How To Deal With Your Mild Autism(?): Wired Wiki
September 5, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Courtesy of Wired magazine, a wiki about how to deal with your mild autism. Tips include:
- 1 Interrupt party chatter
- 2 Time yourself
- 3 Be honest at work
- 4 Look ‘em in the eye
- 5 Make it work for you
- 6 Know thyself
- 7 Reminders, Reminders, Reminders
- 8 Reduce Distractions
- 9 Find an Editor
From item #5, Make it work for you:
Asperger’s isn’t an illness, it’s a set of characteristics, and you can turn these to your advantage. Find roles where your relentless curiosity can be a plus. Become an expert in your company or field, the go-to guy* for details, but learn to offer only what’s needed when asked. (* more than 95% of Aspies are male)
I appreciated the positive outlook here and emphasis on using Asperger’s to one’s advantage, and the small Socratic reference to “know thyself.”
Fantastic article! I’m going to save that one…I can easily see my son being that type of “go to guy” in the future. Esp. if he sticks to his fascination with all things medieval. It might be obscure, but he could make it work!
maybe a little OT but does the fascination with “all things medieval” extend to learning…..latin?
Hmm
I got to wonder if I have a form of mild Aspergers.
Right now sounds like-
people popping gum, which should be banned from the work force
sirens
loud gum chewing
loud train speakers
squeaky sounds
children making that dinosaur kind of noise
drives me absolutely up a tree.
I’m currently fixated on-
Dir en grey
Japanese tattoos (I want one!)
Samurai
samurai swords
various video games
dark night
Only I am not a guy. hmm
I don’t think I agree with the 95% statistic, but an interesting article.
It certainly would if I knew of how to go about teaching him latin. I have an English B.A. from Syracuse, but my concentration was Victorian Lit. His fascination pretty much focuses on the military, when it comes to medieval topics.
Mild autism? That’s still in use?
Is this for serious or patronising bull.
It is a comtemptible attempt at shallow understanding and pop psychology typical of wired.
It is over generalised and insufficiently specific, and that is only the start.
The true believers in Behavioral Genetics have trivialized a profound developmental disorder who for the majority of cases face a lifelong disability. Behavioral Genetics is a soft science that rejects Kanner’s definition (Kanner’s definition has been completly removed from diagnostic criteria in 1994 by DSM-IV, ICD-10 and all the Gold Standard diagnostic tools such as ADI-R, ADOS-R, ADOS-G).
The true believers, using questionnaires, now report that 10% of the entire general population are afflicted with ‘autistic-like traits’ with the top 5% highest scoring being escribed as havig ‘extreme autistic-like traits’:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17003666?
Prevelance rates are now headed towards 1 in 10 of the general population.
“It is over generalised and insufficiently specific, and that is only the start.”
The alternative is to have a “correct” or “specific” list…which would probably come off as pedantic and off-putting. I’d much rather see flawed attempts at humor than “accurate”…and therefore boring…descriptions. I don’t know. There’s got to be some way to make this sort of thing inclusive, open, less serious. Not always, but at least sometimes.
I would agree at least with Raj that the article is trivial, though it is not the worst I have read, just bad that is all.
However I would not let RAJ run anything on the railways other than a steam engine.
Kanners “science” was soft too, if you fossilise science in the 1940’s as you would if you took Kanner at face value, we would not be using much technology today, because it would be unconcievable under the rules of that fossilised science.
We long ago got over notions of relying on Galen, and Hippocrates for our ailments, (except for the irrational homeopaths) time to stop relying on old definitions just because you like it that way and cannot deal with the cognitive dissonance generated by a progressive and ever moving target.
You know sommat Raj, with the number of genes they are turning up don’t think you’ll escape some in your mixture, they are everywhere.
“You know sommat Raj, with the number of genes they are turning up don’t think you’ll escape some in your mixture, they are everywhere”.
There are no autism specific genes that have ever been identified. Name one and I’ll be glad to show you where you are wrong.
Actually, I dislike this article. It trivializes things that really &are& difficult. It’s like it’s saying, “Just don’t act like an Aspie; it’s just the Asperger’s.” As though it were all about socially acceptable behavior. That’s just a little part of “mild autism.” Someone touches you and it feels like a belt sander ripping through your skin? It’s just the Asperger’s…. Cant’ remember what someone you just met looks like? Have trouble tripping over things? It’s the AS. Not a big deal… Ick.
hmmm… I’m glad we don’t just base it on Kanner’s. because based on Kanner’s my nonverbal, very autistic son would not be autistic…