Cultural Aspergers Hypothesis

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What do you mean by my often going on the till was a power play. I'm assuming the till is the cash register at the shop. And what is it you normally do at the shop; sounds like you were on a break when she approached you.

When she asked you the first time, did you respond to her request with an okay, or non-verbal communication that one would normally see as acknowledgement and agreement with her request?

Or did you think that she would assume that you would be agreeable to the request without any response?

Of, course I wasn't there, but from you account, it sounds like she was prompting you for an answer to her request, with the statement you considered to be redundant, and when you asked her for a cup of coffee she gave you a non-verbal, that she needed an answer from you instead of an offer of a cup coffee.

In normal communication when a request is made, one immediately responds with some type of answer whether it be non-verbal or verbal.

However, I don't know yet, for sure if you responded non-verbally or verbally to her initial request.

I agreed the first time she said. It made complete sense later when I saw things from her NT perspective as apes in a power hierarchy, desperately struggling for control (there was a psychopath there and she saw me as a threat to him being established as the alpha male). I lacked no realtime information apart from the between-the-lines stuff, and yet it made no sense until I imagined her motives. I could read her nonverbals clearly - they just made no sense.

If you're significantly different from this maybe we're looking at the difference between Aspergers and NVLD. Alternatively I, being for long periods very social, may have gone more meta than you in dealings with people so I can see more precisely where misunderstandings are happening. This is beginning to interest me. Please, "Can you describe what it is like not to be able to read non-verbal cues and between the lines for yourself?"

Yes. The problems reading non-verbal cues, is part of the neurocognitive difference that makes it difficult for some individuals with Aspergers in "reading between the lines" in what is being communicated. And, it is also part of non-verbal learning disorder.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonverbal_learning_disorder



I've adapted to reading non-verbal cues over the course of my lifetime through reading eyes, my issue was more one of not showing appropriate concern through my personal non-verbal communication in situations that warranted it. That was much harder for me to adapt to. I learned to smile alot. That worked well in most cases.

For example, I worked at military installation, and encountered the Captain of the base, who was very upset at a situation that I had control over that he did not like. I showed no sign of fear in my non-verbal communication when communicating with him, although I felt anxious, because I understood the power that he had over the position I was in.

It did not please him that he did not get the normal response that he got close to 100% of the time when he was upset at others, so it made him even madder and he screamed don't you know who I am, I'm the G*d D*mn Captain of this base.

Meanwhile, I resolved his problem, and after I did my co-workers asked me how I remained so calm. My co-workers read calm on my face, but had no idea how I felt inside.

It probably did not help that I maintained direct eye contact with him the entire time he was screaming at me, but that was my method to gain non-verbal cues in communication.

I meant no disrespect, but as I later came to understand, much later, it is not appropriate non-verbal communication to maintain direct eye contact when someone in authority is upset about something and communicating it.

When I was much younger, I made some clueless attempts at communication, because of my inability to see past my own world. I remember a guy telling me that life was fair, and trying to argue back the point that it was fair, even with the prior knowledge I had that this individual had a heart attack at age 37.

At that point in my life, I felt like life was fair, because of what I was able to overcome; my exhuberant optimism for life did not extend into his life; that should have been obvious, but it wasn't at that point in my life, because I could not see past the good that I saw in life.

There was no diagnosis of Aspergers when I was young. I had a verbal delay until I was 4, and had problems expressing myself in writing and in words my entire life. I navigated life through my senses for the most part. Eventually diagnosed with PDD NOS/ADHD/Alexithymia in my late 40's.

I graduated close to the top of my class in highschoool and received 3 college degrees, but I managed to take classes that required almost no oral presentation, or advanced writing skills. Multiple choice tests, numbers, equations, and 1 sentence answers/verbal responses, and a good rote memory, was the mainstay that was required of me.

I graduated college after gaining alot of knowledge in the academic world, but without the ability to express that knowledge in words, I basically started from scratch in the working world.

I ended up in the world of Recreation and Athletics at a military base, with a continuing education in the social world, that was much more demanding than any of the education I received in school. Ending up as Athletic Director on a military base, starting off as the skinny kid with poor motor skills, without a social clue in school.

Plasticity, both on the neurocognitive and physical side, can stretch the limits of what would normally be considered one's boundries.

Humans are apes; I don't see anything unusual about the alpha male office politics. I wouldn't call it NT behavior, though. There are fields where the alpha male is in command of intelligence, rather than the physicality of our ape cousins.

