Did (insert famous person here) have Aspergers?

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No, they most certainly did not.

Just because they are different does not automatically mean that they have AS or Autism. Being different is also a natural trait for some, some people cant just stand being like everybody else.

Thank you for reading.

There is a case for certain people having possible Asperger's because they have specific traits, but I do agree that claiming people have Asperger's just because they were different, or because they maybe had one trait a bit if you watch this interview they did and pause it after 2:21... Is stupid.

I have heard great things about that band, me, myself, and I. I hear he has Aspergers (don't tell him I think it might offend him).

No, but really, I think that trying to find autistic luminaries in history is like speculating on whether Buddha would beat Jesus in chess when chess had not yet been invented.

It's speculation some famous people may have been autistics judging from their characteristics but we can never know for sure. As they have passed on.

"Were they autistic?"

Fictional characters most likely do not have it either. Please stop making threads about it. lol.

Some folks are always looking for celebrities who have AS because they think it would be a boost to Aspie confidence if they knew that some member of the Great And Good has it. So it's important to be careful with such data. Personally I don't get off on celebrities, so if they told me that some celeb jerk had AS, it wouldn't make me feel better, in the same way as it wouldn't make me want to buy a product just because it had a celebrity endorsement.

I think it is ok to speculate whether a historical figure had autism or similar condition. Autism was discovered as a only in the past 60 years. Even when I was a child, there was very little know about it. Even though I'm different, most people consider me to be "super smart." I think there needs to be more done in this area of investigation.

Im sure that W.A. Mozart had it.

An example of an INFAMOUS person who I think MAY HAVE had AS:


Jeffery Dahmer.

Really? Which symptoms did Mozart exhibit?

Beethoven (who I've also heard mentioned) did not have AS - he was a musical genius who was deaf, which explains a lot of problems.

Thomas Jefferson was brilliant, but probably not AS. However, if you're looking for American presidents on the spectrum, take a look at John Adams (seen as "cold" by his colleagues even by the standards of the time, publicly extremely reserved toward his wife and children while devoted to them in his own way, apparently unable to read the moods of those around him, almost obsessed with the idea of justice - which annoyed his colleagues when he plumped for the abolition of slavery and giving the vote to women while they were writing the Constitution). On the other hand, we might not be that proud of him, given the Alien and Sedition Acts... There's also his son, John Quincy Adams, who exhibited many of the same symptoms as his father.

More recently, Einstein might have been, but his symptoms can be explained by many other disorders, so possibly not.

Nikola Tesla, however, couldn't stand the texture of human hair; hated and feared spheres; was obsessed with caring for pigeons; and would envision his inventions complete in his head before making any notes, much less building anything. (This helps explain why the few notes he did leave behind after his death aren't providing any new breakthoughs - most of the important bits died with the brain that housed them, as he never saw the need to make notes like most scientists.) He believed the world should be fair, even as an adult, which was the source of his lifelong feud with Thomas Edison - Edison had promised fifty dollars for improvements to his electric light, then, when his employee Tesla suggested some, Edison put them to use. When Tesla tried to claim his reward, Edison told him it was a joke, because Edison didn't think anyone would ever be able to do it. Tesla quit working for Edison on the spot, set up as his rival in business, and reportedly hated Edison to his dying day. Sound familiar?

I am getting sick of those threads. For the last time NO THEY DIDN'T HAVE AUTISM, YOU KNOW WHY? THEY WEREN'T f*****g DIAGNOSED.
Also you can't say fictional characters are autistic either unless it was intentional.

Thank you.

This ridiculous question comes up so often it nauseates me.

It's IRRELEVANT!

Neither side of this issue makes any sense at all.

"So-and-so had/has it," or "So-and-so [or all of them] do not have it," are equally presumptuous statements based on little to no acceptable evidence (unless, of course, we're talking about Dan Ackroyd and others who have actually been diagnosed, and publicly admit they have it) . Speculation is at best a waste of time, and at worst, as in the case of speculating on long dead celebrities, just plain ridiculous.

Just my HO. I don't need no stinking heroes.

Besides, Einstein was wrong, so he couldn't be an Aspie!

Good word.
There aren't many openly aspie celebrities and there aren't many fictional aspies - and most fictional aspies are nothing close to heroic. These folk want heroes. These folk want somebody to look up to - somebody for whom they can say "If that person did that then I can too!"

But will this lack of heroes always be?

Will there be more aspie heroes - real and fictional - in the year 2030? Perhaps some of us will fill the vacuum. I'm pretty sure that some of us are already thinking it. Don't regard this as a matter of what we should do - it is a matter of what we were already going to do. I don't think me saying this has much effect on how many aspie heroes there will be in the future one way or the other.

Of course they may find a cure by then - but what if they don't?

There is a huge difference between an Aspie and a psychotic serial murderer....Edit: or are you being sarcastic?