong in any category because there really is no definition of any of the categories, but we still keep these categories around and do put things into it just to confuse you because we don't want you to realize that we don't know much at all right now.




You are the one who is not defining anything. Instead of defining the words, you are claiming they have no definition or that whatever I put down as a definition (with sources backing it up) that it's wrong and I obviously don't understand what I'm talking about.

Intelligence is a broad term such as personality, and the two are related or tied together because they affect each other probably because they have a lot in common. When a cat dies, some people do feel emotional pain, some people don't. That's a result of their personality. Personality does also influence intelligence.


You did tell me that AS does not match any of the components of a personality, and one of those components was that it affects our feelings. I said, "I still don't see how anyone can say mild autism is different from a personality because it matches the components." In context, I had already listed the components in a previous post from a psychology source. You replied with, "No it does not. The components of personality include things such as whether one is extroverted or introverted. Different models of personality might describe these aspects differently, but they still do include what is described by these terms as stable enduring aspects of personality. People with AS differ from each other in these aspects." So, when I read English, I take it to mean you are saying that AS does not match the components of personality (that I just listed) because some AS are extroverted and some are introverted (which wasn't on that list). Then I responded where I showed how personality is so much more than extroversion and introversion.

This was interesting and kinda suggests some of the previous argument we had...



So, obviously more people thought of autism as a disease besides the snake oil cures.


I don't have time to really edit this, and I'll try to do that later. When I do, I'll be sure to delete this last line.

The second of these is your own quote from your own source. You ask latter why despite your demonstrated ability to use cut and paste functions, I might consider you unfamiliar with the subject matter. I guess cut and pasting is no substitute for actual familiarity with the subject matter, or even the materials one is cutting and pasting it would appear.


A core feature of the Autism Disorders is that they have a propensity to produce “uneven skills profiles”. This is often referred to as “skill fragmentation”. In essence this means that according to some discrete measure, an individual might be very high functioning (they might perform well above average for the population as a whole on some discrete measure) while being very low functioning (compared to the population as a whole) on some other discrete measure of performance. Even more complicating is that this does not occur so that closely related skills (or skills believed or expected to be closely related) necessarily correlate. An individual might have well beyond average skills in one area of language and an extreme deficit in another closely related area.

If someone is hyper lexic, can read and write fluently in several languages (having self taught themselves to read as a preschooler), always gets their pee in the toilet, can cook without supervision, but cannot be relied on to actually cook and eat regularly if left to their own devices, are they “mild Autistic”?


Well Tantybi the problem is that the APA is no expert on Autism, and in fact nearly no one else was when DSM IV was published either. What they’ll churn out this time, we can only wait and see, but there is some prospect of some conventions in terms of functioning (and potentially coherent ones at that, although I suggest we not hold our collective breaths).

One consideration on the table is to break down the domains or areas of functioning, to have some (at least loose) conventions as to the boundaries between functioning measurements for each domain, and to require that clinicians assess each domain accordingly. They might just combine the current diagnostic categories into one, with functioning and performance in particular domains being individually measured for each person. This makes a lot more sense in many ways because it will then actually give a meaning to “mild” or “moderate” etc at least as regards a particular domain of functioning, and should undo some of the confusion created by the current misassociation of labels like severe and low functioning in respect of Kanner type Autism (Temple Grandin being an example of the nonsense entailed in that association), and the expectation that everyone with Asperger type (and sometimes this is extended to PDD NOS) is necessarily going to be only mildly impaired.

I do appreciate your frustration; it annoys me when there is not clear language to rely on, and it is even worse when instead (of clear language) there is a bunch of very unclear and ambiguous language.

However this seems clear enough to me....

That’s your quote from your chosen source.
So to recap, to be diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome one must be characterized by impairments that are severe and occur in important domains of functioning. Sounds like a disability to me. If that’s a personality, it’s a pretty crap one don’t you think?

With regards to the issue of bullying in school, no Attwood and Baron Cohen were not basing their information on a gap in knowledge that they have speculated about. Attwood has never met me or heard of me but his writings in this area give exact descriptions of behaviours he can establish as being the result of particular known traits of Asperger Syndrome, that are commonly reported in respect of his patients, and that apply to me as though he’d followed me around to write them. One does not get that kind of detail from statistical correlations with a couple of wild assumptions thrown at them.


Mmm, well I am certainly pleased if your nephew benefits. However, this term is by no means obscure, and before it was used the term “clumsy child syndrome” was as well bandied about; both have been associated with AS since it became a recognized condition, and I really am very surprised you could have not encountered one or the other term before. In fact, without the term, could you not just have told your sister that the DSM predicts this trait? Would she not have believed the DSM? As I recall, this trait is described in the full description/expanded text that forms the main body of the DSM criteria for Asperger Syndrome.


Well they are wrong. A temper tantrum is a temper tantrum no matter who pitches. You getting vocal with the people in the takeaway while holding your child, that’s a temper tantrum. Temper tantrums and melt downs are entirely different.




