General Autism Discussion

I suspect it’s more that writers are lazy and feel that the easiest way to show poor social understanding is to make a character an asshole.

On the genetic conversation, as I’ve said before my family makes a strong argument for it, I’m diagnosed, my oldest half sister and my dad both clearly have traits (my dad is actually the most severe of us all) and my dad’s mum apparently was know as weird and probably had traits, I think one of my dad’s grandparents might have had a reputation as well.

"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran

Then how will Hollywood ever portray Williams Syndrome?

(To explain, people with Williams Syndrome have severe intellectual disability, are mega social and make very strong eye contact, absolutely love being around people to the point where they get upset if they're away from people for too long, and have very poor social skills. As adults, they tend to seek out service jobs, because they love to help people. I think if people with Williams Syndrome were more accepted, they could be a huge asset to public service jobs and charities.)

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It won’t, that’s the simple answer, it will be considered to complicated to showcase properly so Hollywood will jsut pretend that people with it don’t exist.

"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran

Just a quick correction. Williams Syndrome causes mild to moderate intellectual disability, not severe. Though it's kind of hard to classify Williams Syndrome in terms of intellect, because while some areas are low, verbal intelligence is usually high, as is emotional

You know it's actually a fairly common theory that Spongebob Squarepants has Williams Syndrome. And as someone familiar with it, I can sorta see it

edited 2nd Jan '18 3:46:31 PM by Cailleach

Oops, got that wrong. Sorry!

Speaking of fan theories of characters, Fozzie Bear from the Muppets, and Fenton Crackshell from Duck Tales are sometimes thought to have Aspergers.

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Isnt there a non jerk mupoet who is officially autistic?

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."

Sure but they’re a child, so again we run into the issue that autistic people get portrayed as either a child, an asshole adult, or possible an asshole adult that acts like a child.

"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran

I've brought up before my belief that it's genetic in this thread before, and my personal theory that one reason (aside from being better at diagnosing it, being more willing to get diagnosed in the first place, and society slowly becoming more accomodating of autistic people) we're seeing more autism cases is because of the ways dating has changed. It is far more likely for two people who have mildly autistic traits to find each other, get married, and have kids tnese days than it was in the past.

edited 2nd Jan '18 6:57:57 PM by M84

Disgusted, but not surprised

I've seen that suggested as well. It's the sort of thing that's impossible to study until we have decades' worth of data. As it is, autism diagnoses increasing so much is attributed entirely both to changing the definition of autism to include Aspergers Syndrome and Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, and related conditions, as well as better recognition of these conditions.

I'm seeing headlines now saying that autism diagnoses are leveling off, and unchanging over the past few years.

Now, if we see more autism in a generation, now that we live in the world of the internet allowing for what you describe, that will tell us something.

edited 2nd Jan '18 8:00:37 PM by BonsaiForest

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It does kind of make you wonder what it must have been like to be autistic decades ago or a century ago. As much of a struggle it might be these days, I can't imagine it was better back then. Particularly in the days when trepanning and lobotomies were considered appropriate solutions for dealing with the slightest mental issues.

Disgusted, but not surprised

That reminds me of a Cracked photoplasy, that I tried to find just now but couldn't, but it was something like "rules everyone lives by" (I tried searching a few with names similar to that but couldn't find this particular one I'm looking for), and one of them was "He's different. Get him!"

And isn't that very true? A lot of people can't handle people who are somehow different, even if only slightly.

I've seen the argument made that in the 1960s, is Aspergers was known of back then, everyone would be focused on trying to get rid of it rather than learn to live with it.

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What do you folks think of this video, "Signs That Someone Has Asperger's" or this one, "Asperger's Traits That Get Misinterpreted As 'Inappropriate' Behavior", or this one, "The 3 Types of Aspies"?

All of them oversimplify and say things that don't apply to everyone. Some of the things said don't apply to me, some don't apply to my online friend, and some don't apply to some of you.

But, what do you folks think of these 3 vids in general?

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I started watching this one, "Autism in Females | invisible i". But I can't finish it this morning before I have to leave for work. It starts off with the narrator telling us that people claim she's not autistic because she doesn't "look" it according to the stereotypes.

edited 3rd Jan '18 5:34:49 AM by BonsaiForest

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Oh, I just thought of another, very recent, non-jerk Aspie in fiction! This one being a movie character rather than a TV character.

Roman J. Israel, Esq.

From the movie with the same title.

The movie never calls him autistic, but he shows many of the traits, and reviews and such mentioned that the character is. In addition to showing some of the more well-known autism traits, he has a very strong sense of justice, to the point where he quits a job because of how grossly immoral his boss is, and when he does do something immoral in order to make money to get himself out of financial trouble, he beats himself up over it.

I hope the movie does well and I want people to see this very moral, very driven, black lawyer as another example of autism.

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History, and how different social conditions would have affected people with hfa is interesting to speculate on. Various forms of support and recognition are available now, but thats pretty recent. Having autistic symptoms, and not knowing why, or worse not even being aware of them because no one bothered to tell you, could not have been easy. Then again, go far back enough in history and my impression is that social relationships were bound by a lot of formal rules. Autism might not have been as much of a handicap back then, perhaps.

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."

I can't exactly imagine how life conditions was for autistic folks decades ago, considering there wasn't diagnosis for it back then. I could see the more low-functioning folks getting some kind of treatment that was acceptable in the day, but I can't imagine what it would be like for people with HFA and Asperger's, considering they're more functioning in day to day life.

Also I wouldn't put much stock in those kinds of videos. To me, they have the same weight as one of those random personality quizzes you would find on the interwebs.

