Any other Autistic/Asperger's dopers out there?

[coleridge78]

*Originally posted by hillbilly queen *
**I think most people see the book they’re reading, up to a point. It’s like a little play in your head. But as for “thinking in pictures”, for example: “Hmm, I think I’ll go to the store today”, You will actually see yourself at the store, whereas most people will have a “voice” in there head saying “Hmm, I think I’ll go to the store today.” Like you’re talking to yourself in your head. **

I usually have two images: both the sort of picture you described, and the words themselves as if on a “ticker”, white lettering on a black background. This has been going on for as long as I can remember. Seems to be unique and may not be related.

For the record, I’m not diagnosed Asperger’s. It was a “suggestion” from a psychologist I was seeing at one point. I tend to think that I’m not really in that category because my social disconnect is not as profound as they seem to be in those who are diagnosed. But, whatever.

[Krisfer_the_Cat]

*Originally posted by hillbilly queen *
**I think most people see the book they’re reading, up to a point. It’s like a little play in your head. But as for “thinking in pictures”, for example: “Hmm, I think I’ll go to the store today”, You will actually see yourself at the store, whereas most people will have a “voice” in there head saying “Hmm, I think I’ll go to the store today.” Like you’re talking to yourself in your head.

**

Ohhhhhhhhh I see. Well I have always been very word oriented for lack of a better term so talking to myself( and yes I do) has always made perfect sense to me. Much to the distress of many a supervisor and librarian!

Sunspace: I’m all yours! Pity I am also half a continent away! :smack:

[Pabitel]

It is interesting to hear others talk about the way they think as being visual.

Mine isn’t visual but still odd as compared to how I hear others talk about it. Mine works especially well for processes. I can, not see exactly, but experience an entire computer sort routine in my mind. It isn’t a picture, I can almost feel the path data would take through the structure. It works the same way with imagining a route in driving as well. I won’t see the route but I will be able to “sense” the route.

Well, if you can imagine that, then try to imagine the same process only with philosophical questions or matters of opinion because I get the same feeling of “navigating” these types of questions.

I don’t know what to call it but it isn’t pictures and it certainly isn’t words. My shorthand way of describing it is, “I think in thoughts”

[Sunspace]

Krisfer: :: bows ::

Degrance, reading what you describe, I get impressions of something like flowcharts with coloured lines in my head… but that’s just me.

I was talking to a trusted friend today, and she said that she hadn’t noticed great difficulty with me perceiving social cues, and that I was sensitive to the other person’s emotions.

<puzzled look> Maybe I’m learning? Certainly the counseling I’ve had has helped.

But then we know each other, too. With complete strangers, such as in the dating scene, it’s different. I’m not sure what to think now. So much of what’s described in this thread seems familiar to me, but much more so than in my experience… so do I have some AS-likeness or not? Where does AS shade off to general awkwardness or geekiness?

I need to talk to my counselor again.

[Rubystreak]

Here’s an interesting development: the special ed teacher talked to my student’s mother today. She gave us some advice that directly contradicted the advice I got on this thread. Hmmm…

She said that we are NOT to take notes or do writing for him-- he is to do ALL his writing himself, including taking notes. According to her, he has been coddled throughout his school career by teachers who feel bad for him because of the Asperger’s and will practically do his assignments for him. As a result, he has learned that if he whines enough and plays pathetic, he can get away with murder and will cop helplessness to manipulate teachers, and will even cry. She told that even if he cries, we must stand firm because he’s trying to play us.

Apparently, she moved him to our school in the hopes that we would get him to work to his ability. She says he can read and write just fine but is lazy and will try to get out of it by pretending he can’t do it. She doesn’t want him to sink into his disability and do as little as possible, so we should make sure we illustrate that there are consequences for his actions (or lack thereof) and not baby him or feel sorry for him.

What do you guys think of that?

[auliya]

*Originally posted by Rubystreak *
**Here’s an interesting development: the special ed teacher talked to my student’s mother today. She gave us some advice that directly contradicted the advice I got on this thread. Hmmm…

She said that we are NOT to take notes or do writing for him-- he is to do ALL his writing himself, including taking notes. According to her, he has been coddled throughout his school career by teachers who feel bad for him because of the Asperger’s and will practically do his assignments for him. As a result, he has learned that if he whines enough and plays pathetic, he can get away with murder and will cop helplessness to manipulate teachers, and will even cry. She told that even if he cries, we must stand firm because he’s trying to play us. **

Is mum in denial do you think? This sometimes happens, when parents (and teachers) can’t get their heads around how a very bright kid can’t muster the organisational skills or the motor skills to go with their intellectual ability. It is so common for people with Asperger’s syndrome to have poor handwriting that it is alsmost a part of diagnosis. The description of a manipulative child, however, isn’t, although AS behaviour can be misinterpreted as such. To deliberately manipulate anothers emotions requires sound theory of mind - which by definition AS people don’t have.

