Slashdot Mirror
Interview with the Creator of BitTorrent
brokencomputer writes "There is an interesting interview with Bram Cohen, the creator of BitTorrent, on my site, WrongPlanet.net. Because there is already a plethora of information about BitTorrent, this interview takes a different approach and focuses entirely on Cohen's Asperger's Syndrome. In addition to being interesting to anyone interested in BitTorrent, Cohen's story is extremely inspirational to those of us who do have Asperger's, and will probably be so even to those without Asperger's Syndrome."
What do you...
(rest available from the torrent)
The latest Slashdot meme.
WP: How was life at school?
BC: I hated school, and dropped out of college. I got picked on a lot in school, and had a lot of trouble making friends.
Rejoice Slashdotters, we still have hope!
the corrent pronounciation of Asberger's is "Ass-burgers".
Making the moon less necessary since 1998.
There was a book I read recently which was written as if narrated by a teenage boy with Asperger's Syndrome.
It's called "The curious incident of the dog in the night time" and I recommend it to anyone who would like to learn a little more about Asperger's, or, just feels like an entertaining and moving read.
But that article seems to be sort of lacking. It seems rather short, has a few typos and errors, and doesn't really delve into anything technical about BitTorrent (admitted by the summary). Sure now the people who RTFA'd probably are a little more understanding of a certain syndrome, or are intrigued by the fact that somebody with the syndrome can achieve great things (the American Dream), but I really would have liked to see some deeper thought on the issues. Deeper sociological questions, perhaps more depth on the influence of the (lack of) college, or even his views on the future of any given tech sector or his other interests. I suppose that this all lies at the fault of the interviewer, and not the interviewee.
It was great to read this article as it gives me hope. My own son has a similar form of Autism and although I've been able to 'get into his head' to understand him better, I know that others won't have the patience or the understanding to do the same.
And on a further note, I can tell you from experience that early intervention really helps ALOT! My son's progress is such that he is almost ready to join full time with his second grade class. Two years ago he was still struggling with speech.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
What about the many Slashdotters who only think they have Aspergers, and use it as an excuse to excuse their anti-social behavior?
This space intentionally left blank.
Why have ASPberger's, when you can have PHPberger's, or SQLberger's?
Asperger's syndrome (AS), is a pervasive developmental disorder commonly referred to as a form of "high-functioning" autism. The term "Asperger's syndrome" was coined by Lorna Wing in a 1981 medical paper; she named it after Hans Asperger, an Austrian psychiatrist and pediatrician whose work was not internationally recognized until the 1990s. -------------- interesting.. well not really but still
...::----::...
I am in no way affiliated with this sig.
Listen pal, nobody forced you to make Gigli. If you spend all your time making massive steaming piles of excrement you shouldn't lament your fate when nobody buys them.
After all, you got paid to do work of little or no value. Consider yourself lucky, people who want to create things of value have been having trouble finding work going on 5 years now.
According to the Internet Movie Database, Steven Spielberg also suffers from Aspeger Syndrome.
Hate to say it.. but those with Asperger Syndrome probabally have a MUCH HIGHER IQ than you.
n drome+IQ&spell=1
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=aspergers+sy
So who is the "retarded kike"?
Just in case...
I hate posting anonymous, so No Karma Bonus instead.
I hate grammar Nazi's.
A while back I was talking to this bloke who's young son has Aspberger's, and when they would be sitting watching tv and two or three ads would go by and then suddenly he would jump up and run out of the room screaming. Almost invariably one of a series of quite graphic government sponsored [TAC] road safety ads would then appear. Seems he had the ability to recognise the combination of the types of ads that immediately preceded the scary ones.
Learn? Who the hell wants to learn anymore? That's an old-fashioned way to look at it. Since your acceptance into college and, ultimately, your college degree amounts to your grade, why worry about what you learn? What? Doing your best? Being productive? I don't understand, what does that have to do with getting an A? That kind of thinking is last-century...who wants to be productive when you can just slide by your whole life? I mean, no matter what you make, the government's gonna pay you when you get old. What? The government fucked up Social Security?
"What most people with Asperger's Syndrome find difficult is casual chatting - they can't do small talk."
So, that includes most geeks, but not those who hang about posting on /., yes?
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Wired did an article about Cohen in January.
Here's a link: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.01/bittorreComment removed based on user account deletion
did any one else catch the "I finally found him on IRC" part? Can an interview that involves tracking some one down on IRC even be trusted? The site does look credible.. but still.
"It's like my pool is TEARIN' ASS 'round my backyard!" --Carl, From Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
At least not officially. It's curious how he went from joking that he was "autistic" and "had" asperger's to a self-diagnosis of "I probably have asperger's" to now, "i have asperger's".
Perhaps, Mr Cohen should actually go out and get diagnosed by someone competent before misrepresenting a legitimate illness.
PS: What's with people's fascination of collecting disorders? "I'm a cutter! No! Bipolar! No, schizophrenic!"
For the people that actually have these fad-ish disorders, it isn't some cool gee-whizz thing, it's a nightmare.
...is to have everyone assume that you were able to create this great original application because you have Asperger's, as opposed to crediting your creativity or perseverence.
I object to that article, and to the next reply.
Obviously you don't understand AS. They are not acting, as you call it "assholish" on purpose. People with Autism and AS don't pick up on the social cues that regular people pick up on. For instance, some people with Autism eat sloppy or walk with a gait. There is nothing conscience about this.
Yes! I listen to NYC Speedcore and do math at 3AM. I suggest you try it too.
Some of the "symptoms" could just as well be applied to TAG kids and adults. The obsessions with a subject, intense concentration, disregard of surroundings/people. One problems with tag kids is boredom in school, which can lead to disruptive behavior or withdrawal, some just play dumb.
People tend to select a group of people around them that have similar intellegence, if there are none what does it look like?
As a Fad
Since its introduction into the knowledge of the general public, Asperger's has become somewhat of a fad for those seeking to garner attention. In the fine tradition of disease whores everywhere, many young people who have ever felt the least bit shy or eccentric decide to self-diagnose themselves, forsaking the opinion of a qualified MD and therefore belittling genuine sufferers for just the sake of appearing special.
As Covering Up for Being a Total Fucktard
Some close-knit communities of people with distorted views of reality, such as furries, plushies and otherkin will frequently claim to have Asperger's or be Autistic en masse, often finding some way to tie its manifestations into the fact that they are social misfits, can't properly express affection, or to claim that it's an intrinsic part of being fucked up in the particular way that they are. In these instances, having "Asperger's" seems to be closely tied to posting disgusting and semi-nude pictures of yourself frequently to the internet, or writing extremely off-kilter fanfiction (see here (http://www.fanfiction.net/u/49104/)). This disease (and the associated Autism) are frequent mix-ins for those who like to claim to have many diseases and disorders. They can usually pull it off in quite a long-term manner, much as children are often over-diagnosed with ADD/ADHD simply because if you distort reality enough, you can claim the particular social dysfunction or misbehavior is part of the syndrome in question.