Problems with regulating emotion is a very common (and potentially impairing) trait of AS, but resulting temper tantrums are still just temper tantrums and are not melt downs. Melt downs do not necessarily even entail being angry, they can be triggered simply through sensory overload.




Tantybi it’s true sometimes emotional dysregulation, and problems communicating as well as frustration caused by impairing aspects of AS could certainly predispose someone to throwing temper tantrums. But it’s also true that problems with emotional regulation and recognition can actually result in inappropriate passivity, including a failure to express anger or aggression normally or productively. Just as the same trait can cause some people to have flat expression, and some people to have “over the top” expression and some people to manifest both these behaviors, so too problems with emotional regulation can result in a variety of flow on effects, not just those you happen to be familiar with. Obviously those whose children throw less temper tantrums than is usual are not the same people having discussions about temper tantrums. Why would they be when it’s not a problem for them or their children?

In fact, it’s very common for children with Asperger Syndrome to have stages both of being overly prone to emotional outbursts and inappropriate passivity including in expressing negative or aggressive emotions.


And if you understand that subject matter (NLD) you will also understand that it is known to entail superficially seemingly in tact or even advanced language proficiency that often hides underlying, subtle but significant deficits and impairments in verbal language.



Why do you imagine I have made such a claim. Surely you understand that claiming effects in verbal communication is quite different to claiming no effects in non verbal communication? Surely?



Don’t you. Well it’s not impossible it is not mentioned, after all the DSM is not and makes no claim to be a full and comprehensive description of AS or its traits. On the contrary, a primary reason for including Asperger Syndrome was to promote research about the condition.I admit I cannot recall specifically whether this particular issue is mentioned in the DSM.


I am not so confident of that. Things people tend to feel actually guilty about that are not behaviours likely to be clinically construed as arising in the courses of disorders or illness, tend to be behaviours that are discontinuous with their enduring patterns of behaviour. Claims of guilt are not to be mistaken for actual guilt (for instance when someone claims they regret X and that they should not do X, but actually internally justify to themselves that X is really ok or not plausibly avoidable for them).



Well in the first instance it’s not my obligation to provide definitions because I am objecting. It might be necessary to supply definitions to succeed in a sub argument that supports my objections, and I note that I have certainly made particular insistances as to definitions, have clarified why I do not accept or question particular definitions, and I do not believe any of my arguments lacks clarity or veracity due to a lack of definition. But you are welcome to draw my attention to any instance where you believe otherwise.

You have claimed mild Autism is a personality, so to have any meaning, you must have some notion that mild Autism applies to and some notion that personality applies to, and the content of those notions supplies the meaning of the assertion as a whole. It’s your assertion and my definitions as to the terms are less important than your’s (because it’s not my assertion, what I think it means and what you intend to communicate are not necessarily identical) and will not clarify what you mean by these terms so well as your own explanation about them.
No I did not. I told you it does not match all the components. I note that you often seem to misunderstand such statements, for instance seeming to think if someone claims that AS can have impacts in the verbal domain that this must mean they claiming that it has no impacts in the non verbal domain. This is a form of the “false dilemma” logical error I believe.

Even though I never stated that I accepted nor implied that I accepted such a list as a complete list of the components?, And you have never revisited this assumption even though I have since stated that I do not accept the list as being complete? Why if I do not accept your list as complete would I mean your list when I claim that AS does not fit all the components of personality (not that AS fits none mind you, but that it fails to fit them all)? If I do not accept your list as complete, then I must mean something more than the contents of your list whenever I use the word personality.

Which was silly since introversion and extroversion do not assort according to whether one has AS and therefore what you needed to do was demonstrate that personality is less than something which includes whether or not one is extroverted or introverted.


Tantybi, at one time people thought Autism was caused by kitchen appliances posing as mothers, and the use of the word disease by a Wikipeadia editor or as part of someone’s political rhetoric proves nothing about whether or not AS is a personality or a disability. The neurodiversity movement is neither new nor obscure and certainly nothing I am not familiar with.

Wow.

Great conversation.

I dont think or feel like ' mild anything' re AS

Facts are sustaining.
Everything else is personal narrative.

and research statrs with the narrative that invites questions

Pandd

If you read the context of the quote, it does also state, “While some individuals with Autism experience mental retardation, by definition a person with Asperger's Disorder cannot possess a "clinically significant" cognitive delay.” I would think one who is not able to live independently in the sense as I’ve previously put it at an age when they should would have a “clinically significant cognitive delay.” The sentence you quoted was more geared to increased chances of success with early intervention, which is very true as well. It doesn’t mean without early intervention, you won’t be able to pee by yourself, but it means that with early intervention, you’ll be more apt to make friends, hold down a job, etc.

