This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Hit-and-Run: Having edited two, in my opinion, ill-advised references to this disorder elsewhere, I've decided three is my lucky number...
I have changed "the negative medical view of autism is highly controversial" to "is highly controversial in some quarters" i.e. because some people with autism reject the conventional medical view that it's an impairment; the wording of the original gives the impression that there is a widespread medical debate over it. I also removed "It is better understood as a different way of seeing and thinking" as lacking neutrality, as redundant (there's a similar comment a couple of sentences back) and as interrupting the flow of the paragraph.
Finally, I removed the word "quite" due to its pointless ambiguity in the context in which it was used. (Does it mean "somewhat"? Or "completely"?)
Disclaimer– interest in this subject is purely because my mother teaches a "special" class.
Anomaly: I'd consider the Monk example to be at least a little bit of a justification; his pedantry and complete lack of willingness to allow things that "aren't right" would clearly link into the investigative ability of finding out whichever facts in a case "aren't right".
Nornagest: Yanked natter from Death Note example, modified example text to address one of the issues it brought up:
- This autistic troper would like to point out that there's no such thing as a "mild" case of autism, just cases that don't deviate from the norm enough for people to care. L's capable of coping, but still pretty out of whack.This Aspergers troper wishes she'd never found out she had it because now everybody acts as if she's going to blame her behavioural problems on it. Oh sure, it's true, but that doesn't mean I WANT to blame Aspergers for it. That's treating it like a problem.
I'm not qualified to say if that first bit is actually true, but the example should make sense either way now. There's no reason for the second to be here.
Have changed "horribly disabling" to "quite disabling". I am autistic, disabled, and I do not see anything "horrible"! Also am rather glad that the Rainman stereotype is finally falling out of favor.
Elihu: Whenever someone decides to make a Troper Tales page for this. Make sure to include this lovely circle-jerk pulled from the page:
- This troper has been diagnosed with Asperger's (among other things). She first was hired as a proofreader for a professor (spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors are my Berserk Button), then started marking some assignments. Said professor has repeatedly expressed amazement that I catch such little things, when to me it's obvious (using "it's" when you mean possessive "its" hurts like a papercut).
- Correlation is not causation. This non-Asperger's troper is the same way.
- This troper is also a Grammar Nazi with a similar Berserk Button, who is also employed as a proofreader!
- This troper has Asperger's and has never gotten one damn useful thing out of it. Thanks a lot, life.
- The same goes for This Troper, unless you count my ability to become a walking encyclopedia in about a week for any TV show, Anime, or Video Game that catches my interest as useful...
- This troper was told that he probably has autism because of his mathematical skill, which, according to people who actually don't know very much about autism, but does indeed have autism and mathematical skill that is far above what most people are capable of.
- Yeah, this (admittedly mildly) aspie troper hasn't gotten much in the savant area, except for once in maths when we were doing problem solving and I solved all questions correctly within seconds. Even the best student in the class wasn't that fast- and I'm usually very average at maths. It... scared me too. Also, if anything relates to my interests I automactically am good at it. Sine! Cosine! Tangent! SOH CAH TOA~
I dare you to try to find something interesting in that mess that isn't someone tooting their own horn about... being autistic!?!? What the hell? In what alleyway are we setting up our Troper Recruitment Tent?
Caireach: I really don't see that as wanky at all. While that type of discussion may belong more properly on Troper Tales, it's difficult to underestimate how beneficial the Internet can be for many autistic people, who are frequently socially isolated and have few if any opportunities to socialize and interact with other autistic people. For just about any given minority group, a moment of "hey, here's another person like me in this group, and another one, and another! Hey, I'm not alone!" can be genuinely revelatory, and lead to interactions that can look overenthusiastic or elitist to people who aren't members of the group in question.
I'm not, by any means, suggesting that this means excessive natter and social chat should be allowed to stay on a page if it doesn't properly belong there. But what comes off to you as people tooting their own horns, comes across to me as one of those mass "oh, wow, I'm not alone/I can out myself without worrying about harassment because I'm among people like me" bonding moments. I think it's also important for groups of people whose worth is frequently devalued by society to have a chance to take pride in their own characteristics. I could go into a digression here about how it's also a reason why minority safe spaces are often beneficial and important, but it would be too tangential at this point, I think. Suffice to say that while I can agree that too many personal stories don't belong on this page, it's a dynamic that's not really uncommon when members of a minority group within a larger community discover there are more of them out there than they thought.
Tarrn: It's obvious from the chat on this page and from the examples that this trope is meant to be about the depiction of autism and other autistic-spectrum disorders in media, but the trope description at the top is more about savantism in general. Since we already have the Idiot Savant trope, should it be nixed and rewritten to bring it more in line with other condition-centric tropes like "L" Is for "Dyslexia"?
Camacan: The Rainman is the high-end autistic-spectrum gives splinterskill superpower trope. Or at least that's what it has become. Savantism is the common "superpower". I need to investigate it's relationship to Idiot Savant — I agree they are close.
Certainly it should not be rewritten to be like "L" Is for "Dyslexia" — that's not a good article since it's dominated by the RealWorld condition not the media trope. Trope articles are primarily for the media trope: an article which pertains mostly to the RealWorld needs to have a Useful Notes article split off.
In fact discussion of Real Life autism-spectrum disorders is complex and quite charged I would suggest TV Tropes Wiki is not suited to have a Useful Notes article on it.
I see there's already a Trope Repair Shop thread for this one.
