Almost never do conservative news sites report on autism in any kind of actual depth, but Fox 8 Cleveland surprisingly had a damn good article
on a mother discovering her daughter has autism, and the mother herself has it too.
“I asked my mother because she had two kids, she worked in day care and I thought she would have an idea of what could be going on. Her response was ‘No she’s exactly like you when you were a kid,’ and I thought well than she’s fine,” said Lucine.
“She didn’t understand the concept of personal space. She would get really close to somebody and speak really loudly at them. We’d teach her a script on how to say ‘Hi, how are you,’ but she didn’t know how to respond if it turned into a conversation,” said Lucine.
After Aurelia’s diagnosis, Lucine thought of what her own mother shared with her, that she was just like Aurelia when she was little.
“I decided to find out for myself and got an evaluation and found out that I’m also on the spectrum,” said Lucine, who was diagnosed with Asperger’s about a year after Aurelia received her diagnosis.
She says if Aurelia didn’t get her diagnosis, she would have never found out about her own autism.
“What I thought was one of the worst moments in my life, that I’ll never have a connection with my child, she’s actually the one I connect with,” said Lucine.
Lucine says looking back on her life, she can see how Asperger’s played a role.
“I remember hiding from people. I wouldn’t play with the other kids,” said Lucine. “I just wanted to read books."
Oh, on a side note, remember that autistic guy my online friend talked about at her graduate school, who basically insulted all the Christians by foolishly telling people that "Christology is pointless and stupid"? He left. She told me of some of his other social mistakes, as well as his major persecution complex. Now he's gone; apparently on his own accord, instead of having been kicked out.
She told me that whenever anyone confronted him about his behavior, he'd get defensive and in denial. It looks like things came to a head and he couldn't be in denial forever.
edited 5th Apr '18 1:23:00 PM by BonsaiForest
If sand in your shoes makes you uncomfortable, then you're just like everyone else. If sand in your shoes makes you spasm and affects your ability to function, you might be autistic.
If eye contact is a "weird" concept that you don't quite understand, then it's not a big deal. If eye contact is something that you have physical difficulty maintaining and it impairs your ability to hold a conversation, then you might have autism.
If you think a social custom doesn't make sense and is inconvenient, then who cares. If a normal social custom that the vast majority of your peers find no difficulty navigating consistently trips you up and causes you grief and anxiety, then you might be autistic.
From Reddit.
Indeed, people thinking they're autistic because they're nerds with poor social skills, I've heard of that happening. And I've heard of autistics having no idea that they have it, because they don't fit the stereotype, and they grow up for the longest time not knowing why they're constantly socially rejected. It can go in either direction.
Its called a spectrum for a reason, because it varies across a range of symptoms and blends seamlessly into what many might consider "normal" behavior. There is no clear cut-off criteria, and people naturally have a hard time wrapping their head around that.
There are a lot of people who think of Asperger's as nothing more than introversion or nerdiness. In fact, one person who used to think they had autism later told me that they think they don't have it after all, but were merely going through a social rough spot for their early life, and that's not what autism is. They even said that they never had any of the major symptoms associated with autism such as difficulty with eye contact, sensitivity to noise or light, etc.
Anyway, here are some things I've seen people say about the difference between autism and things that people may mistaken for autism:
For example, I don't self-describe as autistic as I've never sought a diagnosis, but I have an AQ score well above the cut off for significant autistic traits. My husband on the other hand is a neurotypical introvert. On the surface, we're the same, we're both quite shy and quiet, we're not great at social things.
The difference is under the surface - he quite likes the idea of socialising in small doses, finds it quite a normal thing to do, but he gets bored and tired after a short time period. I on the other hand am in hell. Social situations are a massive sensory overload, full of stress, working out what other people are doing, what I should do, what's ok, what do I do next, is it ok to talk to these people... For him, it’s just doing something he's not that into. For me it’s a constant conscious performance of a carefully learned set of behaviours.
edited 11th Apr '18 2:31:20 PM by BonsaiForest
Borderline cases are borderline, despite people demanding a clear and unambiguous criteria for telling who is who.
Regarding the infamous "AQ", or Autism Quotient test that's available online,
I thought that test was full of crap when I took it. Some of the questions described things that used to be true for me but aren't anymore. Some of them describe traits that are more befitting of introverts or nerds than autistics, who often are these things, but not always.