If you are asking if they are “high functioning”… If they are more than capable of living independently as many moms of very normal adults do call and make sure their adult offspring are eating regularly and healthy, then yes. However, if they require supervised living to a degree where they are not considered able to live independently due to the fact they refuse to eat or cook without someone doing it for them or demanding they do it, and they did have a diagnosis of autism (related to other factors obviously), then I would speculate that either their condition is more a “moderate to severe autism” or there is more going on, like another diagnosis.


If the APA is no expert on autism, you do realize most of the studies and empirical evidence on autism is based on samples who were diagnosed based on the APA and the DSM, and then also by people who don’t fully understand the DSM (you have to admit the APA manual and DSM isn’t designed well for quickly looking up facts). In fact, most studies won’t accept volunteers who have not been officially diagnosed. That’s one of the many reasons why I was saying earlier that we really don’t know much about autism and most of what we do know is either a SWAG (Scientific Wild Ass Guess) or straight opinion.

I will admit though that I am kinda jumping the gun because I really think the next DSM version is going to break down autism by areas of functioning, and that more than likely, your Aspergers and Aspergers with a speech delay (a good portion of the PDD-NOS) are going to be placed into the “mild autism” category (except for those who probably were misdiagnosed because of clinically significant cognitive delays or that they did qualify to fit the criteria under a different Pervasive Development Disorder or Schizophrenia).



To recap, in order to be diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome, one must have a severe SOCIAL impairment and display restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior. It must cause impairment in social and occupational, and other important areas of life. It further says,



Generally speaking, I don’t see how some clumsiness, special interests, and lousy social interaction make up a “disability.” If Aspergers didn’t exist, you’d be dealing with people defined as pre-occupied with special interests, one sided conversations, lousy nonverbal skills, odd postures, monotone voice, and seemingly lacks empathy. Does that sound like a disability or an eclectic personality? Either way, it sure doesn’t sound like anything that’s going to get in the way of one’s ability to perform job duties or household responsibilities.

As far as the Atwood and Cohen situation… You know this psychic I swear knew me and what she had to say applied to me as though she followed me around for years. That’s not exactly a good argument for credibility. But I am familiar with Tony Atwood and Baron Cohen, and I know these guys are a helluva lot more credible than your average psychic, but I assure you most of what they say are their opinion (a very educated one at that) as opposed to fact. Empirical evidence is what is considered most factual in the medical world, and I’m not sure I totally agree with that either since statistics and bias can significantly change/influence results; however, in all those instances (which I’m sure both Atwood and Cohen have based much of their ideas and theories upon), correlation does not prove causation.

Now, if you really give these men high regards to their credibility, I should probably go ahead and quote Tony Atwood with,




My sister doesn’t believe most of what I say about Aspergers, especially when it shows she was in the wrong for something (I.e. yelling at my nephew for being clumsy). But I do email various articles her way that agrees with things I’ve been trying to tell her all along so she doesn’t have to be in a position to just take my word for it. Plus, they usually give so much more information than what I already knew that she and I both learn more from them.

On temper tantrums vs. meltdowns, I have to admit that I totally agree with what you are saying. Unfortunately, most people don’t. So, I’m going from someone else’s perspective (such as my parents, my sister, teachers, principals, and the average Joe who has never heard of Aspergers) as opposed to what I truly believe here. But again, pointing this out to me has helped me a lot in my personal situation. I love the distinction because just recently I had a meltdown that wasn’t anything like a temper tantrum, and I really wasn‘t sure what to call it. If you know any research that makes that distinction, I sure would love to email the article or link to my sister because she does NOT make the distinction, and I would also like to email it to her son’s principal (because she does NOT make that distinction).

Also, I do see the distinction with my daughter, but I wasn’t able to pin-point it like that. My husband doesn’t see the distinction, and I get mad when she gets in trouble for having a meltdown but not so upset when it’s a temper tantrum. So now that we got some nice vocabulary words to make the distinction, it would both help my husband figure out when to regulate and when to nurture, and it helps my daughter understand the difference as we use those terms when we recognize what she’s going through.



Actually, I didn’t really imagine that. I was frustrated because you tend to go by the syntax more so than the point I’m trying to make. I did the same thing with you just because I was frustrated. Sorry about that.

This subject does come up again in your post. I wasn’t using false dilemma. I don’t have to. I was just saying based on what you said word for word that you are saying this, and the point I was trying to make was not to discredit you as a person, but to make you realize that you probably wasn’t trying to say what it looked like you said. What you say and what you mean are two totally different things. It’s obvious what I meant by “mild autism,” but you didn’t want to see it as that and tried to twist what I’ve said word for word to mean something that isn’t what I was obviously trying to say. I’ve been thinking about pointing this out earlier on in the argument, but I didn’t want to accuse you of doing something that I don’t think you realize you are doing. At the heat of frustration, I just played the same game back, and obviously it didn’t go far because two wrongs don’t make a right. It would be stupid for me at this point to waste time trying to get you to agree on what you said because you know what you meant, and I know what you meant, and that’s what we really need to be talking about.


