Catalyst on ABC-TV Australia

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The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the nation's respected government broadcaster, this week had a story about AS on Catalyst, their weekly science program on Thursday evening. They interviewed Daniel Lightwing, a young adult maths prodigy, and his family and they also spoke to Simon Baron-Cohen about his "extreme male brain" theory of the origin of AS.

I'd like to be able to post links to the story and the transcript, but I'm unable to do so - if you search for "australian broadcasting corporation", then go to the front page of the ABC and search for "catalyst", it should be easy to enough to find.

However, there was one thing which unsettled me. It's this line:

REPORTER: Now clearly all this is not to cast aspersions on mathematicians – of course the vast majority don’t have Aspergers.

I just fired off a nice little complaint to the ABC about that, I'd be interested to know your thoughts on it:

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To whom it may concern,

I am quite offended by content which appeared in your story on Thursday 28/08/2008 in the story titled "The World Of Asperger's".

In that otherwise informative item, your correspondent Dr Jonica Newby uttered the following line:

"Jonica: Now clearly all this is not to cast aspersions on mathematicians – of course the vast majority don’t have Aspergers."

Now, the dictionary that comes with my word processor defines "aspersion" as:
"ASPERSION. n. slanderous remark: a statement that attacks somebody's character or reputation"

Obviously Dr Newby and the Catalyst production team see it as "slanderous" to say that somebody has Asperger's Syndrome (AS), and that those who don't have the condition would feel offended at the very thought of being accused of being born with Asperger's Syndrome.

As one of the 70,000 Australians with the condition (according to some prevalence studies, including a study by Prof Christopher Gillberg at University College London), I am incensed that a broadcaster as enlightened and progressive as the ABC would ever consider that saying that a person has AS constitutes a "slanderous remark", as though Asperger's Syndrome is something to be ashamed of and an epithet so strong that it constitutes an aspersion.

I expect better of the broadcaster I have watched, listened to, and admired for its integrity all my life. I eagerly await your reply.

aw I think it's a wordplay thing, aspertions:asperger's.

The video and the transcript are here:
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2346896.htm

I was surprised by the show - it did seem to paint a negative view of Aspergers to a degree.
I hated the "asperjers" mispronunciation.
Baron-Cohen's theory is backwards; MANY Autistics have higher testosterone levels as a RESULT of Autism - not his suggestion that higher levels of testosterone cause Autism.
My concern, and his too - despite a reversed and wrong (though to his credit scientifically sound, if ill-informed) theory, is it may lead to a fad of aborting children with higher testosterone levels, in response to "autism epidemic" hysteria.
Baron-Cohen may be wrong, many scientists are more often than not - nature of science - but his views on positive aspects of Aspergers are what ideally every neurotypical should hold.

Obviously, not all do - and of those with higher testosterone, Ive only heard of males. The specific causes are as yet unkown, but it is certainly an effect of autism, rather than the cause if autism.

I thought it painted a good picture of Asperger's.

The person with AS they had on has done well for himself, and it's clear that he had it.

But yeah, I see your point, OP: it's stating that it would be bad for the mathematicians in question to have Asperger's ("cast aspersions on" is an idiom).

It's also patronizing when it says those with Autism are sub intelligent.

They were focused on Asperger's in making their episode (I think the research they were talking about isn't relevant to Autism though maybe I'm wrong), they may not have researched anything about the differences between the two of them. Even I don't know the difference; from personal experience Autistic people seem just as clever and for that matter, just as linguistically developed. The Autistic person I am most familiar with has a vocabulary about 10 times larger than me, although that can actually get in the way of communication (if you know what I mean).

So they will just go with the general picture of Autistic people in the media and consider them to be quite different to the Asperger's person they met, since Asperger's "Syndrome" isn't often in film. But I don't think there was any malice at all in those few statements of theirs. It's just wordplay and people get too sensitive and caught up in the meaning which the producers didn't concern themselves with. When they interviewed me, it's certainly didn't seem they had any prejudice against Asperger's nor Autism.

I never knew that Aspergers couldn't be pronounced as Asperjers, I'm used to hearing both.

Here is something taken from another bit of the same interview on Australian Radio (mostly with my mum):

[OK it won't let set a link for some obscure reason, so just search for "in conversation" & "Asperger's" on Google, it should be the top one]

You can tell the thing they really get caught up with is why someone might actually prefer having Asperger's, they just ask about it again and again and again. It doesn't fit in with their idea of Autism as a disease. But they were really nice and patient, so it doesn't bother me much. Almost everyone "normal" person has that kind of thinking, no way to change them when their perspective is so limited.