Diagnosis
If you feel that you're shy, unusual, highly intelligent, able to sense the emotional states of others, good at judging body language and inordinantly pre-occupied with things that most people are not, congratulations! You are just like everybody else.
/satire
So what's the difference between having Asperger's syndrome and being a geek? I mean, it sounds like the description (not being able to pick up on social cues, somewhat of an outcast, smart but doesn't do well in school, focuses intensely on things) describe exactly the same thing as "geek" to me, except maybe for a set of interests that "geek" usually connotes (computers, science fiction, gaming, etc).
On Fake Diseases
When children behave in ways that schools or parents dislike, this behaviour is often characterised as an illness. Depending on the nuances of the behaviour concerned, a child might be deemed to have Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD),
Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) or any one of a growing range of other illnesses.
However, there is something unusual about these diseases. First of all, they are defined entirely in terms of their symptoms, not in terms of some malfunction of the body. Why is this unusual? After all, before the underlying cause was known, diseases like AIDS and SARS, too, were recognised in terms of their symptoms. But that is different. It is perfectly meaningful to say: "that looks like SARS, but it might just be a bad cold, or the person might be deliberately exaggerating his symptoms". Hence also, with real diseases, it is possible to have an asymptomatic disease, like asymptomatic Hepatitis C. But it is not possible, even in principle, to have asymptomatic ADHD.
There is another unusual feature of diseases like ODD that should give us pause: they are typically treated without the patient's consent; and indeed the "treatments" are often physically identical to what would in a non-medical context be called punishments. This breach of human rights is casually justified as being "for their own good".
ADHD and its ilk really aren't diseases in the same sense as, say, Hepatitis C. They are metaphorical diseases, the names of which denote behaviours that are deemed to be morally unacceptable. In other words, the child has a certain opinion about what he ought to be doing and this opinion is different from his parents' opinion about what he ought to be doing.
Take ODD as an example, the diagnostic criteria are:
A pattern of negativistic, hostile, and defiant behavior lasting at least 6 months, during which four (or more) of the following are present:
1. often loses temper
2. often argues with adults
3. often actively defies or refuses to comply with adults' requests or rules
4. often deliberately annoys people
5. often blames others for his or her mistakes or misbehavior
6. is often touchy or easily annoyed by others
7. is often angry and resentful
8. is often spiteful or vindictive
Note the many moral judgements that are necessary to make any diagnosis according to this definition: "actively defies", "deliberately annoys" and so on. These are not deemed to be disease symptoms when a child does them to an intending kidnapper, or to the parents' political opponents at a demonstration, for example. These states of the child's brain become diseases only when a certain condition - disapproval - exists in the brain of another person - the parent or other authority. The treatment is also metaphorical and for ODD it consists of conversations and discipline. Again, this is very different from other diseases: bacteria are not great conversationalists, one cannot debate diabetes, but apparently ODD can be disposed of by talking to it.
The entire purpose of these diseases is, in fact, to give these vile "treatments" a gloss of medical and scientific respectability. Then no attention need be paid to whether the child is right to behave defiantly toward his parents in specific cases. No effort needs to be wasted on such fripperies as rational argument or considering that the child might have a point if they repeatedly refuse to obey their parents or say that they are bored in school. How very convenient for the force-users.
There is one last oddity to note. Professor Michael Fitzgerald of Dublin University has recently said that geniuses such as Socrates, Charles Darwin, and Andy Warhol may have had a mental disease called Asperger's syndrome characterised by not wanting to talk to people and having "restricted" interests with "abnormal" intensity. Now, suppose that having Asperger's syndrome for a while wo
What about the amateur radio guys? The HAMbergers?
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
I was diagnosed autistic at age five. The diagnosis was quickly withdrawn, since at the time a high IQ was a bar to a diagnosis of autism. In 1993, Asperger's Syndrome became an accepted diagnosis in the US, and it was pretty clear that it matched up with the behaviors seen when I was five. In 2000 I finally got around to talking to a psych about it. She gave me some excellent advice when it came to deciding whether or not I was autistic:
If the diagnosis helped me make sense of my life, if it gave me tools with which I could build a better life, then yes, I was autistic.
If the diagnosis turned into an excuse for self-destructive behavior, turned into a rationale for why I should be excused from the rules of civility, if it became a license for uncivil behavior, then no, I wasn't autistic.
In the end, she told me, it wasn't up to her to decide whether I was autistic. It was up to me.
It was the best psychiatric advice I've ever received. And, y'know what? I'm not going to tell you if I'm autistic or not. I don't care if you know. I don't wear a sign and advertise myself to the world one way or another.
I know if I'm autistic or not. That's enough.
So please show some courtesy to Bram Cohen. It's very possible he's received the exact same (excellent) psychiatric advice I've received.
Just so you know, just being a nerd/geek doesn't mean you have Asperger's syndrome. It is not a "disease" that you can get, you either have it or you don't. Even when I was an infant, people noticed that I had a ridiculously long attention span. I don't hate the fact that I have AS... it can be incredibly annoying at times, as I still have issues interpreting body gestures or figures of speech not laid out in scientific terms. At times I wish I didn't have this affliction. Then I remind myself that I can sit in front of my computer for 14 hours straight writing code without getting bored, assuming that I am interested in what I am writing. I proceed to laugh, and profit.
here is the mirrordot cache:
e 74e1c22471a/index.html
http://mirrordot.org/stories/94287bd20a1426c0b8bb
The Television Wiki
I did a little more reading in the trivia section and also found this:
I remember when legal used to mean lawful, now it means some kind of loophole. - Leo Kessler
Get him to talk with someone capable of making a diagnosis. Then medication and a psychologist. Believe me, it's all important.
Most of what I understand about social interaction was learned by observation in high school, which is typically relatively late in human physical development. On the other hand, I had a mother who pushed me to learn it. As an independent adult, your friend is going to need to depend on self-motivation to get better.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Has this problem. He is a really good programmer but he shits and pisses all over the bathroom and then leaves it there like noone will know its him. A VP had to send out a company wide email basically saying that if you shit and piss all over the bathroom to please clean up after yourself.
I was diagnosed with a learning disability. I, in turn, diagnosed the U.S. education system with a teaching disability.
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Incite and flee.
Ba-dump-bump.
Breakfast served all day!
You sure it wasn't a psychologist you saw? I find it hard to believe a psychiatrist would basically say "it's up to you whether or not you have a mental illness". That's like saying "it's up to you whether or not you have cancer". If any doctor said that to me I'd call em a quack and look elsewhere.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
No, I am not the AC that posted the parent, I might, however, be a high-functioning idiot. I'll ask my wife, she is a Psychologist.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
A.S. isn't something that a medical professional can really "test" you for. At least not in any really objective way. Diagnosis is based on identifying which, if any, of a set of particular traits you have. And many of them are quite hard to guage in people you don't know. (Admittedly some are easy to spot; it's a mixed bag).
Because of this, diagnosis of things like "does patient find it difficult to adapt to changes in routine" might well be done with a doctor asking you "so, do you find it difficult to adapt to changes in routine?" **. And some things are, by nature, invisible to other pople, e.g. do you find it natural to make eye contact when talking, or have you learned to fake it?
