Undiagnosing Grandin (essay)
This stuff is old hat now. It's typical of the handful of people who promote Johnathan Mitchell's extreme views, some of whom visit WP under various names:
http://autism.wikia.com/wiki/Jonathan_Mitchell
My short story, at 60, is one of 5 years surreal obstruction from the NHS, though the full diagnostic trail stretches back 12 or 13 years. Mental Health care in Britain has been dreadfulised enough without solely relying upon a manual for diagnosis that has essentially to do with if American insurance companies will cough up or not.
Here's an anecdote, a friend of mine has pronounced aspie tendencies though manages to hold down a job. He turned to the NHS for help and was given counselling. This so called counselling consisted of a cocky bloke a decade younger than him shouting at him that he would never be able to claim sickness benefits.
Mental Health care in Britain is scandal upon scandal that has established itself.
It is in that context that I get jumpy about iconclastic undiagnosing trends. Certainly, there's nothing wrong with undiagnosing Einstein, as the undiagnosing of Einstein is as fictional as the diagnosing of him in the first place. Beethoven appears to be a diagnostic moveable feast - it was often claimed he was bi polar when I was young, have recently heard of him as an alleged aspie. It's fashion, popular aspergerism, whereas I come from the very unpopular deep end, as I'm certain many others do on these boards.
- putting love at the end as it's always a good idea, and it's true
I like your post. Considering how many times diagnostic manuals have changed, there is no reason to assume that the last version is the correct one. And, like you, I suspect the role of money in the diagnostic criteria. I'm still waiting for a good scientific explanation for autism. And yes, I think the Asperger's diagnosis is good to have, not because it is so scientifically correct, but because it helps communication with the NT world.
Entirely unrelated, but I'd say Beethoven would be extremely difficult to diagnose. He really was one of a kind. As far as I can remember, he grew up with both a father and a grandmother who were alcoholics. Good luck to anyone trying to separate nature from nurture.
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ASPartOfMe
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http://autism.wikia.com/wiki/Jonathan_Mitchell
I dislike defending him or his mom but this is misleading. What his mom did is what the vast majority of parents did in America in the 1960's when Mitchell and I were growing up, not question the judgement of experts be it clinitions, doctors or teachers. Temple Grandin's parents, Bernard Rimland were the exceptions to the norm. And as well documented by Steve Silberman, and John Donvan and Carol Zucker blaming the mother for thier childs autism was the near universal judgement of the experts then.
Personal attacks on him or his mom is just replicating what he does and hurts the nuerodiversity movement. His views and judgement of all ND supporters need to be critized, guessing his motivations to attack him personally is a waste of time and energy.
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DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity
“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman
Really? Is that true? Is it really that rare in the general population?
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Diagnosed with Asperger's at age 12 after years of being bullied without knowing why. Finally learned what Asperger's was actually all about at age 17. I'm a Carroll.
Einstein Syndrome is autism, it's just a minority group arguing otherwise because they don't like the scope of autism and want it to only refer to people without humor.
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ASPartOfMe
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Einstien syndrome sometimes known as savant syndrome was coined by an economist and describes gifted children with delayed speech. Right off the bat this excludes aspies and teenagers or older. It has nothing to do with humor at all.
Oops! When "Autism" Isn t Autistic Disorder: Hyperlexia and Einstein Syndrome
And besides MOST AUTISTICS ARE NOT SAVANTS.
IMHO the Einstein Autism "connection" is an attempt to make people who have been treated like s**t thier whole lives feel good about themselves. Making people who have been treated like s**t feel good is a benificial. Going into complete fantasy land is not. 99 percent of us will never be as gifted as Einstein. Better to figure out the gifts we do have, build on them and accomplish things with them. In the long run that will make you feel better about yourself then any slight similarity you have with Einstein.
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Professionally Identified and joined WP August 26, 2013
DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity
“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman
I don't think Einstein Syndrome is a real disorder. There are "conditions" out there that are not actual conditions like Broken Cookie syndrome. Why do people make up these terms is beyond me. I used to think they did this with all medical labels, make up labels for people for behaviors they do. Like ODD was for a kid that wanted to have their way so they act up and manipulate and use force to get it so people will be their doormat. I thought it was a choice there Frankie did and he was doing it so he could have an easier life.
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Son: Diagnosed w/anxiety and ADHD. Also academic delayed and ASD lv 1.
Daughter: NT, no diagnoses. Possibly OCD. Is very private about herself.