Aspergers tends to deal with more with non-verbal difficulties. While our verbal skills might be mildly impaired, they are not impaired to the point where we cannot communicate verbally what’s going on. Effectively communicate is completely different than not being able to.

On personality traits that do cause guilt… I am very flirty by nature, and I do feel very guilty when I flirt with people because I’m married (especially when it‘s with another female because I‘m so not a lesbian). Before I was married, it made me feel guilty because I think it led men on and resulted in something not very desirable. Actually, I’ll give some TMI here and admit that some of the men I’ve been sexually intimate with in the past was a result of me feeling guilty for “leading them on” when I wasn’t interested. I actually try to get into my Aspie monotone no facial expression zone because it helps avoid anything that can be perceived as flirting. Also, I’m a P in the Myers Briggs, and that often makes it hard for me to make appointments on time and establish routines that are useful (as opposed to Aspie related), and I seriously beat myself up on that. I’m trying to harness the Aspie desire for certain routines into something more useful and effective towards household management.


On definitions, anytime you dispute the meaning of a word, the burden is more so on you to prove the misuse of the word as opposed to the person using the word, especially when the person who is using the word supplies a definition provided by a credible source. So, not only would you dispute my definition of personality, but you are also disputing someone else’s definition of the term. You have only told me what personality is not, and at your convenience in argument as opposed to flat out disputing what it means and providing your own definition and sources of that definition from the get-go.

I’m not claiming mild autism is a personality as much as my opinion is seeing it more as that than a disability. I don’t think personality fully fit’s autism, but I do think it does more so than a disability or disorder.

On whether or not autism meets the components of a personality… So, if you don’t think it matches some of the components, how about telling me which ones they are? If you don’t think the components of a personality is accurate, how about telling me what you do think is an accurate definition/components of personality and where you get that information? While we are at it, how do you define disability?

And no, the wiki article I quoted had nothing to do with whether AS is a personality or disability. But, you told me several times that nobody thinks of it as a disease, and while we dropped the argument, I found this after the fact and wanted to put it up. So, no, I’m not crazy (although you never called me crazy, but you know what I mean here) for thinking some people perceive AS as a disease because obviously enough people have for someone’s political rhetoric to describe it as such.

Asperger's cannot be a personality disorder, it has physical symptoms. If it was personality only, then the clumsiness couldn't be explained with anything, and neither could the sensory oversensitivity. This suggests a neurological disorder. Also, soon they will merge Asperger's with HFA, so that would make even less sense then. Asperger's does have a very similar personality disorder to it- avoidant personality disorder. The theory would make a lot more sense with that disorder.

To me it appears there are two problems with your interpretation of this text. One is the non application of premises that are logically deducible (and therefore necessarily implied) by the text, and the other is the treatment of premises you have induced as though they were deduced.

In effect you are ignoring what is necessarily implied by the text in favour of assumptions that are not stated or necessarily implied by the text and are contrary to the text.


I inferred you might be assuming as much.
Keep in mind that the text does not actually make any claim that could only be true if your assumption is correct, but it makes claims that cannot be true if your assumption is correct. Your text does not actually contradict me at all though, including in areas we are disputing.

Redefining independent to mean “not independent but not suffering from these particular issues” is moving the goal posts.

Many people with real disabilities can live entirely independently, not just in the sense you describe, but really actually independently. Most people would accept if a condition prevents one from being capable of full independent living, that it’s not a mild condition even if mild when compared to more severe presentations of materially similar kinds or genres of impairment (like paralysis of one arm is not mild, but much more mild than paralysis of all four limbs).

It seems both common and good sense to suggest if a condition impairs independent living at all, even if it does not prevent independent toileting or cooking, it’s a disability. It also makes the same kinds of sense to infer that if a condition results in clinically significant impairment in important domains of functioning that it is a disability, and rather difficult to see how clinically significant impairment in an important domain of functioning is ever not disability.


The contextual point you raise is not relevant. Being geared toward highlighting a point does not require lying or being utterly counter factual, and frankly it would not demonstrate familiarity with your subject matter if you provided a flawed source that undermined your points rather than an accurate one that supported them.

The fact is the assertions, are untrue if Asperger Syndrome alone cannot result in impairment sufficient to prevent independent living, no matter what point your source made the assertions in favour of. If there were no issue with independent living arising from Asperger Syndrome alone, it would be absurd, inaccurate and an indicator that the source is not authoritative or sound for it to include the relevant text about independent living.

The upshot is, your text contradicts your assumptions about the severity range of Asperger Syndrome. It might describe it as “mild Autism”, but there is no indication this actually means anything other than “tends to have better outcomes at group level than some other variants within the genre of conditions”. It does not imply that AS is mild when considered independently of any other condition, but seems to take pains to point out that the range includes people whose disabilities are very mild, while also indicating that even with early intervention some will be sufficiently impacted so that they cannot live independently as adults.