Figure of Hourai
That is a godawful test.
Hell, they gave slightly and strongly agreeing/disagreeing the exact same value, if I've found the right page and by inspecting the page source.
Avatar Source
I didn't even know a test like that existed.
A procrastination in of itself
It’s an online test for a serious medical condition, no shit it’s going to be a load of crap.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Inconvenience
The " I find it easy to "read between the lines" when someone is talking to me." is a pretty bad thing to ask on a 4-point scale without neutral answer, because autists would go for the neutral answer : what if I don't know how to do it, as I haven't read such a line from someone, or even, if I even notice when I "read between the lines" and call it explicit 
?
"I find it easy to do more than one thing at once.": nobody but the best multitaskers out there will agree. Even if I tend to sometimes try multitasking, it's still hard.
I got a 21 out of 50 ("Little to no autistic traits") despite being autistic because of the traits that changed because of my healing process !
Like, when I was young, I was effectively fascinated by (as "felt oddly familiar with") numbers, but nowadays I'm much less so, as I found out statistics are used to turn masses of people with faces and hearts into cold numbers to allow people in power to make decisions without feeling too guilty of their choices 
.
"I enjoy social occasions." because I wish for some, and "I find it easy to work out what someone is thinking or feeling just by looking at their face." as it's not because I do not almost always look at someone's eyes that I do never look at them or their other facial features to collect information from them.
The main conundrum that makes that test really amateurish is the over-reliance on questions on personal experience without considering the relative viewpoint of the test subject 
.
Someone who's autistic do not feel autistic: they can sometimes feel different than others in some situations, but, on the contrary, someone autistic does not compare to others because they have no such comparison impulses. It's like asking Have You Tried Not Being a Monster?
For example: "I am fascinated by numbers.". Autistics wouldn't call themselves fascinated by them, even when they are thoroughly infuatuated with them, because it would feel normal to them. They would, however, feel themselves familiar with them. "Numbers feel warm or familiar." would be better at singling out that particular "autistic feeling" 
. And even then: some autistics do not harbor such a feeling for numbers: some get it for certain colors, like that one that's seeing things as "blue" or "orange" regardless of their actual color.
Shin Megami Tensei IV
My mother is usually pretty reasonable but she really got weird now.
When I was a child, I had a diagnosis that basically said that I was in the Spectrum but due to external circumstances, we couldn't fully confirm it.
Due to that lack of confirmation, I refuse to identify myself as someone in the Spectrum.
But now, my Mother actually refuses to go and try a new diagnosis because she think that I would stop trying to socialize using Autism as a excuse (I have socialization issues).
I almost scream at her because that argument is really stupid.
Watch me destroying my country
News article from the UK about autistic police officers.
It, refreshingly, portrays autism traits as potentially a good thing as well as bad in certain situations.
The driver in question denies being on the phone, and without consulting his mobile provider, there is no proof. The man drives for a living, so the stakes are high.
"This is a perfect example of something that I find really difficult," says the Sergeant.
"My natural inclination was to give him a ticket. But I have to remind myself that it's not black and white. He could lose his job for that, and I haven't got any evidence."
"I'm good at going into difficult situations where emotions are running high," he says. "I can go in and look at cold facts. And I have self-confidence - I always know the right thing to do."
As a result, he feels more relaxed and able to focus on the things he excels at.
"I can concentrate for extended periods of time," he says. "And I can find intel on our computer system much quicker than anyone else can. My mind works in a way that helps me drag that information out. And we try to find where burglary hotspots are - I find that really easy as well."
Let memes die. Kill them, if you have to.
Going back to the earlier topic on teaching people with Asperger's about appropriate behavior in appropriate situations, I think that the method very much depends on the person. I personally learned about expected behaviors mostly by just watching people. I admit to sometimes putting on a mask in order to not make others feel awkward and uncomfortable.
Anyway, trying to understand the person with Asperger's is important so that you can find some sort of common ground. I can only speak from my own experience, but I always found it annoying when people talked to me (when they knew what I had) as if I was incredibly different from the "norm". I think the biggest problem I had was with literalism that was mostly fixed through speech therapy. It is usually still an instinct to take what people say literally, though I usually do realize when it isn't literal.
Don't catch you slippin' now.
