Article about AS Aggression towards others by Digby Tantam

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Warning - this is not only off topic but a pet peeve of mine:
The reasons and examples cited above are why I have been an active proponent of having a forum on this website that is specifically for aspie parents. My children are now 17 and 18 and they are doing okay DESPITE me. For those of us who contemplate parenting or who find themselves parents (as in my case), it is an overwhelming and daunting task, to say the least. It has almost destroyed me. Yet many people here see no reason why we should have our own forum to be able to get support in this key area. Sigh. I'm done with my rant.

This is an example of what I would have expected most of the replies to this issue to be. I am just like Tormod, so that is part of why I was so offended by the article. Also, as I've said, I've been reading and replying to thousands of posts over the last few years, and just haven't seen many people talking about any form of aggression except occasional aggression towards themselves (in the form of self-harm, thoughts of suicide, substance abuse, etc.) . People have mentioned selection and subject bias, which is DEFINITELY one of the problems in Digby's study (he even says it's a problem in his reply to me), and a bias that could exist in this forum is that people just don't talk about their physical aggression. Yet, due to the level of openness and honesty that is generally expressed in this forum, I still believe that we are a representative and very large sample from which to study aggressiveness, and that people here would discuss their aggressiveness just as openly and honestly as they do everything else.

So I remain unconvinced, and alarmed that other professionals are reading his paper.

I don't understand this either. We are human, as flawed as anyone else, not angels.

I'm playing devil's advocate, okay ?
Those who are so violent as to be incarcerated (committed crime against another person resulting in death or injury) aren't going to be writing at an online forum. Many/most prisoners aren't allowed to get online-thus, one won't hear from/know of them-the population that has access to & inclination towards participating here (membership) is not necessarily representative (cross section) of all people (with dx or not).

How accurate can one be using only the people here as guide to range of behavior in people with ASD's ? Same with someone getting data from hospitals, clinics, medical contacts-those who seek help (or are brought in) are self-selected group. Not trying to contradict your impressions, merely that I consider measurement to be inherently slippery-hard to get grasp on balanced info. in many aspects of life (not just this issue).

^^
Good point, but I would argue that based on sample size alone, we would present a better study sample for research purposes.

Yeah, they do (well, they can).

In the dead words of Hans Asperger:


If one is to take on the positives that Asperger wrote of ("Little Professor"), one must also look at the negatives. One can say that everyone can show the negatives, yes, they can; everyone can show the positives too. It's a cluster of symptoms, not everyone will experience them, but people will who have the diagnosed disorder. They're no less "Asperger's" than anyone else.

The problem with this kind of thinking is that it discusses AS "aggressive behavior" without explaining the reasons why. I know that I've appeared aggressive to others, especially to my parents and sister. Some of this was typical stuff within my control. I'm not proud of it, but I also know that many an adolescent has been moody and cruel. (I'm not using this as an excuse, merely pointing out a common pattern of behavior.) My most intense aggression has been extremely difficult and I am not sure that I was entirely able to control myself and my emotions due to being overwhelmed with panic, anger, and the sense that the environment was beyond my control. I do care about how my actions affect others, when I'm in a calm state, which I can reach more easily as an adult. Yes, these are problems which many adults on the spectrum had...but being on the spectrum is not nearly the same thing as being a sociopath. Sometimes outside, clinical descriptions veer too much in that direction without acknowledging the actual autistic person's perspective.

Last edited by srriv345 on 21 May 2008, 1:22 am, edited 1 time in total.

Not only did Asperger work with a very non-representative sample, but again you shouldn't generalize from a single case - if we did that, all NT's, no all humans, would be psychopathic serial killers.



And aggression is not part of the symptoms, even Gilberg doesn't include aggression in his lists. You're demonstrating the exact problem with Tantam's work and you're already assuming that it's more common for aspies to respond more aggressively then others and in your mind you've already made it a distinctive trait.

He had a couple of hundred children (plus Asperger's Disorder nowadays isn't different to the original definition of such if one is to use Gillberg's Criteria) ; I can also provide professional quotes that prove there's aggression amongst those with AS, and that it's directly related to such. Just as lacking in nonverbal cues are a part of AS; some people will lack certain cues, others will appear to be spared of such.

Aggression can easily come under: (d) socially and emotionally inappropriate behaviour, as of Gillberg's.

Here's from Gillberg himself:

Of note, the aggression that is common amongst males with an ASD usually clears up around the high school years and over. It's common in the elementary and preschool years.