I do not know how your own source could be any clearer in substantiating my claims that Asperger Syndrome refers to a wide range of functioning profiles and can include deficits that prevent independent living in adulthood (and that this extent of disability is not outside the range of what is usually meant by the phrase “mild autism”). Nor do I see how your own source could be any clearer in undermining your claims that Asperger Syndrome is a mild condition that cannot prevent independent living in adults.

Not being able to hold down a job is not disabling?
It does not mean that without intervention someone will do these things, or with intervention they will do these things. It does not mean with or without intervention one is not genuinely impaired, not disabled but rather, more has a personality. It does mean that Asperger Syndrome can prevent someone from living independently even with early intervention. No amount of listing things that someone can do makes a condition that can prevent independent living in adulthood “more a personality” than a disability.

Either someone can live independently, or they need their nutrition supervised. Many parents ring their children to see if they are eating properly. This is quite different from someone actually being at risk of becoming malnourished if no one checks if they eating regularly and appropriately.

Evidently, there are other people who also need this kind of supervision too and who are not Autistic, and many Autistic people who do not need this kind of supervision. The point is not whether someone needs some specific supervision, but whether some people with Asperger Syndrome need input from others that typically functioning people do not need, in order to reliably achieve necessarily daily and life tasks (appropriate to their chronological age), and whether such need is construed as explained by their Autistic status according to clinical standards/reasoning.

This is moving the goal posts significantly. Not interfering with capacity for ordinary independent living does not mean that something is not a disability, but if something is that intrusive and impairing, that it prevents ordinary independent living, that’s disability in my view. If to prove something is a disability, it is necessary to prove that a person cannot live without 24/7 supervision then many instances of Downs Syndrome and Prada Willie Syndrome and congenital blindness and deafness and intermittent psychotic disorders, would fail to meet this standard. In my view, that’s contrary to the conventions and shared meanings I understand exist in respect of the word “disability”. So far as I know, “must be unable to live without constant supervision” is sufficient but not necessary grounds for construing a condition as a disability.

Secondly, you might question it, but what is your basis for this really? Positive confirmation that the range of manifestations and presentations of symptoms that meet the DSM criteria for Asperger Syndrome are restricted to those you personally have in mind? You describe that you “would think” and my point is however sensible and intuitive that feels, do you have any positive confirmation that what you think widely applies to those who meet the DSM criteria for AS and for no other clinical condition or impairment?

Not really. In the first instance the DSM is not a how to guide for diagnosis. In no circumstances should any person be diagnosed on the basis of the DSM. In accordance with, certainly, but entirely on the basis of, no.

Further, some research is conducted in accordance with the DSM, and this will be stated, some is not, and this will be stated.

For some clinicians the DSM’s finer points ,where they contradict their own philosophy or view, are not relevant. Research needs to be precise and should state which diagnostic criteria is applicable, and further if they have deviated from the standard iteration of that criteria. Some research is actually looking specifically at whether there is some greater significance to the distinctions one or another criteria apply, so obviously that entails applying the criteria whether or not it is valid.

Most diagnosticians should not need to consult the DSM to diagnose Autism if they have any business whatsoever diagnosing Autism. There might be some minor exceptions such as when a physician familiar with one criteria set (and otherwise a proficient diagnostician of Autism) wishes to iterate the particular diagnostic category using an alternative criteria (for instance, someone who usually relies on Gillberg style models and distinctions might wish to categorize a patient in DSM terms for the convenience of other practitioners or the patient/family), but generally speaking it would worry me if someone purporting diagnostic expertise relevant to Autistic Spectrum Disorders, needed to consult the DSM to make any such diagnosis.


Most research does not usually rely just on subjects’’ prior diagnosis, but also on reviewing the diagnostic criteria applied, and either independent or group level auditing (to test for diagnostic soundness across the sample set and establish parameters for formulating and making claims about things like error margins).


If the option you refer to is taken up, then some people with Asperger type will end up with mild measured impact/impairment in domains of measured impact/impairment. Some will not.

Some people currently excluded from an Asperger diagnosis by the DSM’s language and self help in early development criteria, will measure as mild in one or more domains.

However you choose to word things, the facts remain that the social impairment described is a significant impairment in an important domain of functioning. That’s disability. Whatever else is true about what is being discussed, it presents clinically significant impairment in an important domain of functioning. Clinical significance is measured in terms of impact on functioning/well being. How can anything fitting the description of presenting “clinically significant impairment in at least one important domain of functioning” possibly not be a disability?


Nothing you have stated indicates to me that there is any reason to reconsider my view that Asperger Syndrome as described in the DSM does in fact exist. Either Asperger Syndrome is a condition that entails in every instance, clinically significant impairment in at least one important domain of functioning (in other words, is a disability) or it does not actually exist at all.

