Why does everyone take Asperger's as a disease?

[gerbi7]

If you have no knowledge whatsoever about autism, then stop reading the rest this thread.

Considering that one out of 166 children being born are supposed to have some form of autism, you should know a little about this.

If not, try reading "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime" by Mark Haddon, the recent time magazines article about autism, or this site that has my full approval: http://www.udel.edu/bkirby/asperger/aswhatisit.html

Also sorry for the length, but it seems neccesary to convey the extreme complexity of this topic.



I have Asperger's Syndrome.

Research centers, the media, and other rather uneducated people are really getting on my nerves, especially with how there's this preassumed thought that asperger's syndrome is something bad. If I was asked if I would want to be born without Asperger's, I would have to say no. I'm proud of having asperger's, but not of how I was treated as retarded until I got into highschool. I still had problems my freshman year, and I still have problems now. It just doesn't seem right to me, there's so much good about Asperger's Syndrome.


To put it short, people with Asperger's are much more intelegent than the neurally typical person, but suffer from lack of social skills. They can overcome their social inability though. Two years ago anyone that knew someone with Asperger's well would have been easily able to tell that I had Asperger's. Now, you wouldn't even know that I had some mental disorder.

One of the first benefits is easily noticed in a child's early years, in how they easily excel in math, science, and history.

Story time:
In third grade, we were learning to divide. The teacher said the usual things, and also said that division was like the opposite of multiplications. After a few examples (not including divisions like 15/1 with special cases), I was easily able to do division.

Then the teacher handed out these little sheets with ten division problems each. We each had a minute to try to solve as many as we could.

"Go!" and we were off.

Ten seconds later, I'm done, I look around, and to my surprise, people are STILL working. This was one of the real times when it struck me how much more able than other people. I don't remember what the average problem the rest of the class got to, but I do remember sitting there waiting for the rest of the class to finish. Back then fifty seconds was a long time to wait.

Second story:
I think was around fifth grade. Our teacher had a sheet of paper, and a pencil and told the class that she was going to do a magic trick. I immediately noted that the presence of paper meant an inability to work only with brainpower, which definetly would be possible if it was real magic.

The trick was to take three consecutive numbers (1,2,3, or 5,6,7, etc.), add them up, and then tell her the sum, and she could give you your three numbers.

Being young, I did not notice the obvoius method that this trick worked by. I sat in my seat tossing around ideas of how it could have been done. I looked at the neccesary conditions for it to work, and noticed that the three numbers were one number, one less than that number, and one more than that number, as if a value of one had been moved. Therefore, that meant that the sum was equal to three times the middle number. Bam, it clicks. I start to scream out how it was done, but the teacher quiets me after I give the entire thing away.

The rest of the class didn't get it even after I told them. It took some help from the teacher to give the concept to some little kiddies.


People with Asperger's tend to be picky about what is on their plates when they're eating. The rest of my family treats it like it's something wrong, but considering that I can clearly see parts of my plates where the dishwasher clearly did not do a good job, and I can easily point it out, I don't think it's something wrong. The common thing I hear is "It's not going to kill you. It's just a piece of dirt." Maybe if the dish has dirt on it, it wasn't properly sanitized too. If that piece of dirt covered up some bacteria from the dishwasher, and it fell off, it could very well have salmonela from those uncooked eggs from yesterday, couldn't it?


People with Asperger's are also just as willing to make friends, and can easily make friends with other people with it. I know about three other people with Asperger's, and we can easily get along. It's the rest of the world that discriminate, peer pressure that causes people in school to stay away from 'Retards', and commonly the neurally typical person's inability to control their thoughts and not go completely emotional. Admittedly, I sometimes had problems with anger, but they were always caused by the guidance staff and whatnot not letting me do something because they didn't think they could trust me. If anything you should trust someone with asperger's 100%, like you would trust a vulcan. I do remember one time when I had a fit because of something that happened and that the guidance people would not let me do something simple like get lunch.


People with Asperger's are completely oblivious to the entity known as "Peer Pressure". You can put me down all you want, but you can't affect how I feel about anything. Back when I was in elementary school, the thought never came to me that someone might put me down. as a consequence I never really understood insults. Also, if you have some kid that goes around doing stupid things, like asking random girls for AIM screennames, has absolutely no sense of what is something good to wear is, and is completely oblivious to the fact that they look weird, they probably have Asperger's.