Since none of the diagnostic criteria are particularly hard to understand, an alternative (or complimentary) approach would be to gather this information yourself. It's hard not to be biased in these things, but you can call on the opinions of family members, friends, trusted work collegues, and the like, and do a pretty good job of assessing yourself that way. You can use the same criteria your doc would (summary here).
I'm not trying to argue against professional diagnosis. But you're likely to end up trading off between the opinion of somebody who probably knows more about the symptoms, vs the opinions of folks who probably know more about you.
Cheers,
** Yeah, I'm exageratting a bit. But not a whole lot, IMHO. Not all that many doctors are very experienced with Asperger's anyywayKevin
what if being creative and persistent are part of having A.S?
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Incite and flee.
I'm sure my copy of the book specifically mentions Asperger's syndrome.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
I think we all have Asperger's...
Obessions often including computers: Check
Lack of the ability to learn social skills: Check
Failure in school because we like to hate the grade system: Check
Mostly in males: Check
So where are my nerd curing pills?
WASTE - The Secure P2P
I co-founded WrongPlanet.net along with the interviewer, and like Alex, I have Asperger's myself. I've separated myself from the site since, and I'm sure glad I made Alex get his own webhost before the slashdotting :-D.
Anyway, I'd like to respond to some of the comments here.
First, I want to clarify some of the things people say about Asperger's that irritate me and some of the Aspergers community. One thing that's irritating is when people say that there's an 'epidemic' of autism -- as if we're all some horrible thing that should never come into existance. Some of history's most brilliant minds have supposedly had Asperger's (see 'Diagnosing Jefferson', etc). People with Asperger's can often live perfectly normal lives. There even was some controversy at one point over the word "disorder" on WrongPlanet a while back, but I don't take it that far.
Another point is that autism is a spectrum disorder. Sometimes people with it have it milder or worse than others diagnosed. And also that it's an incredibly diverse bunch of people. It's hard to make generalizations. I like to think that most people with Asperger's have very redeeming qualities -- but the fact of the matter is that some aspies are normal intelligence. Some are brilliant, and some are, what others categorize as being "assholes".
One person here made a comment about people using Asperger's as some kind of excuse for something, like sometimes people claim dyslexia if they can't read well. I don't think that's the case for many people with AS, and I take some offense to that, but the poster brings up an interesting point. The reality is you shouldn't have to have an excuse to be who you are. But it certainly feels better to have one, doesn't it?
It so happens that people like myself and many others who have Asperger's have the particular general set of symptoms required for diagnosis. And even then, many of us a hard time gaining acceptance in the world, and finding people who are tolerant. It's hard enough with a diagnosis. And even if you have to explain it to someone (which I try to avoid doing myself, unless it's particularly relevant), their reaction is they either become more distant because they don't know how to deal with you, or they have precisely that reaction.
I guess the point I'm making here is that, especially in high schools, people are prejudiced and biased towards Aspies and others -- regardless of their official diagnosis (which they don't know) or any of that arbitrary stuff. The old slashdot article "Voices from the Hellmouth sums this up very well.
But don't get me wrong. I think that people who have Asperger's (and similar people in general) do have some obligation to try to overcome their problems. It's not good to chalk it up to autism and be a dick to everyone. But, again, a large part of it is how willing society is to accept people who aren't even necessarily rude or anything, but are just plain different. There's a certain amount of work that people with AS need to take, and a certain amount of work that society needs to take.
If anybody wants to talk to me about these issues, I'd be happy to do so and point you to some good resources and information.
Asperger's Syndrome isn't an illness, that's why. It's a disorder, which is quite a different thing. It's not something that causes you danger, nor something that can be treated medically.
To a large degree, wether you "have it" is defined by whether it creates problems for you in your life, because the behavioural difficulties are atually part of the definition of the disorder.
I knew someone with AS. He went to college and was in our little circle. I even lived with him for a short time. If I had to guess I'd say he had mildly severe AS. He violated people's space all the time. He'd want to know what you were eating and would have his face an inch or so from your food. Saying hi was a in your face experience.
The kid was smart, but not super smart. He'd try so hard but would end up jumbling everything he learned. Confusing one fact with another. His problem was he'd believe anything anyone said to him. He definitely had preoccupations. Spaghetti was the main course every dinner. Despite his anability to function around many people, we liked him the same. Always had some great new fact for us.
It's not a guarantee that they'll have a higher IQ. It's not an east thing to deal with. It could reach the point of self confusion. It's not fun when you work on a weather map, draw everything in. It's full of high end stuff, but it's all wrong, or doesn't make sense. I feel sorry because it may not have any possitive sides for some.
"&spell=1"
;)
You, from the looks of it.
No offense to the AC or anything, but...*checks post left and right for spelling errors*
No, in all honesty, grandparent can suck it and die. If BitTorrent was indeed made by a "retarded kike", then I really do wonder where that places the rest of the population on the big scale of intelligence.
There's a difference between having a disorder and being an actual mentally retarded person.
For example during Ghostbusters I could somehow feel that confusing anti-drug ad with skateboarders coming up.
You mean "Be An Original" listed here?
Actually, I wish they'd run some anti-drug PSAs against Lilly, Pfizer, GSK, Novartis, etc.
In a way, it's more about personality than it is about illness or disease. It's a disorder perhaps to those who don't understand it. It can cause some problems for those of us who have it ... but more because we have to deal with those who don't than because of what we have. It's a set of traits, many of which just aren't in sync with what the majority are.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Slashdot effect: horde of simultaneous downloaders makes the download slow.
BitTorrent effect: horde of simultaneous downloaders makes the download fast.
Ah, the classic slashdot effect, about time we blow the server to bits. But we can do better, the hosting company just suspended the site http://underdog04.underdoghosting.com/suspended.pa ge/
I love the motto of underdog hosting too http://www.underdoghosting.com/ "Hosting that doest suck" ROFL
"What most people with Asperger's Syndrome find difficult is casual chatting - they can't do small talk." -- Teh B33b
Would they have done better today, now that there's Squeak?
Don't worry soon they will have a cure. No more autism epidemic, all the kids will be aborted. Thirty years later they will be wondering why there are no eccentric geniuses anymore. Some third world country which didn't have the money for genetic screening will suddenly find itself winning a good fraction of the Nobel prizes. Notice on a medline search how every biological component of autism is a "dysfunction", "disorder" or "defective". Normally a condition which gives you almost 50% more immune cells would be considered a good thing. Expecially considering that most I know on the spectrum are very rarely sick with colds or flu. But no its a "disordered" immune system.
ahh thanks for clearing that up. In retrospect how legitimate is any disorder then? Seems to me to be rather subjective and qualitative. In other words they don't really know but they'll group certain traits and call it a disorder for heuristic purposes.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
Asperger's isn't something like cancer, or a broken bone, or a missing arm. It's more of a personality, or a set of personality traits. It's not unlike many of the characteristic differences in people like being tall or short, having black hair or red hair. Sometimes these things are an advantage and sometimes they are a disadvantage. As personality traits, though, the effects are very often in how people deal with other people, in addition to how we deal with the world around us (and computers, etc). Not all Aspies and not all Auties are alike, either. I've met many who are quite different.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
In answer to the question, "What operating system do you prefer?", BC said:
"I hate dealing with computers in general, so I'm typically OS-agnostic, I've most recently been abused by a windows machine, so I hate that the most for the moment."