Not suggesting they have Aspergers, but Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were not Alpha male material from the Ape heirachy perspective; their intelligence allowed them alpha male status and alpha male behavior with their subordinates. They certainly were not what one would consider as neurotypical, though.

Depending on the skills needed, it is often the Alpha that has the required ones. But, I don't see how alpha male or psychopathic behavior is advantageous on the cash register. That's normally a place of humility and service to others, unless I am misunderstanding what you mean by till.

Exceptions apply; if it was an auto mechanic shop, and sales ability is required as well as cash register skills, it makes sense. There are probably more than a few psychopathic sales persons out there in the real world, that can make a sale. And that's all that counts in the business world.

If you successfully are able to diagnose a psychopath, from the classic sense of one that is not capable of feeling guilt or empathy, you are really good at reading between the lines. A person with difficulties in expressing non-verbal communication might not express guilt, but it doesn't mean that they don't experience guilt. This is probably why individuals with Aspergers have been associated with psychopathy; and it's really hard to say for sure what anyone is feeling inside at any given point.



I provided an example of my non-verbal communication skills in the last post. My difficulties with verbal communication were what I took the most notice of. I have many of the symptoms of non-verbal learning disorder, however none of it affected my grades in school, so there was no concern expressed there.

However, I'm sure others noticed my non-verbal difficulties in expressing emotion, as much or more than my verbal difficulties. Many people like to talk more than listen, particularly in the social field I was in, so it was acceptable for me to listen more than talk.

Initially I was diagnosed with Aspergers, but the psychiatrist changed the diagnosis to PDD NOS, when he learned that I had a clinically significant delay in speech.

With the understanding that psychiatrists do prefer to label young adults with the symptoms of non-verbal learning disorder with Aspergers, likely because it is a DSMIV diagnosis and NVLD is not; it is interesting that among children who are labeled as having non-verbal learning disorder there is an equal female to male ratio.

Polls here show about a 1 to 1 ratio for male/female individuals diagnosed and self diagnosed; many of the self diagnosed could fit well within the complete realm of NVLD, along with the math difficulties associated with that disorder, and could also likely be professionally considered as having Aspergers as well, if they went in for a diagnosis.

What seems fairly rare here is individuals in fields with strengths in visual-spatial skills that one would see in a mechanic shop. There is no doubt in my mind that some of these individuals could come close to fitting the criteria for Aspergers, but it's probably the furthest thing from their mind, as well as something like an Aspie Quiz.

If by feral children you mean children living in the wild, there is no reliable scientific evidence for that. Most of the myths have been broken, as children isolated and/or physically abused.

However, social isolation and/or abuse during childhood can lead to the type of symptoms that are associated with autism, both in humans, primates, and other mammals, but it is not considered autism, because it is known to be caused by intentional neglect.

Autism happens with the most loving of parents.

Neglect can harm the socialization of all children, autistic and non-autistic. Neuroplasticity can impact humans in negative and positive ways. Neglect leads to negative neuroplasticity, and the learning of positive social skills leads to positive neuroplasticity. However, someone has to be there to teach or model the social skills.

Autism is an inherent social communication disorder, that makes it more difficult for people to connect.

People in similiar cultures with inherent social communication problems don't communicate as well as people without inherent social communication problems.

People with similiar neurologies that have inherent social communication problems have problems communicating with each other, as well as members in the rest of the culture.

If a problem is not identified, it is still a problem. If a broken clock is not identified as a broken clock it is still a broken clock. If an autistic person has a dysfunction and is not identified as having a dysfunction, they still have a dysfunction.

In a room where half the people have social communication problems and half the people don't
have social communication problems, neuroplasticity may take those with social communication problems in the direction of fully functional social communication and neuroplasticity may take the persons without social communication problems in the direction of social communication problems. The effect depends on how long the people are together and whom is communicating with whom.

In a room where everyone has social communication problems, none of them may be aware they have social communication problems, but it does not make the social communication problem go away; it could make the problem worse, if there is no exposure to unimpeded social communication.

The only way your hypothesis could work, is if fully functional social communication skills were not necessary for a functional society. Verbal and non-verbal communication is not necessary in a group of individuals working on a computer, however it is vital in face to face communication, and to this point in human history functional skills in social communication have been a requirement for a functional society.