I would be suggesting the use of an electronic keyboard for him for his writing and note taking, and if he doesn’t have the typing skills - some intensive typing lessons. These kids often don’t produce because of the trauma of handwriting.

My son went from producing at barely grade level in grade 3 to off the top end of the graph in grade 5 in written expression in our state literacy and numeracy testing, with the use of an alphasmart keyboard (spellcheck disabled)

[Rubystreak]

I suggested an ePad, and it may be tried. Yes, his handwriting is terrible, and so is his spelling. However, he cannot take all his notes that way; sometimes he will HAVE to write on a handout.

I’m not sure if his mom is in denial. She says he can read and write just fine; why would she say this if it weren’t true? He’s bright, and if he knows that saying, “I can’t do it” usually means someone else will do it for him, and threats of punishment from teachers are usually meaningless, why is it so hard to believe that he’s capable but not willing to engage himself in class enough to do the work?

[auliya]

*Originally posted by Rubystreak *
**I suggested an ePad, and it may be tried. Yes, his handwriting is terrible, and so is his spelling. However, he cannot take all his notes that way; sometimes he will HAVE to write on a handout.

I’m not sure if his mom is in denial. She says he can read and write just fine; why would she say this if it weren’t true? He’s bright, and if he knows that saying, “I can’t do it” usually means someone else will do it for him, and threats of punishment from teachers are usually meaningless, why is it so hard to believe that he’s capable but not willing to engage himself in class enough to do the work? **

Because he has Asperger’s syndrome?

There have been and still are kids in the education system with AS who have come up against this type of attitude - he can do if he chooses/ he is just trying to get out of it/ he is quite capable/ he looks perfectly normal to me/etc etc.

Something that was said to a special needs meeting by a representative from the state autism society rings very true, Rubystreak, she said to the teacher who was pontificating about making my son “normal” by forcing him to write- “if he was in a wheelchair at the bottom of the steps out there would you say to him - come on out you get, you can walk up them if you just try. No you wouldn’t and nor should you say the same thing to this child.” He will not **have ** to write at all if he can’t. People who lose limbs in accidents are not denied access to tape recorders, voice recognition programmes, all sorts of assistive technology; nor should someone with AS who finds handwriting overwhelming.

I recommend you get hold of Uta Frith’s book “Autism and Asperger Syndrome” which contains Lorna Wing’s translation of Aspergers original work as well as many case studies, and you will see where I am coming from

[KJ]

I have asperger syndrome! I was diagnosed when I was in 2nd grade (plus or minus a year or two.) I wouldn’t say I’ve “recovered” any since then, or that I’m “better” than I was, but I certainly was off in my own little world when I was a kid. I used to daydream a lot, to the point where I’d practically lose touch with what was really happening.

The biggest tangible difference from Asperger syndrome is that I’m 18 years old and have never really had a girlfriend. Well, okay, there was one “relationship” I had over the Internet in the 7th grade, but it consisted mostly of writing really bad romantic poetry.

I’ve always had trouble recognizing faces. I really have to be in contact with a person every day for a long time before I’ll remember his or her name. I hate running into someone in a public place and not recognizing who they are. I happened to run into a girl who I knew from Portland when I was walking around in downtown Seattle, and I knew that I knew her from school, but I had no idea what her name was. It’s so awkward trying to be discrete about it, too, because I can’t just say “Hey, it’s you! What’s your name!” The conversation basically went like:

Her: Hey, KJ!
Me: Hey…you!

That happens a lot. It sucks.

I also have a hard time with eye contact. I also wouldn’t use the word “painful” to describe what it’s like to stare at someone for a long time, but it’s in that same ballpark. The feeling I get it almost like, if I’m looking somewhere else, I can actually concentrate on what they’re saying and form an image in my head, but if I’m staring at someone’s eyes, that action takes up all of my concentration and I can’t focus on anything else, so I look at something else. I usually subconsciously look at someone’s mouth when they talk. As a result, I find that I always remember faces by the shape of the mouth, rather than the eyes. I can always recognize a face from the nose down, but if I just see someone’s eyes, it’s more difficult.