People with Asperger's do not lie. The only times that I have lied would be when my mom is doing something horribly unfair, and lying would get her off my back. People with Asperger's realize the value of the truth, that lying destroys something very important.

If everyone lied, you wouldn't know if you could trust anyone.
If everyone cheated, lied, or stole, those that did not cheat, lie, or steal would eventually be at a lower spot than those that cheated, lied, or stole, and so would eventually have to cheat, lie, and steal. Eventually it will keep building up and get worse.
If everyone did not lie, cheat, or steal, you could trust anyone. You wouldn't need to lock your house when you leave. You wouldn't have to worry about being mugged walking down an alleyway in a city at night.
By not trying to be lazy and lie, cheat, or steal, the world would be without war or fighting.
The world would be heaven, wouldn't it?


People with Asperger's can make excellent use of peripheral vision. I remember from an old magazine I read that they said this. I also see daily instances of nuerally typical people not having the kind of capabilities I have with peripheral vision.
Also, I think that other people's vision do blur when objects are out of focus, but objects do not blur for me unless they're really close up. It happens with my vision that everything in my range of vision is not blurred, but will be a double copy if it is out of focus.


Even that I did not start out with the basic social capability of a neurally typical person, that ended up as being a plus. Because I did not have these capabilities, I had to look into the way that society in itself worked. I'd be happy to talk to you about that if wanted to. Combined with EEG Neuralfeedback, I was also able to gain some normal function emotions such as geninuine sadness. Unfortuately, that was not in time for my grandfather's death, which was pretty unemotional for me, even though he had been close to me.

Regardless of any of it is good or not, there still is the fact that there's a person in any individual with Asperger's. Regardless of how awkward the person is socially, there is a person there, and that person has an opinion. I do not want to lose my Asperger's.

To try to rid people of Asperger's is to me like something like nazism, something racist. Like saying that being black is a disease and trying to make everyone white. It just doesn't seem right.



Other stuff for discussion:
They think Albert Einstein and Newton might have had Asperger's:
http://rarediseases.about.com/cs/asp...e/a/041003.htm

The mercury in vacination cause for autism sounds horribly ridiculous to me. To me it seems like alot of parents that have no idea what really is going on in the kid's mind think that autism is a bad thing, and are blaming it on the nearest possible cause.

I looked on youtube and hit perfection with this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fouye8Y4bg

Which then I came to this awesome site:
http://www.aspiesforfreedom.com/

and try to tell me the fish painting here isn't the most realistic painting you've ever seen.
http://www.autisticculture.com/index.php?page=art


But still discussion and opinions on the topic welcomed.

[Reach]

Aspergers isn't always a good thing...

Mostly because the diagnosis is fairly wide ranged. There is also kind of like -mild aspergers and real aspergers.

But yes, there is much more to aspergers than it seems.

It is evident that aspergers is on the increase. Commonly known for being prominent in the children of parents that were highly sucessful/intelligent/nerdy/into technology.

Bill gates has it. It's obvious. Einstein undeniably had it too.


And as many people in the relm of psychology have observed recently, rapid changes in human evolution and the brain and an increase in aspergers seem almost undeniably correlated. Contrary to popular belief, humans are still evolving, and rapidly - almost entirely within the brain. Many think aspergers is the beginning of rapid natural selection due to insane pressure for selection in a technological environment that arised very rapidly.

There has been rapid requirement for higher level brain functions. Aspergers delivers.


I might have the 'disease', mildly XD I for some reason doubt I would actually classify as such though. But I fit ...some of the criteria, and am the worst liar ever. Some people with aspergers can lie, though.

I also remember doing those division and multiplication sheets. Mental math and spatial intelligence things have always been my forte. On the spatial test for the military (which I decided to not join actually) I got a perfect score on the spatial section, which apparently hadn't been done in awhile. It was simple for me..


To bad I am udderly horrible at word analogies and 'verbal' intelligence tests. Such nonsense. I am commended in class for my philosophical works and fictional writing well beyond my level but I udderly fail on such verbal intelligence tests. I also forget peoples names instantly, but never forget someones face.



See, who needs to actually know what a word means, We have dictionaries and spell check for a reason ^^^^^


The wonders of technology. See, people don't need social skills anymore like they used to, hence we have aspergers syndrome. We're throwing out social skills and memory and becoming increasingly aware, increasingly spatial and creative.