This is very interesting indeed, and I can identify sometimes - even though I'm totally immersed as programmer, etc. People are just so much more interesting...
This sig donated to Pater. Long live
Medication? Certainly not everybody needs medication, the most common need is to treat anxiety and depression brought on by unrelenting mistreatment by peers, or by parents and doctors not accepting anything less than complete 100% normality, and not letting you do things like stim to relieve stress or indulge a perserveration. Not everybody needs medication, my daughter and I don't.
A psychologist can be helpful, as they usually know how to get you the resources you need to learn how to read others, as well as appropriate responses to social rituals. Kind of like businesspeople learn how not to make cultural asses of themselves in Japan.
Do too many people here self-diagnose? Of course.
But at the same time we're a community that's open to evaluation for "mental illness" and can pay for it. I was referred to a specialist, paid $$$ for an evaluation, and can use the results to identify an appropriate treatment. I doubt you would find many accountants, for example, equally willing to do the same.
The bottom line is probably in the second half of your comment. People who really have AS welcome a correct diagnosis since it means they won't continue wasting their time, money and effort. People who would use it as an "excuse" are probably just jerks.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
...parents and doctors not accepting anything less than complete 100% normality...Not everybody needs medication, my daughter and I don't.
I think you partially answered yourself already, but let me explain.
Aspergers isn't likely to be the only thing a person has. And you're not capable of making the decision as to whether or not you have anything that should be medicated. A psychiatrist is the one who makes that call.
Once in a great while, I decide I don't need to take my Risperdal any more. So I go a day or two without it. The anger issues I deal with during that period, and the memory of how much saner the world was while I was on the medication, convince me to resume taking it.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Bill Gates, Spielberg, and Einstein had it. It's only fitting that the creator of Bittorrent has it.
I could point out the countless ways you're wrong. But why bother - it's clear that you have absolutely no clue about the care used by professionals qualified to make clinical diagnoses.
Here's a clue - the school nurse and school counselor aren't competent to make these diagnoses. The eating or learning disorder specialist isn't. Your pediatrican isn't. Organic mental illnesses should be evaluated by psychiatrists and licensed clinical psychologists, and an evaluation will take at least an hour.
What's the truth? Are you one of those "psychiatry kills" scientologists who believe in Xenu and evil thetans shooting out of flaming volcanoes but not imbalances in neurotransmitter levels or differences in neural activity measured with radioactive tracers?
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
...that those who are claiming to have this Asperger's syndrome and trying to defend the reality of it have been making quite long posts.
...They are not the same thing in the least.
I agree with you. Unfortunately, many public schools in the US fund/budget the programs for all disorders of this type as Autistic Spectrum disorders, even if the symptoms of that child's disorder are the exact opposite of true autism. This creates problems when the few uninformed/unaware educators in the system are assigned to work with special needs children, as they may treat all kids being treated under Autistic Spectrum disorder programs as Autistic. Luckily, educators usually assigned to work with special needs children know the difference. When they do not, it can be frustrating to try to explain that what works for an autistic child does not necessarily work for a given child with an autistic spectrum disorder.
Above average intelligence, obsession with a single subject area, often a form of transportation... encyclopedic knowledge of that subject... delayed social skills...
This describes at least half the people I know, and 90% of the ones you meet at a Star Trek con. [I mean, not that I've ever been to one, I'm just you know, assuming]
That is why Asperger's is categorized as a form of High Functioning autism, not to be confused under any circumstances with full-blown autism. Your knee-jerk reaction and confusion of the two conditions suggests that you really don't know that much about Asperger's, else you would STFU and educate yourself before jumping down people's throats for merely suggesting that they or someone they know might have this disorder. I know I have AS, and after all of the research I have done, I don't really need a so-called expert to corroborate it, since I am not interested in medicating myself into a stupor again, the way I did when I was mis-diagnosed with ADD and put on every pharmaceutical in the book by three different pill-pushing doctors.
People who are actually suffering from Asperger's are blind, in a way. They can honestly not perceive things like sarcasm, emotional stress, etc. There is a part of the world they cannot perceive. This is not the same as the geek who is frustrated by his dating difficulties. This is a real, bona-fide disability, which is relatively rare and quite difficult to overcome.
Perhaps not as rare as you think, and it does occur along a wide range of severities. If a person reads the diagnostic criteria in the DSM and all kinds of bells and lights go off in their head and they say, "This is me!" perhaps there really is a connection beyond what you dismiss as "pop psychology".
All we need to do is work hard at being better at it, practice, and want to get better.
Been "working hard" at "being better at it" all my life, but still have the symptoms, every last fucking one of them. But thanks, Sigmund. Having you tell me it's all in my head makes me feel so much better. As Daniel Day Lewis said in My Left Foot, "I don't need a fucking psychology lesson, I just need a fucking light."
Get him off the artificial sweeteners and sourers and see if that makes any difference. Fixed my kids up lickity split.
(not just artificial foods, lots of natural stuff is bad for some people too, eg milk)
from the Wikipedia article on Bram Cohen
In April 2001, Cohen quit MojoNation and began work on BitTorrent. Cohen collected free pornography to lure beta testers to use the program in the summer of 2001.
The program became an instant hit with Linux users who wanted to swap their enormous pornography libraries^w^w open-source programs, but gained its true fame (and infamy) for its ability to quickly share large music and movie files online.
Sample this!
If the diagnosis helped me make sense of my life, if it gave me tools with which I could build a better life, then yes, I was autistic.
If the diagnosis turned into an excuse for self-destructive behavior, turned into a rationale for why I should be excused from the rules of civility, if it became a license for uncivil behavior, then no, I wasn't autistic.
I think that this is quite possibly the greatest thing I've ever read on Slashdot.
I've often looked at the (sometimes deliberately?) vague descriptions of various popular mental disorders, including autism, and noted how many of those traits might apply to me. But with almost every one, I could see it being the latter case, not the former.
That's great advice and spoken (written?) well.
I'll share with you another piece of advice I was once given by my child psychiatrist* when I was having difficulty coping with grad school:
Drugs are for temporarily helping you regain your sanity until you can control your life just fine on your own. They're a boost to regain self-reliance, not a permanent crutch.
*Not because my parents suspected I was nuts, but because I'd had febrile convulsions and they wanted to make sure nothing broke.
I think a large percentage of us can relate to what this guy is about...Trouble making friends, hates school, college dropout, awkward in social situations. Hell I thought I was reading my own interview...Well, except that I'm a lousy programmer.
:)
Anyway, I got to thinking, is the majority of cases of this so called "Asperger's Syndrome" really a "disease", or simply a consequence of being an introvert? Practice makes perfect, and if you like being by yourself and don't enjoy talking to people, then of course you are not going to be very good in social situations. That explains problems making friends and problems with social situations.