Evidently, it often seems from some of your comments that you are treating a sub section of the DSM criteria as though it were the DSM criteria, and it also seems as though you treat the criteria almost as though you thought it were a comprehensive or even all inclusive explanation and description of the traits of Asperger Syndrome.

The DSM is evidently not a “guide to Asperger Syndrome” and certainly does not pretend to offer a comprehensive description of the traits and implications that are understood to be caused by or explained by Asperger Syndrome.

Tantybi, whatever it “sounds like” to superficial unexamined gut reaction, the fact remains that Asperger Syndrome exists because people presented with it clinically because it was quite distinguishable from merely “eclectic personality” in a way that inspired seeking health care services.

At this point in order to argue that Asperger Syndrome is more a personality, you are redefining what Aspeger Syndrome is to something else entirely, and in effect claiming Asperger Syndrome does not even exist. You do this not on the basis of what you actually know, but on the basis that if you do not see it, it cannot be true.

The experts in the fields’ arguments are much more compelling than “I personally do not see how that would work out, based on what I imagine “that” to entail”, so you have not convinced me that there is no Asperger Syndrome by virtue of no such condition meeting the impairment standards described in the DSM.

Your example is completely irrelevant as there is an explanation for what psychics do ,that discredits claims of being psychic. The same explanation does not apply here, and nothing else about this example appears relevant to Attwood’s or Baron Cohen’s published insights.



Opinions backed by substantive and plausible evidence trumps any objection about them merely being opinions, at least until an equally or comparably substantive body of evidence and argumentation exists for one or more contrary opinions.

Tantybi this is just irrelevant nonsense. The medical establishment is actually aware that correlation is not causation, and takes proactive steps to address this. Unless you have some specific grounds for suspecting that those steps have failed in respect of the particular opinions you are commenting on, then it’s a non argument.

Yet another leap into your own assumptions. The fact that I find someone credible in respect of particular comments they have made or published, is not a wide and sweeping endorsement of their every judgement, opinion or view, or even of their credibility outside the scope of what I have deemed credible.

Dr Attwood’s conduct as a practitioner is not actually consistent with the comments you quote if they are interpreted as having clinical meaning rather than being interpreted as subjective social/political commentary. As a clinician, in practice, Attwood runs with the DSM distinction between Autism and not Autism being all about clinically significant impairment. Whatever he says, he practices on the premise that Asperger Syndrome is a condition that merits clinical intervention. Odd behavior if he thinks it’s a neutral or positive difference rather than a clinical disorder or dysfunction of some kind.

I do not know why you imagine it matters. AS is a personality according to you. Personalities do not make people manifest motor dyspraxia. So the linking of motor dyspraxia (a clinical syndrome distinct from mere “clumsiness”) to AS relies on AS being something other than a personality. Why would your sister treat your nephew differently if clumsiness is caused by his personality rather than whatever she thought was causing it before you could reveal to her that it is because of his “personality”, and if not his personality, what did she think was the cause before? Fairy dust?


Er there is none if Asperger Syndrome is just a personality. Either Aspeger Syndrome entails brain dysfunction or it does not entail melt downs that are any different to garden variety temper tantrums, and if Asperger Syndrome entails melt downs, then it’s not a personality, but something entailing episodic brain dysfunction.


I do not believe that I am missing the wider or central point in favour of discussing syntax, and if I discuss syntax it is only because I perceive it is relevant to your point (or what I think is your point) or to my own point.

Nevermind.

This was not true when you posted it in your last post and it still is not true now. Your premise that you can produce this meaning from a word for word reading of my words relies on my use of the word “personality” meaning exactly the same thing as your list of attributes for personality, and I’ve explicitly indicated that this is not the case.


That’s not the case though Tantybi. My comments word for word asserted and were intended to assert that I reject the premise that AS matches all the attributes of personality. Your interpretation that this somehow meant that AS did not match any of the attributes in your list requires you to assume that personality necessarily has a meaning exactly identical to your listed attributes, and this is neither factually established, nor asserted by my comments. In other words you pulled that assumption out of the air, not out of my words.
No it was not obvious, and it is still not clear now. Mild Autism has no real meaning. It is often used to refer to Asperger Syndrome and you seem to intend to include Asperger Syndrome in your meaning, but you reject that you are including conditions that conform to the Asperger diagnostic criteria. To prove such cases do not conform to the criteria, you have produced quotes proving that such cases do in fact conform to the criteria. The same quotes also show that a source that describes Asperger Syndrome as “mild Autism” means by this, some condition that can prevent someone from living independently in adulthood, even if they have early intervention,

It seems you now mean instances that are not Asperger Syndrome which according to you cannot actually exist. I have no idea what you mean because Autism, including “mild autism” is not unimpairing or without clinically significant impairment. I do not know of any condition that is an Autism and does not include clinically significant impairment.


That’s not the case Tantybi. The problem is what you have been saying is not merely wrong if read pedantically, it’s not right in any instance and only appears as though it might be if read very loosely and without attention to meaning.

