Not quite the right word: AS a “disease”?
March 19, 2007 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
The ‘genius’ disease is the not-so-great title of an article in today’s Daily Bulletin (Ontario, CA) that opens by describing 20-year-old Ben Anderson, who has AS, knows the lyrics for all 208 of the Beatles’ songs, and is making a recording (with him on all the instruments) of the entire catalogue.
It is not the word “genius” that I so much take issue with as “disease,” with its associations of something contagious that one could catch, of something that suggests that person its not healthy—-not well—-even ill.
As I understand it, that’s not what being Asperger’s and autistic is.
It’s very possible to have an Asperger’s diagnosis and have a lower than average IQ. Asperger’s and genius are not the same thing, though one could make the point that a person who can an incredible skill at something that is not valued by society is still a genius. Like if a person can tell you who manufactured a washing machine just by listening to it run, that’s pretty incredible, but if he can’t make a living off of doing that for whatever reason, the skill is treated as worthless or a bad joke. And of course no kind of genius is a disease and Asperger’s is not, that should be obvious.
Should be, and alas is not—–heard a speaker with AS note that he had scored 85 on an IQ test—he is in grad school to get his Ph.D.
As I’m sure you know, newspaper writers aren’t responsible for the headlines on their pieces. The author may have been fully aware that autism (of whatever kind) isn’t “a disease” but whoever wrote the headline may have had a different (less accurate) understanding.
The issue of IQ testing of persons with communications issues is interesting. Kevin McGrew has a lot of interesting material on IQ testing in general, motivation and IQ, self-concept, reliability of IQ testing and lack of evidence for IQ test scales being determinative, and more.
http://intelligencetesting.blogspot.com/
PS–Loved the novel situations post. The value of the parental mouth, closed!
Thanks, Liz! It is the headlines that one sees first, or skims over—-the description of Ben Anderson recording all those Beatles songs is good stuff.
Autism is not a contagious disease. It IS however a neurological disorder.