As such, what is there to do by yourself besides partake in intellectual pursuits? School is the devil for those who truly love to learn. "Here's a piece of paper, now regurgitate all of the pointless information you have learned this year with a reasonable percentage of accuracy and guess what, you go to the next level. Yay!"
I'm not saying that Asperger's Syndrome does not exist, but I think it's over diagnosed just like most other conditions out there that gives drug companies an excuse to sell their wares. Only in the most extreme cases where someone cannot function should treatment be required. Other than that, it does not to be "cured". IMHO, mild "cases" are little more than a personality trait.
Read Bram's interview. Looks to me like he was able to figure out how to read people in social situations and wishes he could go back in time and smack his previous self around a little. I think he got over his problem (look, he's got a kid to prove it!) the same way I did...By being in situations that require social interaction. Being a consultant, this happens a lot. When I first started off as a tech monkey visiting customers on site or deal with them directly, I got reports from my boss that they thought I was a pretty weird dude. Eventually I learned that the customer does not want to hear how many transistors a Pentium has when they want Windows working again. Anyway, I think I'm able to handle people better today, and if my customers still think I'm weird, at least they aren't telling anyone about it.
-R
I'm a person with Aspergers myself, while I'm increedibly smart for my age (14,11 months. Yes, thats 14years,11 months), I don't have an incredibly good social life, along with various other problems which have bogged me down. Interesting though that in this time article (just borrow the magazine from your local library) he says he managed to control some symptoms (in particular the urge to go out and flame people publically that we share) through various tactics, something which I have had extreme trouble controlling in the past. And like him, I basically learned everything {Java,Perl,some C,PHP,Linux} myself.
Good on him.
And I don't have Asperger's or any other kind of mental disorder as far as I am aware.
I have often experienced something like a sense of what would happen 5 or 10 seconds later. Sometimes a word or phrase will suddenly come in to my mind for no particular reason and then several seconds later I will hear someone say that on TV or will read it in whatever I'm reading.
Not common words either, ones that are obscure enough that I know it's not just coincidence. Or sometimes I will think of a song that I have not heard in a long time and then will hear it being played in a car I drive by or a building I walk into a short time later. This effect usually does not go past a few seconds to a minute (i.e. I won't be guessing any lottery numbers), but it's definitely there and is real.
...And then 10,000 /. readers found out they had Asperger's...
dun, Dun, DUH!
I think the cure for this is cocaine. eh, EH?!
As someone who actually has Asperger I've always vehemently opposed casual use of medication. Yes, one suffers from irrational fears that make it terribly difficult to function normally in society and yes, there are tons of akward moments(dunno about the rest of 'm, but I for one remember every last one of them, yuck) but unfortunately the only real way to deal with those fears is figure out where they come from and then somehow confront them. Suppressing them with meds only delays the inevitable. Unfortunately the experts seem to think otherwise, and build nice cosy houses in the middle of nowhere so a couple of authists can spend their days getting on each other's nerves without being in the company of "normal people"(a very relative concept, I know) to actually learn social skills from. Not counting the staff, tis not as though those act normally under any circumstances ;-)
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
By the way, the parent post has been copied with attribution from here.
Stereotyped and repetitive motor mannerisms (e.g., hand or finger flapping or twisting, or complex whole-body movements)
Becasue I definitely have the finger/hand flapping. I don't have quite so much trouble with the social cues, although I didn't make any friends really until high school. I have a preocupation with computers, and reading but I don't know if its to Asberger's scale, as it were.
So am I just geeky, or do I have a (mild?) case of Asperbeerger's? (If there is sucha thing as a mild case).
Why not fork?
Except for the high IQ part, you have no problems advertising that!
It's not the same as being retarded. It's more like not seeing red, but seeing UV instead. It's changes the world, but you can still be functional, but you can't always be functional in the ways other people establish, such as being able recognize that a traffic light is red. But you can see some things other people cannot see.
The idea of the name "wrong planet" for the site of the article fits this well. If all the people who could see UV and not red were all born on a separate planet of their own instead, things would work better. Traffic lights would have different colors.
Many people with Autism or Asperger's cannot stand the flickering of fluorescent lights. The better solution is to remove them from that environment, rather than try to force them to adjust to what is effectively extraneous stimulation. People can simply adjust by not trying to depend on using their facial experessions to convey feelings. When communicating with someone on the spectrum, express yourself clearly and with little or no symbolism. Most of us see the world in a very literal realistic way.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Thanks, you did the hard work for me. I agree whole heartedly and am the same. I now say that I have AS. Due to, from mid-teens, running my own small company, I HAD to become socially apt... I had no choice otherwise I would have been consumed by mad PR pratts...
I learnt veryf ast that I couldn't be quiet, rude etc and had to 'just talk'. Now, unlike the grandparents crap above, AS does't ALWAYS make it impossible for you to deal with social situations in every event. In fact, I can be overly apt in social situations - incredibly articulate and polite. However, it runs to extremes and there'll be some situations which will make me buckle. I'll get anxiety attacks, I'll feel like I need to 'run away' or I'll just be incredibly rude and not realise it. In fact, most of my eye-opening that there was something wrong with me and had AS came from the fact that I'm incredibly rude and have no concept of bounderies, in most situations. My friends get used to this, but it REALLY shocks people with the 'weird' things I say and do, yet I never see any problem with this.
Couple this with finding it impossible to tell what a person thinks of me (and therefore jumping to crazy conclusions), absolute obsession over people (which freaks people out heavily), activities and objects, plus some VERY VERY obscure eye contact issues (EXTREME stare or TOTAL avoidance) and it starts to look clearer.
I may not be your clear cut 'he's AS', but EVERYONE says I'm 'quite wierd' without much hesitation, and I match the criteria.
I also can't help most things I've described. I'm so obsessive that if my mind is set on something I HAVE to do it.
So don't trivialise; AS is much more complex than people realise, and it's people like the grandparent who made me cry and gave me panic attacks for weeks when I found out I could have AS.
Men with Aspergers often end up in jobs where they make the nuts and bolts of society run, because they can focus on them. And, in fact (sorry about the myth destruction) many of them do get laid. And seem to have mostly normal kids... Men with alpha male social disorder frequently end up killing people, destroying social structures and generally making people's lives a misery. It's a matter of perception.
I have a feeling that in earlier societies where there were no chattering classes, the intelligent people with Aspergers ended up as priests or shamans and acted as a check or balance on the alphas. Prophets like Nathan and Jeremiah with their tendency to flame people in public and obsessions with strange things would seem to have exhibited at least some of the symptoms of Aspergers.
I am not denying that Aspergers makes normal social relations difficult. I probably have a mild version of it but never needed to get formally diagnosed: I know of people who have it more seriously and it can be a real handicap. But it is not usually as severe a handicap as being stupid, being brought up by useless parents, or growing up in a criminal society like the Jamaican or LA gang culture.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
Ya know, I could be wrong, but I am almost positive that the :D that was put at the end of that line was ment to show sarcasism.