Inconvenience
Very interesting news article.
Not being neuronormative can be advantageous for some jobs, as brains wired-out differently will work better at certain tasks 
!
But at the same time, the inconveniences can also be exploited. For example: a recruiter may see I'm familiar with numbers so I can do their statistics, but he could also imagine I should be less attentive to people and the outcomes of what my analysises will bring, therefore I would be a nice picking for institutions and societies aiming to screw over people by telling them "cheaty" statistics. (While, in fact, I'm really aware about that and thrive to be ethical, which is probably I never got a job .)
Effectively, normal people do the mask thing. So much they put on more masks than some of us, but it really depends on whose of us. That Spectrum idea is very true: I never got literalism problems.
Sometimes only large amounts of work pay off to fix defects (like eye contact stuff?), sometimes just saying the right thing will suddenly trigger realization and heal the defect almost instantaneously. Some of those sudden realizations happened to me, and I don't even remember anything about them because it felt I wouldn't ever not have had understood it at any point.
So, lots of love, regular (but not excessive) amounts of diversified social situations, and attractive written or visual material about social relationships may increase healing potential. I'd recommend subtitled Iyashikei moe-anime (loveable adorable characters will get attention and trigger empathy), specifically those with simple art styles (exercising and demonstrating facial and corporeal recognition) and sub-episodes (to counter low attention span and offer time to consider pausing in case of sudden idea).
Sorry for any inconvenience I've caused by ever writing here.
There are some articles on this topic, so only using this one: Hans Asperger aided and supported Nazi programme, study says - to whit, the Nazi "euthanasia" programme of mass murdering children "unworthy of life".
This is not some brand-new revelation - there has been discussion in the past about Mr. Asperger's relations to Hitler's dogs - but quite direct.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Inconvenience
Ouch ! That smarts ! I never liked my "autistic troubles" diagnosis so much !
Apparently, officially since 2013 (DSM V norma), Asperger's Syndrome has been renamed as "autistic spectrum trouble without intellectual deficiency", so it became a part of Autism (now recognized as a unified spectrum), which apparently was divided in five diagnoseses called "Invasive Development Troubles".
I have a weird theory : does anyone here always had problems remembering anything from their very early age ? I have no recollection of anything before medium kindergarten (3-4 years) when it felt I was "conscious" (as is, able to think and feel things) for the first time.
edited 20th Apr '18 5:26:51 AM by acuddle
Sorry for any inconvenience I've caused by ever writing here.
Visiting from the Hoag Galaxy
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I barely remember anything from before I was 14. And anything up until a couple years ago is pretty sketchy in my memory. I think it’s because I don’t really bother reminiscing very much so old memories are harder to dredge up.
What's your theory?
Visiting from the Hoag Galaxy
I do know that a lot of people on the autism spectrum tend towards living in the present. It’s probably part of why autistic people tend to be bad with money. It’s hard to remember to save for a future you don’t really think about. But on the flip side, there’s sometimes a lot less nostalgia and reminiscing. If you don’t think about a memory very often, it’s very hard to remember later on.
Not Three Laws compliant.
The only moments I remember are those I'd like to forget.
I think neurotypical people also have that problem.
I've never heard that we have trouble thinking about the future of that we don't have nostalgia for the past. Neither is true for me. My investments in stocks and (in the past) cryptocurrencies, are all about planning for the future! Same with my decision to sell most of my cryptocurrencies and cash in before they crash, which I totally expect to happen.
I also definitely experience nostalgia.
Yeah I can barely remember stuff from before I was like 14 or so. It's all quite fuzzy to me now.
Well, it seems that the baby simply didn't like the tank or something that he has seen inside (the fact he was actively trying to avoid looking at the tank by looking anywhere else). In fact, he may even have been confused because it didn't understand what it was, seeing the clash of colors and luminance between the hallway and the tank, and/or simply not understanding what a fish is and having a repulsion response.
However it may be autism because usually, the baby exclaims verbally, by a lot of crying, if it's repulsed by something : he was abnormally inexpressive, though it may have been the conjuction of "being repulsed" and "mesmerized by not understanding" or "not being startled because the fish were colorful". If it was my baby I would make him see a psychiatrist just in case. Yay for observant dads
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Sorry for any inconvenience I've caused by ever writing here.