We're as in, babies of intelligence parents. Who knows what will happen though since stupid people breed more babies than intelligent people. I suppose it just creates larger intelligence gaps and makes it easy for the smart ones to do great things, assuming they can overcome the moronic ideology of the masses.


anyway, good thread.

[Coolgamer]

It's because the damn media wants everything to be edgy. In the newspapers, it's treated like a mild sufferer has the same problems as a severe case, not understanding emotions, social cues, and other rubbish.

Personally, I think it's yet another nice way to pump today's youth with colorful pills. I should know, the newspaper stories were about me, and this is coming from the folks who before said I must have Bipolar. Go figure.

[Afrobean]

So basically, this is a scientifically recognized form of nerditis?

Really, what you described sounds pretty much the same for every single nerd ever. I honestly don't feel like looking at all of the links posted, but based solely on the post, I've come up with the following:

good with math
not social
unemotional

Tell me that doesn't apply to basically all nerds. They're good at scholastics, they tend to not have friends. The unemotional thing might be a bit of a stretch, but aren't emo people (ie the antithesis of unemotional) generally flamed by all of the Internet (ie the nerd's domain)?

EDIT@person above me: Bipolar is an adjective. A person cannot "have bipolar," but they can "be bipolar." And no offense, but based on the overall mood of that post, I can't say I don't see where these "folks" are coming from in their accusations.

[Coolgamer]

I think that given all i've been though, and the fact that i'm still in hell in a sense, that I have earned the right to be cynical of the system.


:Edit: Don't mind me. I'm still working through it. ( I wonder if this path actually has an end?)

[talisman]

afro you're horribly wrong, but I'll let gerbi refute you if he wants, since I'm sure he's more qualified.

I don't think asperger's is a "disease" but, like gerbi mentioned, more of a "mental disorder". From what I understand, and this is largely an undeducated guess, but both autism and asperger's seem to stem from a lack of development due to some kind of developmental or genetic irregularity of the parts of the brain responsible for social and emotional awareness and perhaps a corresponding overallocation of resources to the areas of the brain associated with the "literal" (aka the need for expressing the truth, and the aptitude for math and science, and the expression of mimetic savantlike talents).

I don't buy reach's argument at all that asperger's is some kind of recent evolutionary progression brought on by the need for technology or whatever. It's most likely existed for as long as the species has, and I suspect that the recent increase in the number of diagnosed individuals with asperger's is due more to increased awareness of the disorder and its symptoms than anything else.

Furthermore, I don't think those with adult asperger's should be "treated". Once the identity is formed, as it seems gerbi has already formed his identity around his asperger's, forcing it to change might cause more psychological harm than good. In young children though, if a treatment were available, I see no reason why not to go ahead with it. The ability to interact with society is, after all, exceedingly important.

[iggymatrixcounter]

lol, it was funny because I seemed to have had similar memories you had.

Course even if this is a 'disease' that you have, what does it matter? I mean yea people would want to make cures for it because maybe they want to get rid of the social problems they have and would rather blend in. I see nothing wrong with that at all.

And you're also right that if doctors say you have this syndrome and give you a perscription for it then you having to take it would be bad. But if people didn't see a need for a certain medicine they aren't going to take it. But if they wanted a cure, then there's nothing wrong with that either.

Reach's thoughts are interesting and logical IMO. I mean 'normal' is a term that is always being redefined so I guess it's a possibility that those with asperger's will do well in life because of technology -> family -> kids with disease. I can see that.

[Afrobean]

Originally Posted by iggymatrixcounter

But if people didn't see a need for a certain medicine they aren't going to take it. But if they wanted a cure, then there's nothing wrong with that either.

Tell that to the parents of children with this who force their children to take the medication.

[Coolgamer]

Originally Posted by Afrobean

Tell that to the parents of children with this who force their children to take the medication.

Amen.

[gerbi7]

@afro's nerd thingy
It's really a difference of whether you're born with the ability to socially interact, or if you weren't. I have no doubt that many of the people you would sterotype as "nerd" would have asperger's though. There's also other big differences such as not using eye contact, not knowing about sex, and being oblivious to peer pressure.

People with autism do have emotions, but they're probably not what you'd they're like.