:D as being a laugh track. It if a flag to show where you should be laughing at.
Think of the
http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,,1409903 ,00.html
"Daniel Tammet is an autistic savant. He can perform mind-boggling mathematical calculations at breakneck speeds. But unlike other savants, who can perform similar feats, Tammet can describe how he does it. "
http://www.optimnem.co.uk/letterman.htm
He learnt icelandic in a week from scratch.
Not all men are considered equally fit by women as partners; if the number of available heterosexual men were to decrease due to war/increased homosexuality/a resurgence in monasticism/whatever, the effect of the decreased supply of a low-fitness male's ability to score would be marginal at best. The alphas would still get more chicks than they could handle and the epsilons would still go without even if they were the only males left. And if the loss in single straight males occurs uniformly from across the fitness levels, the effect will be negligible.
As such, improving one's personal fitness (and how competitive one appears in individual comparisons) will always give one a greater advantage than any sort of Y-chromosome apocalypse.
9/11 Eyewitnesses to Explosive WTC Demolition 1 of 2
Where's the interview? Is ten lines exchanged on IRC now classed as an "interview"? Hey guys, I interviewed SpudMagic2001 on #teenchat yesterday, come and read it on my site.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
In the USSR, political troublemakers and opponents of the regime were often diagnosed as mentally ill, committed to mental institutions, drugged and locked up. The diagnoses were based on the assumption that opposing the system was, in itself, an insane act.
The definition of ODD above, a "mental disorder" characterised by opposition and defiance, sounds uncomfortably like something out of Soviet social psychiatry.
Plethora means "harmful excess". But thanks to Three Amigos people think it just means "a lot".
All's true that is mistrusted
Don't know this for certain but based on the info i read on Asperger's Syndrome (focused intelligence in one area, inability to read body language in others- social akwardness), doesn't it seem like Chloe from 24 is the hollywood version of Asperger's?
What better than woman!
TWO WOMAN!
What better than two woman!
FIVE! FIVE WOMAN!
Grob funny!
The image is a dream, the beauty is real. Can you see the difference?
Just wondering -- is an Aspie able to learn to socially interact with people, or to learn how to detect emotions in e.g. body language when socially interacting? I know it is a disorder, but that doesn't exclude the earlier mentioned possibility at whole. Btw my 2nd question is: does Aspergers also include animals or is it merely about humans?
WE DON'T NEED NO BLOG CONTROL.
IGTeRR0r is absolutely on the money.
Mental diagnostics are for one thing and one thing only --insurance claims.
The idea of categorizing people's pysches according to a neat taxonomy proposes a ridicuous presumption of objective analysis of subjectivity. If subjects were objects we could just save oursleve a ject if you catch my drift. Putting a label on a person doesn't mean shit. If you put a red T-shirt on someone what does that mean about that person? I'm pretty sure it means they're wearing a red T-shit. That's about it.
Now, if insurance companies only pay out to people who have red T-shirts put on them by their therapists, then a red T-shirt is damned important. But what the fuck does it mean? Nothing.
You may or may not be asperger's syndrome, but I very much doubt that you are autistic. In your post, you repeatedly take into account the emotions and reactions of the reader, and respond to them before hand. This level of cognitive empathy is almost by definition lacking in an individual with autism.
Autism is a spectrum disorder. The intensity of it's effects will vary greatly from one individual to another. At the highest level of functional there are folks with AS who, while unable to interpert social cues such as facial expressions, are still able to puzzle out other peoples reactions, and think of other people as human as well.
At the other end, the extremely autistic, there are individuals who completely lack empathy, let alone social skills. They completely fail to grasp the concept that another person is conscious such as they are. An automobile and a human being are both inanimate objects to them.
This does not mean that they won't be able to learn to interact with another person though. An autistic child may learn that if they scream very loud, and point to what they want, their mother will get it for them. To them, this affect is no different than pushing the ON button to turn on the television. They do not perceive their mother as another person with whom they are communicating. They are just learning to interact with their environment, as anyone else would do.
That is why I point out that it is very unlikely that you are autistic. The fact that you are writting a post in which you are considering what the reaction of the readers will be is a feat beyond autism. Aspergers quite possibly though.
Peace,
nathan o'brien
Except without the intellectual capacity. Honestly, I thought these aspergers retards were supposed to be intelligent and creative, that's not what you see on slashdot!
I'm not sure about putting a label on yourself, but when my now-22 yr old son w/ autism was diagnosed at age 6, it was a tremendous help. His diagnosis did not cure him but it gave insight. Suddenly all the disconnected learning & living issues made much more sense. It was only a starting point and he will struggle with the world for his whole life but it made it easier for people to help him and, now, for him to understand himself in the world. That's all it is, not a label to harm but a starting point to understand and help.
Such a "test" can be fun, but I do wonder how meaningful they really are. Personally, I prefer the geek-code ranking (though I haven't geek-ranked myself for several years now). It's based on quantifiable answers to questions about things you've actually done. This personality test is just averages of your subjective answers to fairly transparent (but fuzzy) questions that can easily mean different things to different people.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Actually there are some very real similarities. For instance, my son has a very difficult time understanding social nuances and tends to take things quite literally. It isn't that he doesn't have a sense of humor - it's just that it's very different from what most people relate to. In short, it's funny what he finds 'funny'.
:)
Benji didn't struggle with speech because he couldn't mentally or physically do it. It was a communication issue on a whole different level. He struggled because in his mind he didn't understand WHY we just didn't KNOW what he wanted (a child's primary purpose for speech is to ask for things). Speech simply didn't seem necessary to him. Once he realized that asking for things got him somewhere, the speech came very quickly. This is the kind of thing early intervention is great for.
He has trouble relating to 'normal' people and this is what I got out of the article. In this particular way, my son is exactly like Mr. Cohen. Autism has many different levels and types - some more like Asperger's than others. My son's type is considered NOS - 'Not Otherwise Specified' which basically means, "Hey! We don't know either!"
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
How do you define 'casual'?
Would you consider medicating for irrational anger 'casual use' of medication? How about obsessive-compulsive disorder?
If someone spend 20 years learning to control their anger, that's 20 years they haven't been as productive as they could have. If someone spends 20 years learning to control impulses to scrape off scabs, that's 20 years without making lasting connections with other people.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
I think the point is that autism is what autism does. If having autism will just give you an excuse to borrough even deeper away from society, then you "don't" have autism. If having autism empowers you to work harder and not be afraid of failure because now you can understand why you do the things you do, then you "are" autistic. I get the sense that the guy was autistic.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
Put yourself in the place of the poor kid this web page is written about. They of course claim that he "recovered from autism" because of all the abuse. I'd say he learned to compensate for being autistic inspite of the abuse. If ABA is so great where are all the ex patients raving about how wonderful it was for them?
Sumlin ABA Program Notes
Given the large number of Aspies/autistics in the technical field. I really wish we'd see an article about the abuses that happen in ABA make it to the top here.
No offense, but I'll take a professional diagnosis from psychiatrists who've seen my complete medical records over the random opinions of someone on Slashdot who's coming up with a medical diagnosis without ever having met me.