Interestingly, modern society is moving away from face to face/verbal/non-verbal communcation; people are adapting through neuroplasticity, and in effect, problems in social communication have been identified in the population that were not prevalent before, beyond a diagnosis of ASD.

Studies have shown that people in the general population are not as patient, levels of human empathy have been measured as decreased, and attention span has decreased. This is considered problematic in the overall functioning of society. However, in general, the majority of modern culture is adapting in the same way, so it has become the cultural norm.

For the first hypothesis. the general effects of neuroplasticity on autism are already being studied through the results of early therapeutic interventions.

In the hypothesized society the behaviors might be considered the cultural norm, however it would not make the inherent functional problems in social communication go away.

Unfortunately, the second hypothesis appears impossible to test, because from data published in work by Mottron/Dawson it is reported that close to 90 percent of individuals with ASD's don't maintain steady employment and close to 80% are dependent on family for support. In other words the majority of individuals with ASD's already depend on others whom do not have ASD's for survival in society.

In real society as it stands most people have no idea how to identify a mild case of aspergers in the general population without the individual with Aspergers identifying that they have an inherent issue with social communication/RRB's. Odd yes, broken not nearly as likely.

The more society moves toward text communication, the less apparent the issues of Aspergers become, except for those individuals that are hampered in social communication/RRB's by the condition. So, to some degree what you are hypothesizing is already happening, as an overall cultural process/change.

However, the impact from neuroplasticity from this cultural change, may be decreasing the functionality of social communication skills among the general population and those with inherent problems with social communication, as well. That hypothesis might be testable, in a longitudinal study. It's already being tested in the general population.

If you think this is true, that the analogy doesn't work because people and clocks are too different, then you either a) don't understand the concept of analogy very well, or b) you don't understand the comparison I was drawing with this analogy in particular. I have a hard time believing it's the latter option as I spelled it out very simply, so I have to assume it's the former.

Note that I need not have used clocks. Replace them with anything you wish and the point of the analogy is the same.

Now, it's not that I think that there aren't valid, reasoned objections to be made to this analogy, especially from a philosophical point of view. But you haven't made any of them.



See, this is absolutely false. The "stick man" thing had nothing to do with anything, you were just swinging in the dark when you wheeled it out. I defy you to explain how the clock analogy is as irrelevant. Here's a tip--don't bother. It's not.



Maybe you should just take a step back and reevaluate.



I don't see anything wildly objectionable here.



This might be true to a point, but it's certainly not universally true. What if the neurological similarity in a group is that they all have "connection mechanisms" that are so malformed as to prevent any real connection? Does that sound like any neurological condition you've ever heard of?



If we took all of the broken clocks and isolated them from the ones that worked properly, would they no longer be broken?

You shouldn't be allowed to post to this thread again until you provide a reasonable response to that question.

Err...the reason the broken clock analogy is irrelevant is because it doesn't relate to the point I'm making...a broken clock is not broken in the same sense of the word as a "broken" person. I think a more relevant analogy is "Does velcro attach to chain links?" and "Does velcro fasten to other velcro?". Disabilty is not absolute, it is relative to the norm, while broken clocks are absolute as it's relative to the function of a clock. "Everyone is a genius in his own way, but if a fish believes he is meant to climb trees he will think he is stupid".

Also, everyone who says that the theory falls because autistic neurology naturally makes people disconnected is missing an important part of the theory: This theory is not aimed at severe autism, it's aimed at more borderline cases, and the key part of the theory is that it's not the neurology itself that causes the disconnectiveness, but it's the inital disconnection caused by relative difference that causes the initial disconnection, and neuroplasticity causes this disconnection to accelerate until they are unable to properly connect even with people who are like them.

And this is my own thread. I can post in it as much as I want. If you are not going to be respectful than I suggest you get out.

"If you successfully are able to diagnose a psychopath, from the classic sense of one that is not capable of feeling guilt or empathy, you are really good at reading between the lines."

I can always feel someone's neuroses, the junk they're holding on to and projecting into the world. I'm certain many autistics are acutely sensitive to this. Psychopaths don't have neuroses, and they have some classic behaviours, so that's how I can recognise them.

If lots of people are referring to NVLD as Aspergers, that's probably not good. The difference between missing nonverbals and missing context seems the sort of thing that would crop up in lots of places with regard to treatment.