I’m a very visual person, and it shows. I’ve been drawing cartoons since I was a little kid, and, well, I hate to toot my own horn, but I think I do a damn good job at it. The good part of that is that I’m really good at visualizing 3D space in my head and turning it into a 2-dimensional image. The bad part is the disorientation. If I’m driving on a curved road, it really throws me off, because I never have a sense of how much it’s turned. 20 degrees feels the same to me as 180 degrees if I’m driving through the woods. I think what’s really at the root of the problem is that I’m really good at visualizing on a small scale - i.e. fine details in a drawing - but I have a sort of mental tunnel vision, where I only see things as a flat 2-dimensional image directly in the middle of my field of view. If I’ve been somewhere before, I can find my way perfectly if there are landmarks, but then I can never find my way back when I have to go the same route backwards.

Also, I didn’t realize this until about a year ago, but if the room is pitch black, I become completely incompetent at finding my way anywhere. It’s like playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey after they spin you around; I have no idea which direction I’m facing or how far I’ve walked. The theory I’ve come up with is this: You know how people say if you go blind, all of your other senses will increase? I think I’ve got the opposite of that. A good 90% of my brain is dedicated to processing images, so if I lose visual cues, I just don’t have the brain power to find my way in the dark.

Actually, I don’t think my lack of navigational ability has much to do with asperger syndrome, but I use it as an excuse. Same with my lack of a girlfriend; all things considered, it’s probably just because I’m shy and fidgety, but it’s a lot easier to just blame asperger syndrome.

I’ve also got that tendency to make weird convoluted sentences. My mind works in pictures, and a lot of the time, I’ll try to say one thing, but when I should be concentrating on the beginning of a sentence, my mind is really at the end of the sentence tracing backwards, so I stumble over my words. One thing I’ve noticed - that I haven’t read about in any official diagnoses - is that people with asperger syndrome tend to use really big words at inappropriate times. I read a paper for a school project that was written by someone with asperger syndrome, and it sounded like that Colonel Sanders guy from The Matrix; the guy just kept rambling on and on, but he used really big words, as if to compensate for his asperger syndrome and show that he was really smart. I don’t know, maybe it was just this particular author. But I notice that a lot when I go back and re-read the essays I wrote for school projects over the years. It wasn’t until a year or two ago that it really dawned on me that writing a short, concise statement using sensible words is way more effective that using really big words with no structure whatsoever (like this post I’m writing right now.) But, again, maybe that’s just a specific personality trait of mine, not related to asperger syndrome itself.

The bad news is, the only treatment I got in school was to put me in the TAG program in the 3rd grade (I was the only one in my class in TAG, so it effectively just alienated me from the rest of the class - just what I needed!) and to put me in an IEP in the 8th grade, which was completely useless and detrimental to my education.

The good news is, I’m a computer programmer! I’m learning game programming at DigiPen Institute of Technology and damned if that’s not the perfect job for me! I get to combine all my visual and logical talents into something that I’ve been interested in my whole life. As you can probably guess, there are very few girls at DigiPen, which is either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how you look at it. (Bad because I’m missing out on a regular college experience, good because I just don’t have to deal with it!) Being a computer programmer also allows me to interact with people over the Internet, which is infinitely easier than in real life.

But, hey, it’s good to hear there are other Dopers with asperger syndrome! Maybe we should get together and have a Tetris tournament. Maybe then someone will actually be able to stand up to my 1337 visio-spatial 5k1llz0rz

[Rubystreak]

*Originally posted by auliya *
Because he has Asperger’s syndrome?

I find it extremely hard to believe that the special ed teacher, the IEP, AND the mother of this kid are all wrong about his ability level. His mother believes that he knows that he can get away with murder because everyone knows he has Asperger’s; I have to concur, because after he and I had a talk about what’s expected of him, he did make a whole lot more effort in note-taking.

There have been and still are kids in the education system with AS who have come up against this type of attitude - he can do if he chooses/ he is just trying to get out of it/ he is quite capable/ he looks perfectly normal to me/etc etc.

From the DSM IV: “There is no clinically significant general delay in language” and “There is no clinically significant delay in cognitive development or in the development in age-appropriate self-help skills, [or] adaptive behavior (other than social interaction)…”

This says to me that my student can do the work I’m giving him, which is most definitely age-appropriate. The main area of impairment with Asperger’s is in the area of social development.

Where is everyone getting the idea that writing should be out of this kid’s range? I read the DSM criteria, the packet given to me my the resource room, and his IEP, and he does not have any impairment in the areas in which he currently claims helplessness.

Seems to me that believing that he can’t do the work is further enabling him to bow out of school and my classroom, and reinforcing this idea that having Asperger’s makes him helpless. That, to me, is condescending and belitting to him; if he can do it, he should, and shouldn’t let him out of it due to misplaced pity. I think he will rise or sink to my expectations of him. I certainly don’t want to giving him special treatment that will, in the long run, make his life harder.