Have you graduated from medical school? Have you done a psychiatric internship specializing in autistic spectrum disorders? Have you sat down with me to collect a medical history? Spoken with my relatives and friends to get a pattern of socialization behaviors?
No?
Then why should I take your opinion seriously?
Not necessarily. There are plenty of people whose brains are just broken in some way; unable to maintain chemical balance. For those people, drugs may be a permanent requirement.
For example, bipolar disorder is typically something that requires lifetime treatment. Schizophrenia too.
I feel it's important to point this out, as we don't want any more schizophrenics going off their medication because they've sorted their lives out now...
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Yes, it's possible to learn social interaction. A friend of mine has done a very good job of it. I didn't realize the situation until he explained to me that it's hard work, because he has to run through mental checklists, consciously examine body language, remember to behave in various ways at appropriate times, and so on.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
My story:
Mood disorder (manic depression/bipolar) which I thought described my life, but then I find that it is not prescriptive, now aspergers has been suggested, and whether I am a severe case or just pointing that way geek... who knows, it is nice to know there is another club for people who do not read body language.
In fact manic depression is often not so clear cut, in my case it is because i have several cases of mania/high/nervous breakdown, followed by 6 month low/depression. There is no genetic test AKAIK. My familty 5 out of a possible 6 have it.
If people want to label themselves to find peers, that is good, if other people label them to dismiss them or to medicate them, that is bad.
Mad and proud: http://www.madpride.org.uk/
Be Free: Free Software Tuition
That's like saying "it's up to you whether or not you have cancer".
:)
Remember, perception of reality is based on an opinion. It's only real because we believe it to be so. I'm only aware of the cancer because I feel the pain in my stomach. If there was no pain or visible affect then it doesn't exist.... (Doesn't mean it's not there in time and space, but it doesn't exist to me since it is not being perceived by observation) Or until I gick sick or die. Well, if I die then I don't exist so the cancer is a moot point, but I'm being semantic.
Otherwise the placebo effect would not exist. Of course if it doesn't then it is because it's a matter of opinion
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
... if your preferred take on society is that it's a steaming pile of shit, that you'll be assimilated on your terms or over your dead body, if you KNOW people are FUCKING MORONS.... .... you have ODD.
k.
"Do some googling about ADHD, norepinephrine, stimulants, and SNRIs, and then tell me it's not a physical malfunction of the body."
one persons malfunction is another persons mozart.
who says whats a "malfunction" and whats an "enhancement". its not a bug - its a feature.
Some people in this thread are very close minded. I especially like how the parents of children get so happy when their kids are diagnosed. Becuase then hey, its the KIDS fault, not how we raised him or anything. If they acknowledged that the fault of a child is largely tied to how well they are raised, they would have to spend time analyzing themselves instead of their kid. Cant have that can we.
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
I used to be Hyperactive and have Attention Deficit Disorder. I also had depression. I can tell you; all of them were real, and I have found way to overcome them. At one time I took antidepressants--and guess what? They worked, and I am no longer irrationally depressed. So, no, this wasn't a case of me making excuses. I went on to have highly advanced skills and very good grades and I now have a really terrific wife and two kids a house and no debts--more or less I am living the American dream that 98% never achieve. I am so glad I got through these things before the onslaught of today's trendy Intolerance had the opportunity to compound my issues with a healthy dose of self loathing. Gee, I know you're having trouble in a really crappy school, but lets take away all your school funds and call you a hypochondriac--is that OK? Does this sounds like it makes me angry? Yes. Too many "bootstrappers" are just a bunch of bullies. My dad was a Texan, and yes, I don't cry when a nail goes through my foot and I have never had public assistance. But am I going to say that others can't? No. If I do well then good for me. But I have not lived as other people so I am not going to judge them.
Now I know, some of these diseases are "overdiagonosed" but you also have to look at the situation; we stuff children in concrete boxes, don't give them exercise, and feed them carbohydrate and sugar rich food--sounds a bit like how to make Veal--am I right? What about that is like anything humans were adapted for? I don't think people CHOOSE to be unhappy. So some people are born gay, some people have a hard time with boring school and high carbs, and some people get fat. They didn't get these problems in modern society to annoy the people who have everything going for them.
There is more problem with the attitude of intolerance and disrespect I see becoming more prevalent, then the "fake disease" crowd. It seemed to start with the "Neo Machismo" in the 1980s. Heck, before I new anything, I thought Reagan was great--at first, because he made you think being American again was great. This was a backlash against all the "blame the white man" talk shows of the time. You had the emergence of figures like Rush Limbaugh and others, who took the side of the embattled and blamed at the time.
But it has all gone too far. The fact is, people are complicated and people have a complicated life to get through. We need to quit telling people to "prove it" when they say they have a problem. I know I don't give anyone brownie points for having issues they complain about and I probably would drift away from anyone who "whines too much" just like anyone else. But you can't just immediately find a reason for every affliction.
And I am just going to have to get a tiger to eat the next guy who talks about "survival of the fittest". 1) People who say this don't really understand evolution or survival. 2) People who say this just don't give a shit beyond their own self interest anyway--so they should just admit they are "self involved".
Back on topic; the disease we are talking about seems to sound similar to "Obsessive Compulsive Disorder." OCD does respond to drugs and can be treated and really does affect people. Whether it is a disease, a malady, or a genetic response to the environment is hard to say. We currently have an epidemic in Asthma. Now it could be air, or antibiotics or even drinking milk. But you have to admit that it is new, a real problem and is due to something that people do now that is different from in the past. It has to do with not being adapted to modern life. Of course, again, this is being ignored and refuted for another troubling political agenda. The throw-backs want to push the concept of intelligent design. Since we were "intelligently designed", the creator put no flaws into us--all problems in life must be the result of evil or sloth or some sin. It couldn't be possible to have people NOT be in control of every bad thing in their lot in life--because that would mean we would have t
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
Good god, does nobody read what's between the []? click it and see. I've gotten one friend and one foe for that link. The friend clicked, the foe didn't. Reply again when you click it, smartass.
I hate grammar Nazi's.
As what--a lunchroom attendant? Your first girlfriend and your roommate, for all I know, are as useless as so many others in the developmental disability field are said to be. Someone must be doing all that mis-diagnosing, over-medicating, misbehavior-excusing and whatever else, after all. Right?
Maybe if you're not too clear on what the word means in the first place. Autism is a continuum. Profoundly affected "real" auties at one end, "normal"-seeming High Functioning Autistics (HFAs) and Asperger Syndrome people (aspies) at the other end, and all the variations in between. Social functioning difficulties are only part of the "autistic experience", and there's a wide range of symptoms and severities.
Actually, possession of symptoms *is* what is sufficient for diagnosis. The DSM IV criteria for a diagnosis of autism is nothing but a list of symptoms. Score enough of the symptoms in the right categories, rule out a few things like schizophrenia, and congrats--you're autistic! What'd you think they used to diagnose--a blood test?
