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Contributing an Editorial About Asperger's Syndrome

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NeantHumain
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10 Sep 2005, 11:43 pm

Have any of you written or considered writing an editorial or "human perspectives" article about living with Asperger's syndrome to send to newspapers? I am thinking about submitting an article about AS to my college's student newspaper. Maybe that would raise awareness on campus.

Here is a first attempt at such an article:

Quote:

I'm an aspie; I have Asperger's syndrome (AS). I don't look so different from most people, but I have a neurodevelopmental difference that leads me to perceive the world unusually.

Our society functions largely through unwritten conventions, too illegible for us aspies. It's fundamentally a difference of perspective. Society is most fluent for those who think most like everyone else. However, from the neurons up, aspies don't think like most people. Asperger's syndrome is considered to be a mild form of autism—with higher intelligence and verbal strengths instead of a language delay. On the severe end of the spectrum, autistic children are completely nonverbal and prone to tantrums when their senses are overwhelmed. On the milder side, adults with AS may have trouble relating their experiences with others people's; they may have a rich vocabulary and enough knowledge in some fields to be amateur professors; in fact, Hans Asperger, who first described this condition, called affected children "little professors" for their tendency to explain their interests in great depth.

The struggle is hidden but profound. Many aspies yearn dearly for closeness but find their social repertoire to be inadequate, failing them time and again. It is a struggle that too many of my companions have given up: The suicide rate for adults with AS is appallingly high at <find exact figure>. These men and women (although AS is ten times more common in men than in women) are hardly bad people who in some way deserve it. Many are almost compulsively honest and won't even lie to keep their jobs; they might not even be aware that deception is an option. Many of us would even give you the shirt off our back if only you asked; in general, we're not "in it for ourselves." We know the pain of being marginalized and forgotten too well. If we sometimes seem rude or clumsy, it's probably not a slight against you personally. We're doing our best, but we misunderstand some social conventions here and there; it's not intentional.

Asperger's syndrome does offer some advantages, too. Aspies often excel at the logical and analystic skills required for the engineering, scientific, computer, and mathematical disciplines. Aspies also tend to know quite a lot about their major interests, which can be something as normal as baseball or as obscure as the history of the Merovingian dynasty in present-day France. They may also have keen sensory awareness and be able to hear, for example, the flicker of a television in another room. The inability to understand all the implicit rules governing social interaction may even be a good thing. A person with less investment in the established order and a penchant for the systematic may be more open to questioning inequitable traditions when they do understand them. This is a bravery few "neurotypical" people will take up.

No aspie's life is the same, and we all experience AS a bit differently. One thing we all want, though, is a little bit of understanding. AS is not a disease but really a difference of perspective. Our troubles mostly lie in the fact that we perceive so differently from the vast majority of people. Our points of view enable us to offer insights more conventional people may not have. Why not get to know one? You've got nothing to lose!

Some signs of Asperger's syndrome
  • Analytical mind
  • Higher verbal than visuospatial intelligence (Good vocabulary but clumsy, gets lost easily)
  • Deep but often obscure interests
  • Tendency to make more social gaffes than most
  • Heightened and lowered sensitivities (e.g., acute hearing but little sense of smell)
  • Lacking "common sense"
  • Routine oriented, rule driven (from trouble understanding the dynamics of unfamiliar situations)



Sophist
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11 Sep 2005, 12:41 am

Suggestion: "Dumb" the language down a little more. We, as Aspies, understand it, but not everyone in college has such good vocabularies. ;)


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vetivert
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11 Sep 2005, 1:16 am

i wrote one a while back, neant (i asked for suggestions in a thread called "ray of hope", i think it was).

i can PM it to you, if you like.

and i agree about keeping the langugage simpler, by the way ;)



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11 Sep 2005, 1:55 am

:?
That language looks simple to me.


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Sophist
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11 Sep 2005, 2:58 am

Who_Am_I wrote:
:?
That language looks simple to me.


See? I made my point. :lol:


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larsenjw92286
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11 Sep 2005, 8:33 am

I tried to post some writing in the "Wrongplanet Writers' Showcase" created by Ghotistix, but my writing wouldn't display for some reason.


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DrizzleMan
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11 Sep 2005, 8:40 am

Sophist wrote:
Who_Am_I wrote:
:?
That language looks simple to me.


See? I made my point. :lol:


The hardest word there is Merovingian, but the name was used in The Matrix so pretty much everyone should be vaguely familiar with it.


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BeeBee
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11 Sep 2005, 11:55 am

I thought the article excellent as is.

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hadapurpura
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11 Sep 2005, 12:05 pm

I undestand the article, and English is not my first language, so i don't think the article is too complicated...



vetivert
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11 Sep 2005, 12:14 pm

hmmm. i wonder if i mean style of language, rather than sophistication of vocabulary...?



NeantHumain
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11 Sep 2005, 2:41 pm

DrizzleMan wrote:
he hardest word there is Merovingian, but the name was used in The Matrix so pretty much everyone should be vaguely familiar with it.

In this case, I wanted to use an unfamiliar word to show the obscurity of many aspies' interests.

I agree the vocabulary is a little too advanced for the average NT, and I think it may be too loaded with "boring facts." The goal is to get NTs to read all the way through, so it will definitely need some revision to be more "readable" to the lay person.

I'd also like to submit a version of this article to more prominent newspapers, mainly the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, for autism awareness month or Autistic Pride Day.



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11 Sep 2005, 2:47 pm

I don't see any problems with the verbosity of your tract. However, it might need a touch of extrapolation to expand on certain issues.

(Very, very, VERY heavy sarcasm)


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11 Sep 2005, 5:27 pm

I do not think the language was complex or 'difficult' and I suspect that few college students would have much difficulty with it.


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alexj
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13 Sep 2005, 10:24 am

NeantHumain wrote:
I am thinking about submitting an article about AS to my college's student newspaper. Maybe that would raise awareness on campus.


That reminds me a brilliant article you wrote. I found it a few months ago while searching about AS; I have begun to translate it in french because I intend to use it, in case I decide to tell somebody about my AS.

alexandra



DrizzleMan
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13 Sep 2005, 2:38 pm

That was also pasted after another article on http://prorev.com/autistic.htm - the first article's one of those stupid 'blame everything on AS' types, though.


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13 Sep 2005, 3:20 pm

My only problem is generalizing and the over use of the word "aspie". You should mention how it is often comorbid with something else and obsessions are common, but not required for dx.

Other than that, it is very well written.


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