The problem is Tantybi that technically you did not “play the same game” even if I had been playing a game with syntax because you posited an interpretation that requires you take license with the words that I used. More significantly, your interpretation that my comments about “mild autism” are merely semantic is entirely wrong and misses the point.

The fact is what you mean by ‘mild Autism” and believe applies to Asperger Syndrome, is not what is meant in the source you quote. It means a condition that can prevent adults from living independently, and that’s very obviously not what you mean by the word, nor something you understand applies to instances of Asperger Syndrome. This is no pedantic issue of word choice, or a matter of a message that might be true if reworded. Whatever words you use, the problem is that what you are trying to communicate is fatally flawed, and this rather than particular word choice is the point I am driving at.

Er, no. By definition if X communicates Y then it is an effective means of communicating Y, and if X is not an effective means of communicating Y, then X fails to communicate Y.

I do not feel that the information you have provided gives me the scope to make polite or respectful interpretations different to your own, but I will say that none of your comments cause me any particular doubts in respect of my earlier opinion about this matter.


In respect of any objection, the standard of a valid objection is that it undermines what is argued against even if only by demonstrating incompleteness.

If you assert that personality has attributes A, B and C and so does Asperger Syndrome and therefore Asperger Syndrome is a personality, showing that something exists that has attributes A, B and C but which is not personality, is sufficient to undermine your original assertion. It does not matter where you got the definition from, and alternative definitions of personality are not actually relevant to the process.

Deductive logic does not discriminate on the basis of whose opinion or argument it is being applied to.
At no point has my definition of personality been particularly relevant.

I do not claim your definition of personality is flawed because I have a better one, but rather make a claim that the argument you use it in is provably unsound and is recognizably an invalid argument form. This is true or not independent of any alternative definition I may or may not have in mind.

I do not even understand where I would begin trying to understand that. It seems to me like arguing that raw milk is more cold than a liquid. I suppose some milk is cold, but raw milk is always a liquid whether or not its cold. Whether or not AS conforms to elements of personality, and to what extent does not prove anything about whether or not it is a disorder or dysfunction. Establishing it is a personality does not establish it is neither disorder nor dysfunction, nor does establishing something is a disorder or dysfunctional prove that it is not a personality.

The fact is by definition Asperger Syndrome is a disability, and no condition that is not a disability fits any widely accepted clinical definition of Asperger Syndrome that I am aware of. If you are talking about something that is not a disability, by definition whatever you are talking about is not Asperger Syndrome, and it probably does not meet any widely held convention as to what constitutes “mild autism” either.

I do not have any particular attribute in mind, nor need one at this juncture. I can be certain that whether or not you are right, you are not right by virtue of the reasons you have offered, so there is no more reason for me to believe your premise now than there was before I had encountered it.


Firstly, I have not claimed that your list is inaccurate, but rather that it is incomplete. I do not understand why you think there might be some relevance to any definition I would apply at this juncture. It’s probably pertinent that according to any definition I would apply, any “personality” that causes clinically significant impairment in one or more domains of functioning, would be as much a disorder and disability as it is a personality.


Again this is not entirely relevant, but what is pertinent is that if something is a source of ongoing clinically significant impairment in one or more important domains of functioning, then it is a disability. I tend toward the social model of disability and a definition consistent with that would not help your cause, but would probably present an insurmountable barrier, and I do not see that you could possibly be intending such a definition. Since there are other sensible and widely shared meanings for disability, it is more reasonable to assume whatever you mean by the word is not the definition applied in “social models” of disability. So I would not restrict your meaning by that definition. However I am not aware of any widely shared convention as to the meaning of disablity that excludes a state that causes ongoing clinically significant impairment in an important domain of functioning, so I believe that it is reasonable to apply it as a standard unless you produce a convincing reason not to.


No Tantybi I have never asserted that no one believes AS is a disease. I have asserted that the wider public are not the best audience of complex knowledge so that it’s not worthwhile shaping knowledge for their benefit. They can make a hash of it any which way. I have commented that currently no one whose opinion is worth consulting on the issue believes that AS is a disease. I have certainly not commented that everyone’s opinion as to AS is worth consulting. Hence I have never claimed that no one believes AS is a disease. There are many “ones” who have opinions about AS that are not worth consulting and any number of them may very well think AS is a disease.


Crazy, no. Inclined to play fast and loose with words, drawing whatever inference you fancy and ignoring necessary implications you do not fancy? Perhaps.

pandd,

I'm not going to argue with you anymore. You are not coming up with anything new, and most of your rhetoric is nonsense and that's because you decided I am wrong and you won't stop until you think you made me sound like I"m wrong. I've humored the situation long enough. If you can't tell me specifically what components of a personality that you think a milder autism doesn't qualify to fit under, and if you refuse to tell me how you define the usage of certain words, then you have no interest in the actual subject as much as just arguing. THe probelm with our communication is that you change the definition of words to suit your convenience (including how you perceive psychology in practice, which is really far out there mind you), and I'm really not interested in arguing just to argue. If you do find this subject interesting and wish to discuss it, that's one thing, but it's obvious to me that your motives are not anywhere near that.