Originally Posted by Afrobean

Tell that to the parents of children with this who force their children to take the medication.

That's exactly the problem. I have no problem with treatments, but for parents to have control of children's lives, and to have all this cure stuff going around...

Eventually if they find a cure they're going to start calling us incompetent, and then there's never going to be anymore Einstiens, because parents are going to have autism eradicated from their children.




Look at it like this. NTs (neural typicals) think that because their child can't function socially they're better. However, their child could be alot smarter than them. Trying to find a cure for autism isn't what people with autism want. They want a treatment, a way of dealing with the fact that we are a minority in a different social body, instead of getting rid of their differences to assimilate with the masses. Getting rid of autism is as worse as genocide.

The current Jewish population is about 14 million according to this site:
http://www.religionfacts.com/big_religion_chart.htm

Given there are about 6 billion people in the world, and the one in 166 people under age ten are affected (found here: http://www.azomed.com/?id=11807), that's 36 million people with autism.

It would be worse than hitler's holocaust, (not including the war that thankfully saved it from happening), and that's 14 million then. Who's to tell if there will be an explosion in the autistic population and there will be 100 million people with autism? Are you just going to mark them as 'Diseased' and try unrelentlessly to get rid of their 'illness'?

Originally Posted by talisman

Furthermore, I don't think those with adult asperger's should be "treated". Once the identity is formed, as it seems gerbi has already formed his identity around his asperger's, forcing it to change might cause more psychological harm than good. In young children though, if a treatment were available, I see no reason why not to go ahead with it. The ability to interact with society is, after all, exceedingly important.

It doesn't matter if you've formed the identity or whatever, people with autism have just as much right to live as anyone else. If you're going to say that people with autism don't have a right to live, that's just as bad as any other kind of racism.




The best treatment is already available, and has always been.
It's someone that's willing to accept you for what you are, and help you.

My mother wasn't that person. She only kept bringing me to the damn doctor for medications and treatments, working her ass off to pay for it, and not even bothering what was going on in my mind. Structural therapies that try to teach individuals with asperger's about society won't work. At least, a good percentage of the time, with any degree of actual improvement.


Parents just need to take some time and talk to their kids about the way they live their lives. They might even find flaws in their own ways after they hear our side of the story.


There were two people that helped me the most. My friend from school, who would play with me, no matter how retarded I would seem. Regardless of how the idiots at school would look at him. The other person is my grandmother, who would always listen to my side on an issue, and would tell me if I was missing something about how everyone else's brains worked.

[/longEmotionalPost]

[talisman]

When I said "treated" I meant it in the sense of "cured" and was thus agreeing with what I think you were saying in your initial post. Poor wording on my part.

Eventually if they find a cure they're going to start calling us incompetent, and then there's never going to be anymore Einstiens

I think it's far too simplistic to assume that without asperger's there wouldn't exist any mathematical geniuses.

but for parents to have control of children's lives, and to have all this cure stuff going around...

parents are supposed to have control over their children's lives, especially if the children are prepubescent. and if a cure were possible, why not? a young child could certainly adapt, as the identity hasn't formed yet and the brain is still quite plastic.

If a cure is found for asperger's, it need not be one that subtracts from mathematical ability and adds to social ability. Indeed, it seems the most desirable cure would leave the mathematical aptitude untouched, but still reawaken the social and emotial areas of the brain.

[Reach]

don't buy reach's argument at all that asperger's is some kind of recent evolutionary progression brought on by the need for technology or whatever.

Uh, just to clarify, it's not my argument. It's a well documented argument in psychology, actually.

Not agreed upon, but I mean, psychology is a pseudo science. Of course it won't get agreed on.

What you have arguedhas actually already been presented and denied. It is not a plausable psychological reason. The increase is simply too great. Now then, how do you refute exponential growth in aspergers, almost entirely in children of 'very smart' parents? And no, aspergers is relatively new. There's obviously some kind of selection going on here. This doesn't mean everyones going to become aspergic, but it does mean evolution is toying around and selecting for new traits like it always does.


It's agreed upon that the brain is evolving rapidly.

It's how that is not agreed upon. They've located the gene that caused the brain to triple in size over the past few million years just recently actually, it should be very interesting to see what happens there.


As for 'nerdy' traits, obviously they've been around for awhile. What, evolution happens overnight now? >.>

But for the record there are tons of geeks and nerds that are not aspergic. You don't need aspergic traits to associate with what society deems as 'nerdy things'. Aspergers effects just appears to be similar.