Einstein syndrome. Yep I remember ready that book early on and convincing myself that this was what my son had. Looking back I feel foolish and realise that I was still in my denial phase. Back then autism was this big bad scary thing that was happening to my first born. I didn't understand autism but I "knew" it was a terrible affliction and so desperately didn't want it to be true. Einstein syndrome sounded much more palitable and appealed my ego.
Now I know better and I know autism is not the terrible affliction I once thought it was. I think Einstein syndrome is a more socially acceptable form of denial. It allows a parent to disassociate their kid from all those autistic kids. Its a kind of snobery. Basically the parent is saying "My child is not like all those weird autistic kids, he's not a like them, they are f*****g weird and will probably amount to nothing and thats not my son. No, he's like Einstein. He has the same syndrome as Einstein has. He's better than those autistic kids"
I know this is how these parents think because for a couple of months early on, pre-diagnosis, this was my thinking. This erronious thinking was changed by two things. Firstly it became apparent that my son was more profoundly affected than the kid Sowell described and secondly my attitudes towards autism changed as I learned more. I realise that my negative emotional reaction to my son being autistic was a failing on my part. That it was I that needed to man-up and accept reality. I had a little boy with significant special needs who needed his father to be on board with helping him. What he didn't need was a father so far up his own arse that he could not acknowledge his sons condition and instead clung to fairy tales about made up cool sounding, ego flatering alternative syndromes.
^ You should read Back to Normal and see what you think. The author also talks about Einstein syndrome and saying kids with it get misdiagnosed with autism. I think he has a bias view about it and it still stuck on the old term.
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Son: Diagnosed w/anxiety and ADHD. Also academic delayed and ASD lv 1.
Daughter: NT, no diagnoses. Possibly OCD. Is very private about herself.
Greenleaf
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The spectrum is a very large place! If one is using the psychiatrist-style, non-objective, verbal listing of symptoms, it's quite possible that many people with current AS diagnoses could be stuffed into other categories.
This has happened with many women for decades. Since they obviously couldn't be autistic, being female, it must be... let's see... (insert combination of diagnoses). OCD, borderline, various anxiety disorders, etc. with associated medications and therapies that often didn't help. (Patient must be resisting getting better.)
Thank goodness there are some articles coming out on females, e.g.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... -in-girls/
Before AS was understood at all, people were undoubtedly stuffed into even stranger categories.
Verbal categories are way too limited when ASD might be something more like a unique adaptation of a brain to whatever genetic and environmental tweaks happened, where the "shape" of the strongest brain connections lies outside some statistical grouping of neurotypical "shapes".
I like Grandin's work; she did a lot of thinking on this when there were few other folks to talk with. Things always evolve.
I don't think verbally, myself. It is more like a translation ability to verbalize, I've worked on it for decades. However I don't think in pictures...
Now, what I've seen in myself and others, and whether this is down to some sub type is unknown to me, but to my mind, in a similar way that aspies can be either over sensitive or under sensitive to pain, aspies can be extremely under confident OR extremely over confident in narrow ways.
My confidence as a performing musician is remarkable. In fact the more hostile the audience is the better (short of actual physical violence). Public speaking is something I've had to do (university presentations) and the difference is staggering, the emotional churn, hyper sensitive fear of being disliked, psychological nausea at the sound of my own voice, physical trembling and so forth are pronounced. Somehow the benign vampiring of stage fright into confidence does not happen without an instrument in my hands.
There is an over social over confident subtype to consider, life and soul of the party thing.
Ergo (perhaps), you can be gallivantingly aspergeroid and display contrary characteristics in a narrow field. I don't think one can underestimate the results of the aspie super power of concentration. Look at our fine young Web Meister Alex - he looks nothing like a member of Devo and can obviously organise things.
My sense is that Aspieness is a collection of symptoms, and that that collection of symptoms does not have to be complete for the diagnosis. Not forgetting that I was a difficult and resistant case who has undergone the most recent UK version of the dx.
Whilst I have no urge to cyber attack the OP, my sense is that this is a youthful attempt at being iconaclastic.
to all under will
exactly, I once spoke at a conference for a charity...then immediately resigned from that role due to the sheer terror of being pressured into it. I've taken almost twenty years out to rehearse my own knowledge base and I feel I might be able to do this again now. I recently spoke in front of three academics for my PhD interview and it was surprisingly easy. Why? Because I had rehearsed again, again, again, even with my own eye movements to prospective academics, my prosody, pacing etc. But this was only a ten minute presentation read from text in my hand!
Even the aspien brain can change (obviously)