You do make a very good point... I'll also be looking into some of the personality disorders when I get more time.

That is a very rude, inaccurate and unfair accusation. I have not at any time in this discussion behaved in such a way, although you concede that you have played a few semantic games out of frustration.

The fact that your own sources utterly contradict you, (that there is no such thing as Autism too mild to cause clinically significant impairment in at least one important domain of functioning) is not my fault nor arranged by me to make you look wrong. In my view your comments to the effect that I am simply trying to make you look wrong when I have extended every effort to allow you to clarify what you mean, and to demonstrate that what you are saying is consistent with what is known and defined as Asperger Syndrome is probably best viewed as a temper tantrum on your part.

It seems more realistic to interpret that you are just unable to admit that you are wrong and less than familiar with the subject matter at hand. Otherwise, why not just produce some evidence that Asperger Syndrome is a condition that cannot prevent independence in an adult, or that can be diagnosed in someone who does not experience clinically significant impairment in one or more important domains of functioning? You do not because you cannot because in fact you are simply wrong. I did not arrange for you not to be able to produce such evidence just so I would look right, Indeed how could I arrange such a circumstance? You credit me with powers I simply do not have.

I'm sorry because I wasn't trying to be rude. Some of your arguments are just not making much sense, and to me has come across rude as a result.... (i'm explaining further, so you don't need to quote and reply to this before reading the rest and then responding to the rest as if this wasn't part of it)

First, I've asked questions to give you an opportunity to make your case, and you refuse to answer them claiming that it's irrelevant. This means you have no interest in discussing the topic as much as arguing/debating.

Second, I've explained that you are reading too far into syntax and missing the main point, and even played the same game back which you didn't seem to enjoy, so knowing that it's not enjoyable when someone does that to you, you still deny that you even do it and then continue to do it.

Third, you keep changing your argument to suit your needs. For example... Attwood is a great source who reads you like a book and knows more than I would know because he's done all this research and is a guru in the field of autism to the point where I'm not even credible to claim what is his opinion and what is fact, but when he is quoted saying something to the contrary of what you are trying to tell me...well you don't agree with everything he has to say on the subject. Basically, he is only credible when he agrees with your opinion the moment you are making it.

Fourth, you have disputed everything I've had to say. I could say the sky is blue, and you would dipsute that at this point. So yeah, that's going to come across to me as you being someone who just wants to debate people rather than discuss a topic. In addition, you focus on how I'm wrong as opposed to what exactly is wrong with the opinion. For example (one of many)...



Here you don't even discuss the text as much as how you perceive I'm reading it. Well, if you are so right, then you'd be able to better justify it focusing on your interpretation of the text or at least by stating exactly what assumptions I've made or what implications I have ignored.

That's why I'm done....

I want to thank everyone for their input so far...

I want to point out that I have a theory formulating (in the draft phase), and your input (all of you) has played a role in shaping my theories on the subject. So to let you know where my theories are shaping into...

I'm not going to totally discount the personality concept, but I will for it describing Aspergers or any mild autism as a whole. Obviously, the physical symptoms (as well as the meltdowns) totally disregard it as "personality" as a whole, but I still think a lot of Aspergers is more personality related (however, not all of it).

Second, I see a major distinction between "impairing" and "disabling."

Third, I no longer see narcissistic personality disorder as an opposite (possibly still an opposing situation, but well, it's a little more rough in my mind for me to really put it into words yet); however, I'm still trying to develop something to where a spectrum includes all people as opposed to just autistic people. Maybe I'm wrong since the spectrum of light doesn't include darkness. But for whatever reason, I firmly believe if there is going to be a "mild" to "severe" level of something, then we should show a side of when there is the complete absence of it and it's varying degrees of absence, but again, darkness situation.

AS is NOT a personality issue. (Apologies for my bluntness!)

Human code of conduct has always been defined by human rules and "personality " has been /still is a politicisation of the human for whatever reason!

Playing AS or any biologiacl factor in the huiman condition to the 'personality' trumpet is to disempower the reality of that biological experience.
But, the bldy..... everyday day experience of being subjected to personality comments/behaviours and blocked from entering certain social experiences because one's'personality' doesn't fit IS NO JOKE!

How LONG will it take this human race to get real!! ! A human is MORE than a political tool for any dominating one to spew on about as they will.

You two must be exhausted. Pandd, you r slicing arguments cleanly and thoughtfully.
Tantybi, may i suggest you look beyond narratives...... they always just go on and on. So that one is caught in the 'gee whizz' it's a new facet ...isn't it pretty!

AS and ASDs are a biological reality.....not too clearly understood as yet. Thank god, some are trying to cleave more insight.