They were brought to Asperger's clinic because of they were so difficult to handle, and that, again, is not a representative selection. Children, including aspies, who aren't particularly difficult weren't brought to his clinic, they still don't see doctors unless there's something obviously not going well, and it took another 4 decades for the medical world to recognize AS. Behavioural problem aren't that common in AS that you can say that aspies in general are aggressive.



All children learn to handle their emotions, including aggression, when they grow up, humans aren't born with an innate understanding of their emotions.

Good point. At least some corner of a forum field anyway.

It's true that on the Parent's Forum I often feel "immature, irresponsible, inadequate, over-excitable, negative, non-constructive, feeble, pathetic, exaggerated, out of proportion", ( the AS list) etc etc, because the prevailing treatment of problems ( that of AS in children) ) is NT, and seems often to take for granted capacities I simply don't have, of executive function, negotiating skills , ability to deal with people, etc.

Perhaps we could have an ongoing thread somewhere like the ex-dino café does , or my own Gluten Free Support Thread in Members Only where threads move relatively slowly so it stays on/near the front page, or In-Depth Adult?

How many AS parents are there on here for a start? How common is it? Will poll for an indication, unless someone has figures already (?).

Ok, will stop there so as not to hijack thread, but am interested.

I'm a woman.

your own catwomen

It seems to me that if a person "takes on" the stuff Asperger wrote at all, it should be with each trait on its own merits, rather than each trait with equal blind obedience to Asperger's judgement.

"Sadistic" is an extremely loaded word and a value judgment. I find it just as questionable as Kanner's many value judgments towards his patients, including believing that they did not seek out social contact (even when they clearly did), and in one case saying something like "She never listened to instructions but she always followed them just fine," both of which seem to me to be Kanner's interpretations of people's actions, but not necessarily the real meanings of the actions.

I don't trust Kanner's or Asperger's assessments of the whys of why their patients acted how they did. I don't think they knew, I think they were guessing, and I think it's really bad to build ideas about a condition upon a foundation of such sloppy guesswork.

I have a friend who used to get wrinkles in her forehead when she was exasperated. I'd reach out and touch the wrinkles and be really happy, and she'd make even more of them. I didn't know until she told me that it was a sign of exasperation and irritation, and that my attempts to do things that made her forehead wrinkle were actually causing her problems.

If she were a less insightful person she might well have called that sadistic, thinking that I was attempting to irritate her on purpose. I had no such intent and thus it can't be called sadistic, spiteful, or cruel, even if some people would see it that way, and I suspect Asperger would have, had he watched us, and Kanner would've come to some totally different but equally wrong conclusion.

As far as those specific traits go...

...lots of kids are nasty and spiteful to their little brothers. Most of them aren't autistic (because most people aren't autistic). I haven't heard of any solid evidence for autistic people mistreating their little siblings any more than non-autistic people do.

..."aggressive" and "annoying" are two totally separate traits that shouldn't be put together like that.

...I already covered the "sadistic" thing.

...and then we come to this:

"Does not seem to be able to sense how much he hurts others, either physically or mentally."

Hello?!?

If he doesn't know how much he's hurting others, then he can't be described as cruel, sadistic, spiteful, etc., now can he? Because those things -- as personality traits -- require understanding and then disregarding other people's hurt, rather than failing to understand it. And the trait "annoying" being placed alongside "aggression" is also misleading, making it sound like "annoying on purpose", but then, if he doesn't know he's annoying anyone or why, then how can it be annoying on purpose?

It just doesn't add up.

Of course autistic people can be sadistic, spiteful, and cruel. I would guess, just as often as autistic people can be kind, caring, and well-intentioned. I don't buy the idea that any of these character traits are innately autistic ones, they're human traits. Autistic people can have or lack any character flaw in the book, but an autistic person, or even a number of autistic people, having a particular character flaw (or for that matter positive character either), doesn't make it an autistic trait. Nor does Kanner or Asperger judging some the people they were looking at, to have those traits. Nor Tantam pulling out Asperger's judgments and building upon them with tons of examples that could be a whole lot of things besides actual aggression.

By the way, there was a study done on autistic people's ethical standards.

And we had the same amount as anyone else, provided we could understand the situation well enough to pronounce judgment on it.



I assume that the poor quality of explanation, much like my own and many other autistic people I knew when they were kids, would've been as much a language barrier as anything else.

Very well said, Anbuend.