As for curing it, lol. You can't (unless we're radically wrong about aspergers). Good try. Go ahead, they might try to cure it but it won't work. Aspergers isn't like depression, being a state of mind. You're going to have to modify the brain itself. And if our evolutionary assumptions are correct ,you can't stop natural selection, it's unsympathetic and relentless, and will simply manifest itself in a new manner.

[this_n00b_rocks]

Does it actually have to be diagnosed?

[talisman]

reach: sources please.

You're going to have to modify the brain itself.

obviously. or the genes that control brain development.

Also, after some brief searching I find nothing of the consensus that there has been a rise in asperger's, or even that there has been one... nor do I find anywhere citing that 1/166 number. The numbers I stumbled into most frequently were 17/10 000 or something like that. Autism in general is a different subject altogether. Autism has shown the increase you speak of, but again I don't see any kind of consensus that this increase isn't due solely to increased awareness and diagnosis, or even misdiagnosis.

[Coolgamer]

Unless you're talking a severe case, a cure shouldn't be needed. It's actually a plus, in most cases.

[gerbi7]

Originally Posted by talisman

nor do I find anywhere citing that 1/166 number.

wtf link doesn't work now. Oh well, I'll look it up somewhere again, but it had been bouncing around the news anyways, if you had been paying attention.

Originally Posted by talisman

Indeed, it seems the most desirable cure would leave the mathematical aptitude untouched, but still reawaken the social and emotial areas of the brain.

A cure gets rid of a disease. A treatment treats the bad effects of a disease, but does not get rid of it. If that's what you really mean then start using the word treatment.


And it's not a disease... that's what I intended for this thread to be about.

[iggymatrixcounter]

Originally Posted by iggy

But if people didn't see a need for a certain medicine they aren't going to take it. But if they wanted a cure, then there's nothing wrong with that either.

lol what? That's confusing the way that's worded, but I think I know what you're trying to say.

I assume that parents want to do the best for their kids. And if they think that asperger's would hurt their kids, why should they be blamed for trying to help their kids. IMO parents should be able to raise, treat, and "force" their kids to do whatever they feel is right and stop them from doing whatever they think is wrong.

And don't post about how your parents did something that they thought was right and it ended up being wrong. Big deal, people are imperfect. But the truth of the matter is that your parents did a heck of a lot of good for you. WAY more than bad. If anything they brought you into the world, gave you food, shelter, and clothing, and taught you a general view of right and wrong.

Also, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that all parents SHOULD treat/'cure' their kids. I'm just saying that they definitely have the right to do so if they wanted.

(Yes I realize that bad parents would hinder this, but I hardly think that under normal circumstances a parent would want to do what wasn't what they thought was the best thing for their kids.)

[iggymatrixcounter]

Originally Posted by gerbi7

And it's not a disease... that's what I intended for this thread to be about.

Oh but if it were that easy to define then this shouldn't have been made into a thread.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/disease

In every definition asperger's would classify as a disease except:

"A condition or tendency, as of society, regarded as abnormal and harmful."

It's abnormal but you would have to discern whether or not it is harmful. Which could be argued either way depending on what type of health you were talking about. (mental, emotional, physical, etc)

IMO it's a disease. I think you just think disease = must cure, which is why you don't think it is.

Also just because it's a disease doesn't mean you have to get medications/treatments for it.

[talisman]

A treatment treats the bad effects of a disease

I feel as though any "good" effects of a "disease" are by definition not a disease. And asperger's isn't a disease. Obviously. It's a syndrome. A kind of pervasive personality disorder or something. And a "treatment" in my mind is something that lessens or minimizes the undesirable aspects of the syndrome without addressing the underlying cause (aka neurofeedback). So something that addressed the underlying cause of the social problems, IF IT WERE POSSIBLE TO DO SO, and leave the mathematical aptitude untouched, again IF IT WERE POSSIBLE, I would consider a "cure".

[gerbi7]

Iggy, don't forget about the negative connotation that disease has. I would definetly be insulted if anyone said that I was diseased because I had Asperger's.

Originally Posted by iggymatrixcounter

Also just because it's a disease doesn't mean you have to get medications/treatments for it.

It does when you're under 18 and considered incompetent.