Aspies can simulate normal social behavior, some undetectably, but that means constantly working to adapt to and deal with the NT (neurotypical) world. My guess is most aspies have to work several times as hard, just to achieve social ineptitude, as you have to, to achieve your ... um ... "current level of functioning". It can take continuous, exhausting effort just to go through everyday life. Ya'll NTs frequently aren't worth the work it takes to associate with you.
Diagnosis doesn't change that, doesn't provide a free pass, doesn't remove the necessity of dealing with the bloviating, fat-headed members of the NT majority who know that they are the measure of all things, who know that everyone else has the same wiring and modes of mental functioning as they, who know that everyone else is capable of "just dealing with life" as easily as they, who know which of us is really on the spectrum--not just malingering, who function more or less as blunt objects in the intellectual life of our society.
So anyway, thanks for your lecture on "How Reality Is, According to Me", though it is, "plainly, a load of crap". You've gotten fairly good at simulating an authoritive manner when you don't know much. Maybe someday I'll get that good, if I try really hard. I hear anybody can do anything, with practice. After all, "It would simply be too embarassing to fail at something that people we discount as morons do everyday with ease".
The real benefit of diagnosis, I think, is finding out that we're not just lazy, stupid, undisciplined, procrastinating, cowardly, cold-hearted, retarded, crazy, obstinant, or possessed of other character flaws, weaknesses or inabilities that make us less worthy human beings. If the NTs had to live in an autistic majority, do you think they could do as well?
OK, done ranting.
Mike
The stereotyped movements are not an essential characteristic, just something that often occurs. You can have autism/AS without the stereotypical movements, and you can have the stereotypical movements without having autism/AS.
It's impossible to say from your short message whether you have AS or not. I find Lorna Wings "Triad of Impairments" (google for it) useful:
This "Triad" is supposed to apply to the entire autistic spectrum including AS -- of course, in different degrees. For AS it may have to be interpreted in a less than absolute way.
I think for someone who is genuinely trying to find out if s/he has AS or not, the best way is to get in touch with other folks who have AS. If you have AS and it's undiagnosed, chances are that you have been misunderstood, shunned, ridiculed, etc. all your life without understanding why, and chances are your life is pretty much ruined. In such a situation, meeting other folks with AS and exchanging experiences is like finally coming home to your own planet after a lifetime of having been abducted. (Mind you, it can take a lot of getting used to, and a lot of emotions to work through! That feeling often does not appear immediately and often not but after a lot of profoundly conditioned self-doubt has been worked through.)
For someone with a "mild" variant the experience may not be so profound, but then again, I am speaking from experience and I do not have a "mild" variant, nor do I necessarily believe that the idea of a "mild" variant is useful - I am wary of diluting the name of what is to many a pretty damn serious disability that requires significant adaptations in order to be able to live happily.
Anyway, if you're serious and mercilessly honest with yourself, then the best judge of whether you have AS or not is ultimately you.
Another reason why the disability perspective is infinitely more useful than the disease perspective is that it opens the door to community building and self-empowerment. Given the proper adaptations, there are positive aspects to this condition as well as negative ones. One often-made analogy is with the deaf culture: because of their disability, deaf people naturally have a different way of communicating (using sign language), around which has been built up an entire culture (Google for "deaf culture" for a lot of info). Largely the same thing is true for folks with autism and AS: because of our disability, we have a different way of communicating (mostly verbal, little relevance of body language, more literal) which, although it is a bit more elusive and harder to define precisely than sign language, is still very real to those who are living it. If you put a group of folks with AS together, the major communication problems that these people have experienced all their lives tend to disappear gradually for the duration of the meeting! (Yes, I speak from experience). The communication problem only occurs if you cross the border between the two different "cultures"/ways of being.
This is why you are now seeing so many sites and groups on the net built up by folks with AS (of which this one, Autism Network International is incidentally the first ever; they started some). eleven years ago). The Internet, which eliminates most of the problems AS people face in communication (e.g. no body language), is the communication aid that folks with AS have been needing to get together and organize. That's another way in which the disability perspective applies.
There's nothing wrong with having a disability (any disability). It doesn't mean you're sick. But it's tragic that so many people say that AS can't be real just because it isn't a disease and you can't see the disability from the outside. That attitude just serves to perpetuate the alienation and isolation which, rather than AS itself, is what most folks with AS suffer from.
I punched him out for calling me an "Ass Burger".
I normally wouldn't respond with such personal information, but because I don't want anyone to end up misinformed by what you've posted here, I feel that's far more important than my privacy.
"For example, bipolar disorder is typically something that requires lifetime treatment."
Bipolar disorder also happens to be the one malaise that ends up helping me understand my behavior as opposed to an excuse to behave badly. I can even trace the behavior along my family lines, and see where it came from, and other relatives who have the same problem.
Nothing for me has been more effective than:
1. Getting enough rest,
2. Eating healthy,
3. Living an active lifestyle, and
4. Playing a little cello at least once a week.
In order to keep up with the above, I've also:
5. Stopped watching TV,
6. Given up on most video games (well, other than Fire Emblem, because it requires thought to really do well at it)
I most definitely do not need drugs.
The primary way to put your chemicals into balance is by living a healthy lifestyle, not drugs. If your body is healthy, your mind is too, because your brain is part of your body. Is that surprising? It's common sense.
Actually, the book never mentions Christopher's condition explicitly. One of the "I loved it" quotes inside the front cover suggested that it was an interesting look inside an autistic mind.
I have discussed this book at length with my friends at www.wrongplanet.net, and we pretty much agreed (I think) that the character Christopher is a somewhat distorted representation of all facets of the autism spectrum, in that he seems to have low-functioning autism one moment and high-functioning autism or Asperger's Syndrome the next. Like "Rainman", he is both an amalgam and a caricature.
Like the other Aspies who read the book, I closely identified with some of his experiences and thought "WTF?" about others.
Notice the word "typically" in what I wrote.
If sleep, food, exercise and not watching TV has cured you, that's great. Most people are not going to be so lucky.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
On Ritalin, he was able to ignore the distractions and just listen to the professor. This is an ability to you and I take for granted, but for him, he tried, but just could not learn anything in class without medication. Would depriving him of an education be better for his human rights than giving him Ritalin? Personally, I'd much rather see him get an education.
I also don't get your point about diseases that are diagnosed by clinical symptoms. For instance, my wife has Multiple Sclerosis (MS). MS is diagnosed by clinical symptoms. Oh, sure, she's had MRIs out the wazoo, but they do not conclusively diagnose the disease. Her brain lesions will come and go, and there are non-MS patients whose MRIs for unrelated injuries will show brain lesions that will never materialize as MS. But my wife has the "pins and needles" Numbness and Pain symptoms, so she has MS and is being treated for it.
How is MS different from ADD? We don't really understand the cause of either, so we diagnose both through symptoms.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
The type of people who are moderators on /. are the same people that claim to have Asperger's Syndrome.
They are also cocksuckers. But then I've been watching Deadwood.
A poll on kuro5hin in which 76% of respondents claim to have some form of Asperger's or autism. Yes. 76%.
Phillip