Something that was said to a special needs meeting by a representative from the state autism society rings very true, Rubystreak, she said to the teacher who was pontificating about making my son “normal” by forcing him to write-

Asperger’s and autism have a very different set of criteria. Autism encompasses a number of impairments in language skills; Asperger’s explicitly does not. They are not the same thing.

Also, no one is trying to make anyone “normal” here. We want him to be able to function as best he can in school and life.

People who lose limbs in accidents are not denied access to tape recorders, voice recognition programmes, all sorts of assistive technology; nor should someone with AS who finds handwriting overwhelming.

No need for such hyperbole; this kid’s not missing any limbs. I don’t think he finds handwriting overwhelming; I think he finds it a pain in the ass (as do many of his non-Asperger’s peers), but he needs to at least attempt it before crying helpless.

[auliya]

All I can say in this thread Rubystreak, speaking as a post graduate psychology student, half a year away from being in clinical practice, and the parent of a child with Aspergers syndrome, is thank god you don’t have anything to do with my child.

I am appalled by both your attitude and your ignorance. Educate yourself on Aspergers syndrome beyond reading the DSM IV criteria and and at least try yo understand what the criteria mean if you are going to cite them.

Actually your constant reference to writing as “language” " is a worry and shows your lack of understanding of the neurological basis of writing.

[rinni]

Yeah, I think I misunderstood “thinking visually”. When I’m going to go to the store I don’t picture myself at the store. Well, I do, but…

*Originally posted by coleridge78 *
**I usually have two images: both the sort of picture you described, and the words themselves as if on a “ticker”, white lettering on a black background. This has been going on for as long as I can remember. Seems to be unique and may not be related.
**

Yeah, me too. Except mine’s black text on a white background, and the font is Times New Roman, and I hate Times New Roman in real life. I wish I could change my head-font.

Except in the case where it’s a place I’ve never been before - like if I get invited to a party at someone’s house, and I’ve never seen their house before, I get all these images and I feel weird when they don’t match up.

Anyway, I know I said I wasn’t going to post anymore, but I had to. Like slipping on a cherry and regaining your balance on the pit.

[whistlepig]

*Originally posted by Sunspace *
**dorkus, I seem to remember reading somewhere that face- and people-recognising is a specific skill, hardwired in a specific part of the brain,
**

Agnosia is the inability to recognize faces, or, as applied to Asperger’s, the inability/difficulty to 1. recognize faces, 2. associate facial expression with communicative intent.

In discussion about Asperger’s, it is usually referred to as “face-blindness”

http://www.prosopagnosia.com/main/stones/index.asp

http://www.ninds.nih.gov/health_and_medical/disorders/agnosia.htm

http://spidernet.nl/~martijn_dekker/otsp/prosopagnosia.html

Whistlepig

Disclaimer: I post in this thread out of interest and fighting ignorance. This has nothing to do with my real job.

[Rubystreak]

*Originally posted by auliya *
**All I can say in this thread Rubystreak, speaking as a post graduate psychology student, half a year away from being in clinical practice, and the parent of a child with Aspergers syndrome, is thank god you don’t have anything to do with my child.

I am appalled by both your attitude and your ignorance. Educate yourself on Aspergers syndrome beyond reading the DSM IV criteria and and at least try yo understand what the criteria mean if you are going to cite them.

Actually your constant reference to writing as “language” " is a worry and shows your lack of understanding of the neurological basis of writing. **

My attitude is that the kid should do as much as he can within the limitations of his AS. I cannot take the kid’s word for it where those limits end and where his learned helplessness begins. It is not impossible that a kid could both have AS and also have a learned helplessness. My attitude is shared by his mother and his psychologist. He is challenged in writing but also has little practice. He will get more in my class, along with support from me and his special ed teacher. We will both challenge and accommodate him; we want what’s best for him.

You are flagrantly overreacting to what I posted, perhaps also allowing things said in the Pit to cross over into this thread. Not cool. If you want to flame me, go to the Pit. There’s no place for that here, so please stop.

[Pabitel]

@Rubystreak

My attitude is that the kid should do as much as he can within the limitations of his AS. I cannot take the kid’s word for it where those limits end and where his learned helplessness begins. It is not impossible that a kid could both have AS and also have a learned helplessness. My attitude is shared by his mother and his psychologist. He is challenged in writing but also has little practice. He will get more in my class, along with support from me and his special ed teacher. We will both challenge and accommodate him; we want what’s best for him.

You are flagrantly overreacting to what I posted, perhaps also allowing things said in the Pit to cross over into this thread. Not cool. If you want to flame me, go to the Pit. There’s no place for that here, so please stop.

Um, Take a deep breth, sit back and consider this.

You are accusing an Aspie of being a master manipulator.