Is Asperger's a smorgasbord condition? I am beginning to think that it is. Maybe the AS population is a group of people who share the traits of the AS diagnostic criteria, but also have lots of non-overlapping traits caused by their actually differing neurological conditions. Some have autism, some have NVLD, some have ADHD (ADHD-PI seems to be often confused with AS), some have alexithymia, some are gifted, etc etc etc.

From looking at the diagnosis criteria and the spread of people on the forum this seems to be the case. Of course, most of those other conditions you mentioned are probably smorgasbord too.

I think any community needs development. I wouldn't say that an autistic community would fail by definition.

Communities are failing all the time. So it would be worth trying.


I think it's generally difficult to think of people as normal and those who are not. People only work on a scale and tendencies are only a way to help us understand the world. I'm not a fan of most "rules".

I don't believe in this concept of "disability". I believe in compensation. You know... blind people have better than average hearing or sensory skills. "Normal" people can communicate better. People with autism will feel more comfortable on their own and find it easier to create rules of their own than other people.

RRB's are not part of NVLD/NLD. This separates Aspergers from NVLD/NLD. Missing non-verbals and problems using non-verbals is the commonality along with other sysmptoms.

Problems in non-verbal communication have been characterized in Aspergers since Hans Aspergers described the condition in the 40's. It is a criteria in the DSMIV and a required criteria in the DSMV:

http://www.autreat.com/dsm4-aspergers.html

DSMIV:



http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevisions/Pages/proposedrevision.aspx?rid=94

DSMV:



Here are the symptoms of Non Verbal Learning Disorder below. Although not everyone with Aspergers shares all they symptoms, the majority of the symptoms are common in aspergers. Strengths in math are a stereotype of Aspergers, but many people with aspergers here, have reported poor math skills.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonverbal_learning_disorder





Anti-social personality disorder, is clearly defined by behavioral differences. However, in psychopathy a lack of ability to feel guilt and empathy, is the major issue that separates these individuals from the rest of the population. Research suggests there may be a biological reason why they are incapable of these feelings. It would be almost impossible to determine if someone is incapable of feeling guilt or empathy unless they observed them outside of the workplace.

A soldier in battle can display no empathy or guilt for killing another human being when they are categorized as an enemy. If the psychopath, you have diagnosed, in your workplace shows no guilt or empathy there, it does not mean that he does not have feelings of empathy for his dog when it is ill, or that he would not feel guilt if he accidentally ran over his dog. True psychopaths are not capable of either of these feelings; they are suggested to only exist in about 1 percent of the population.

The type of psychopathic/sociopathic traits that people associate with anti-social personality disorder are spread well out into the population, however it's extremely unusual that someone would not feel bad if they ran over their pet. True psychopaths, don't have the ability to make the selective choice that someone can make in the battle field or at work, depending on how they feel about the individuals in that environment.

Many politicians would meet the requirements of anti-social personality disorder, except for the fact that their behaviors are considered the cultural norm in the sub-culture of politics. Same with some CEO's, and others that would be considered the alpha male in the specific area of the work environment.

Some of these individuals are supremely confident, well adjusted to life, and show no sign of neuroses. And, unless they fit into the category of actual psychopathy, they also are capable of feeling empathy for their pet dog when it is sick, and guilt if they were to accidentally run over the dog.

The Dog example puts pyschopathy into proper perspective, per the suggestion that many made that George W. Bush was a sociopath. There is no doubt that he had empathy for his dog, and would have felt bad if he ran over it. I don't think anyone would question that, in observing his behavior with that dog.

I'm not questioning your diagnosis, however if you can't be sure that this individual would not feel bad if they were to run over a pet dog, it really is hard to make that kind of diagnosis, in the workplace.

Aspergers is a list of traits, determined by the psychological profession. Inherently every person is a smorgasborg of different traits. People with Aspergers just happen to meet that specific list of criteria, as established by the psychologists/psychiatrists.

Some of the shared criteria in different diagnoses are almost identical, and some of the co-morbids are completely separate. NVLD, is a good example, the major characterstic in aspergers that separates it above and beyond NVLD is RRB's.

What's an RRB?

DSMIV criteria for RRB's in Aspergers Syndrome.



DSMV criteria for RRB's in Autism Spectrum Disorder



(from same links provided in previous post addressing non-verbal communication difficulties.)

Hmm, that's funny, because I've also that the lack of RRBs was the main difference between AS and APD, and SPD, and ...