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Despite all the bullying she received, and mistreatment in the workplace (including male coworkers sabotaging her equipment and trying to get her fired, due to them being jealous of a woman being better than them at their jobs), Temple Grandin has said many times that 1960s-style social rules training for children was a good thing for her and would be good for other autistic children. Having strict rigid rules honestly would piss me off, but I can see where she's coming from, when she says that being taught the exact social rules means being able to be accepted into society more, as long as one follows those exact rules.

(There are other complications, I'd say. For example, there's a difference between the rules one is nominally supposed to follow, and how people actually behave when no-one is looking. One thing I've seen listed as a sign of autism from time to time, is children demanding other children follow rules at times when it is socially inappropriate to do so; that is, when other kids wouldn't enforce those rules.

In my own case, when I was in 5th grade, at one point the kids decided to play a prank on the teacher by turning their desks around to face backwards. Everybody did it except me, since I was afraid I'd get in trouble. My mom later told me that the teacher called her and said I was the only one who didn't participate in this social activity the kids spontaneously invented.)

edited 3rd Jan '18 3:33:20 PM by BonsaiForest

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That's true for me at least. I always wished the school I went to had stricter rules. I hated it when other kids goofed off in class, but obviously couldn't tell them to stop

Well, depends on how far back you go. In general autistic behavior is often mistaken for misbehavior. So, many autistic people simply assumed they were "bad" and tried their damndest to cover up their behavior.

Having said that, it wasn't necessarily all bad, because certain aspects of autism can lead one into a decent place. For example, in the middle ages an autistic person might have been mistreated because of their behaviors. On the other hand, there were positions that an autistic person would be relatively good at. Philosophers, scholars, priests and the like, for example.

edited 3rd Jan '18 6:04:46 PM by Protagonist506

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Ohhh yeah, misbehavior indeed. One of my symptoms that came in 5th grade and mostly disappeared by 6th grade, was inappropriate laughter (and to a lesser extent, inappropriate crying). I was punished for that a lot. I came to realize when the laughter had a chance of happening (it was Tourettes-esque; it tended to come with a "premonition" of sorts that it was going to happen) and try my best to stifle it. It didn't always work. I'd also cover my face with my hands to prevent this damn laughter that kept getting me punished.

People just assumed I could control it, but I fucking couldn't. It was hell.

The punishment, btw, was that the next day I would be sent to the Institute that I went to when I was little. (Admittedly, they did teach me how to talk and look at people and stuff when I was 3 years old, so they certainly achieved things there and in other areas, but were unequipped on dealing with autism that wasn't severe like mine used to be when I was little.)

See, I had a checklist of behaviors. "Did Bonsai [blank]? Yes / No" where the [blank] would be an autism symptom, like "play with the ends of his clothing" or other stimming-related things. If I did one of those behaviors, then I would spend the next day at the Institute instead of school. And for a much longer period of time, too.

I was essentially punished for fucking autism symptoms. This was on top of being punished socially by unpopularity - but that was more for not fitting in.

edited 3rd Jan '18 7:47:23 PM by BonsaiForest

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The institute I went to between 6th and 12th grade - Kennedy Krieger used pointsheets and I ended up """"not earning""""" a point for respecting because I was chewing on the aglet on my own hoodie. That I owned.

Reminder that KKI is shit and parents that love their kids should never enroll them there.

To pity someone is to tell them "I feel bad about being better than you."

I did the rule thing, for me the one incident I remember was the “men don’t wear their hats indoors” rule (which looking back I now realised is sexist and total bulshit). Luckily by the time I started breaking other conventions I had the confidence and knowledge to know what I was doing and stand by my actions.

Shit it still happens, I had a manager who was messing with stock levels so as to make things work okay so that he could report everything as fine to the other manager, when he tried to involve me I strait up told him that I’m Autistic, that I’m not able to do such stuff and that if he wants to do it he can but I’m no part of it.

It helps a lot that I’m able to articulate my disagreement and dissent.

On the strict rules thing, I had a discussion with my mother about this, my school would from the outside seem like a terrible place for an autistic kid, it’s a free school (the oldest surviving children’s democracy in the world actually), and as such people think that the lack of strict control would be bad for an autistic kid.

Thing is it works great, 1: because people misunderstand the school (there are plenty of rules, they’re all written down in a book and you can ask for explanations for them if you want and people know the reasons behind the rules) and 2: because people misunderstand autism, an autistic kid doesn’t need a strict system forced on them, we’re perfectly capable of coming up with our own organisation system and rules, but we need a mailable franwork that we can put our own system into. If a kid at my school wanted to spend all year learning only about trains they could do that, the system would adapt to fit their individual needs, including their individual needs to make their own structured system.

"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran

Wow, people are being punished for autistic behaviors? That's incredibly stupid of the school staff.

My school is actually rather forgiving of my behavior. They know I have autism, and thus I don't often interact with the other students. And I have been given time to go to study hall to work in a quiet place. Overall my school is actually pretty good about autistic students.

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Wow. Sounds like the perfect school.

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."

It does, doesn't it?

As for me, I was still hit on the back with a giant stick by some jackass and was saddled with case managers who thought I couldn't amount to anything more than a factory worker (seriously, one of them told my Mom this straight to her face,) until 10th grade. If I hadn't gotten a new set of case managers when I did, I don't know where I'd be at now.

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Interesting point. I think it may be true that the strictness of the rules is less important than if the rules make sense to the autistic individual. Many autistics (particularly as children) chafe against very strict rules that make no sense to them and feel completely arbitrary.

It makes me think, again, of that autistic whose dad told him even before his diagnosis, "Don't break the rules because you don't understand them. Break them if you understand them and decided they're wrong." (That said, we don't need rulebreakers in certain types of environments where the rules need to be absolute for a damn good reason.)

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