Aspergers Theory.

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Is it possible that, far from being a condition of social blindness, Aspergers is a kind of social savantism?


I'm thinking that it might be that aspies process so much information about who they are interacting with, including empathising with them to the point that they see every social error they are making, from the perspective of who they are interacting with. Then this leads to a panic attack,and this seems to the world like a kind of monotone stillness that seems crazy, but in reality is an attempt to reach calmness.

Suppose the aspie does nothing wrong in a conversation. If he doesn't think his partner can, or they actually can't, pick up on the nuances of what he is saying, then the aspie perceives their partners negative judgement of them which leads to a panic attack. Often a different opinion or world view can seem simple minded, ignorant or crazy, when in reality it only seems that way because we lack the body of knowledge and inferences that the person has used to form his judgement. I think this might be why the criteria of symptoms is wrong.

Could psychologists have misdiagnosed the symptom as social blindness, when in reality aspires are just flooded with social information they then process uniquely (of NT's) to make their social decisions? And this overabundance of (possibly accurate) information and processing (along with panic attacks) is what causes social situations to explode? Could it be that aspies are reading social situations with more precision than NT's?

Last edited by Stannis on 20 Jan 2014, 6:22 pm, edited 5 times in total.

no.

No

I'm not going to just say "no". The Intense World Theory talks about too much (unfiltered) stimuli being a main cause of autism. I think what you are proposing could be along the same vein. What I would challenge is that a heightened awareness leads to a greater precision...actually, precision could be right, just not necessarily accuracy. Getting too much information can cause errors just as getting too little information can. The "error" could be the panic response, like you said, or something else.

I think your theory has some credibility and is worth more thought than a simple "no" response. There are a few members who I would like to hear from with their thoughts on this.

P.S. I'd also like to hear from the "no" respondents as to their reasons for their complete rejection of the idea.

Exactly. And the Intense World makes perfect sense to me and to what I have been reading on this forum.

No.

Reason: Aspies do not process NT social information correctly, but they do process neurodiverse social information just fine. But since the NT social information is the majorities view of what is the correct interpretation of social information, Aspies ends up as disabled if they cannot decode this information. When they learn this, they instead end up as bilingual and more socially adept than NTs (which very seldom ends up understanding neurodiverse social information).

I don't have panic attacks and my social interactions don't explode.

If differences in processing sensory data result in different reactions, then the determination of the "superiority" or "inferiority" of those reactions would need to be made contingent upon specific criteria.

For example, being quicker in thought might be considered a superior characteristic except if it produced second guessing uncertainty in social situations. Here we have one characteristic that can be considered an asset or a liability depending on the circumstance.

The be able to declare all differences superior or inferior in all situations seems a little ambitious.

As someone who has sensory issues and had debilitating problems with them as a child, there is a lot that makes sense to me in the "intense world theory" but I think it's an incomplete explanation.

I find the model of a processing disorder underlying ASD suggested by Valerie Gauss quite convincing. Sensory issues alone cannot explain all the symptoms. Even in ideal sensory conditions, there can be problems interpreting language, executive functioning issues, etc.

For me personally, the answer is no. I have the typical face blindness and inability to interpret facial expressions or body language, and I just have to take a wild guess at other people's feelings and motives.

But according to this list (which has been discussed here recently in another thread) it's common for females with Aspergers to be highly empathic, and feel what other people are feeling:

http://taniaannmarshall.wordpress.com/2 ... -syndrome/

What you're describing sounds a bit like the 'Highly Sensitive Person' or 'Empath' profile, in which the person is so attuned to other people's emotions that it makes socializing painful and exhausting. Personally I think there might be some overlap between autism and the 'Highly Sensitive Person' profile, so yes, I suppose your theory could be possible?

Count me in with the "no" crowd. I just can't read social situations - I completely miss the nuances and a large portion of the obvious stuff as well.

sorry, I tried to delete my long post about the intense mind theory in order to repost it later, but the delete function did not work, so, for now, just to write something, the answer is no:-)

Last edited by littlebee on 20 Jan 2014, 12:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

In some ways, yes you are correct. But a lot of it depends on how well the Aspie in question has adjusted in certain ways. Overall, the answer is no. But, Aspies often pick up on things that most people simply aren't capable of, so in that sense, overwhelming yes. It would be like saying I am a basketball savant just because I've consistently hit multiple 3/4 range three point shots in a row. <<<<not a great parallel, but right kind of idea

The intense world hypothesis is built on the valproic acid rodent model and lacks a firm foundation of hoooman brain/behavior results. In hooomans, it is primarily based on the researcher's kid, who is the super hyper emotional kind who was difficult to diagnose until a psych finally settled on AS. The hypothesis has some points worth studying, but many researchers think it overreaches by claiming that it applies to whole spectrum. It doesn't even apply to me, HFA. To me, it overreaches and stretch things to fit, and the links between small circuits of neurons and autistic behaviors are weak or absent.

These seem like the perennial problems of speculative autism theories: Models are based on too small a sample, sometimes even a sample of one and then "the answer" is proposed as an explanation for every symptom across the whole spectrum.